Band : Kulara
Album : Fragmental Remembrance, a Switch of Resurrection, and My Hearing Vanished
Release Year : 2001
Genre : Post-Hardcore | Screamo | Jazz | Experimental
Tracklist :
01 brown knife
02 the belt of sleep freeze
03 two suns day
04 your own gain
05 fate
06 machine and me
07 human pattern
Kulara was an awesome Japanese band that started off playing straight-up 'screamo', but moved on to create a totally unique avant-garde sound that they're most known for. Kulara embraced the values of conflict and contradiction to sometimes disturbing excess. While some of Japan's heavier music scenes are well known for producing enormous volumes of material (see: the endless proliferation of thrash bands from the mid-90s onward), virtually none have stepped up to challenge or even mimic Kulara's unholy marriage of metallic Converge-era hardcore and the avant-garde. Which makes it ironic and fitting that their singular output, a collection of two obscure far-out-of-circulation releases, was put out in severely limited number by a tiny, now-defunct underground French hardcore label. In other words, despite the epic, bombastic nature of the band's musical statement, it is unattainable outside the realms of filesharing and record trading.
It's easy to discern the split between the two separate recordings on the tracklist. The first two songs, "Brown Knife" and "The Belt of Sleep Freeze," clock in at 11 and 16 minutes respectively, while the following tracks average around 5.
For the first half of the album - chronologically the last of their recordings - Kulara brews a nightmarish concoction of fractured, metallic bursts of hardcore and quasi-improvisational "jazz" piano. The mix is cavernous, drenched in reverb, enhanced by echoing effects and the trailing, skitterish nature of the piano; all of which stands in stark contrast with the wound-up, claustrophobic melodies that carry the songs themselves. The music is melodically dissonant; nothing approaches "hummability," yet they avoid the organic squalls of feedback and pure noise of the Boredoms. The closest thing they have to a noisemaker is their vocalist, who intermittently punctures the music with shrieks and squawks delivered in such a heavy drawl that it is barely recognizable as Japanese. Negative space is utilized as the band works up a frothy groove then lets it simmer and cool, only to bring it back time and time again. The two songs never end, with "Brown Knife" phasing through multiple variations of the same riffs in a back-and-forth game, while "The Belt of Sleep Freeze"'s exorbitant 8-minute climax simply refuses to say "when," bludgeoning listening ears with the sort of bombast that puts military dictators to shame. Depending on your tastes, it's either gloriously fun or an unbelievable headache.
After this, there's a brief intro on "Two Suns Day" to catch your breath, and the onslaught continues. In the second and earlier recording presented on this disc, the piano is gone and the mix is much closer. While the running times are far shorter, the band has not quite yet developed the sense of restraint that would paradoxically allow them the endurance to balloon their song length later on. What remains is the distilled core of Kulara's sound stripped of the adventurous fat so liberally applied to the first two tracks. Furiously nervous beats are the bones upon which dissonant riffs are hung to form the kind of zombie screamo monstrosity that would give civilized listeners nightmares.
At 52 minutes, Fragmental Remembrance is an utterly exhausting album to sit through. It's hard to imagine pressing the repeat button immediately after the end, but it's the sort of unique, attention-demanding statement that is guaranteed to provoke a powerful response - whether good or bad - from anyone who hears it.
02 the belt of sleep freeze
03 two suns day
04 your own gain
05 fate
06 machine and me
07 human pattern
Kulara was an awesome Japanese band that started off playing straight-up 'screamo', but moved on to create a totally unique avant-garde sound that they're most known for. Kulara embraced the values of conflict and contradiction to sometimes disturbing excess. While some of Japan's heavier music scenes are well known for producing enormous volumes of material (see: the endless proliferation of thrash bands from the mid-90s onward), virtually none have stepped up to challenge or even mimic Kulara's unholy marriage of metallic Converge-era hardcore and the avant-garde. Which makes it ironic and fitting that their singular output, a collection of two obscure far-out-of-circulation releases, was put out in severely limited number by a tiny, now-defunct underground French hardcore label. In other words, despite the epic, bombastic nature of the band's musical statement, it is unattainable outside the realms of filesharing and record trading.
It's easy to discern the split between the two separate recordings on the tracklist. The first two songs, "Brown Knife" and "The Belt of Sleep Freeze," clock in at 11 and 16 minutes respectively, while the following tracks average around 5.
For the first half of the album - chronologically the last of their recordings - Kulara brews a nightmarish concoction of fractured, metallic bursts of hardcore and quasi-improvisational "jazz" piano. The mix is cavernous, drenched in reverb, enhanced by echoing effects and the trailing, skitterish nature of the piano; all of which stands in stark contrast with the wound-up, claustrophobic melodies that carry the songs themselves. The music is melodically dissonant; nothing approaches "hummability," yet they avoid the organic squalls of feedback and pure noise of the Boredoms. The closest thing they have to a noisemaker is their vocalist, who intermittently punctures the music with shrieks and squawks delivered in such a heavy drawl that it is barely recognizable as Japanese. Negative space is utilized as the band works up a frothy groove then lets it simmer and cool, only to bring it back time and time again. The two songs never end, with "Brown Knife" phasing through multiple variations of the same riffs in a back-and-forth game, while "The Belt of Sleep Freeze"'s exorbitant 8-minute climax simply refuses to say "when," bludgeoning listening ears with the sort of bombast that puts military dictators to shame. Depending on your tastes, it's either gloriously fun or an unbelievable headache.
After this, there's a brief intro on "Two Suns Day" to catch your breath, and the onslaught continues. In the second and earlier recording presented on this disc, the piano is gone and the mix is much closer. While the running times are far shorter, the band has not quite yet developed the sense of restraint that would paradoxically allow them the endurance to balloon their song length later on. What remains is the distilled core of Kulara's sound stripped of the adventurous fat so liberally applied to the first two tracks. Furiously nervous beats are the bones upon which dissonant riffs are hung to form the kind of zombie screamo monstrosity that would give civilized listeners nightmares.
At 52 minutes, Fragmental Remembrance is an utterly exhausting album to sit through. It's hard to imagine pressing the repeat button immediately after the end, but it's the sort of unique, attention-demanding statement that is guaranteed to provoke a powerful response - whether good or bad - from anyone who hears it.
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