San Francisco has its share of crazy shows and exclusive one-off nights where some band has wandered into town and set-up shop down in someone's basement and rocked it all secret and exclusive style. People set up shows outside the above-ground train station and get unplugged and booted within seconds. That said, it's still not every day that you get the chance to see five Japanese girls get up onstage at a regular venue and play a mixture of Bow Wow Wow/ESG-style funk with abstract jazz workouts and prog-guitar freakouts tossed in the mix. Such was the situation when OOIOO (pretty sure it's pronounced 'oh oh eye oh oh' but three people told me three different things and then acted like that was the right way and didn't blink an eye about it) hit up the Independent on a short jaunt across the states. The group has a pretty devout following thanks to their three full-lengths and lead singer Yoshimi's former involvement with The Boredoms as well as the whole name-checking thing on The Flaming Lips’ album. She basically has a lifelong cult artist pass. The place was packed to the sweaty gills with indie Japan-o-philles, actual Japanese people, weirdo beardos and the drummer from Deerhoof. Pretty good company.
Opening the show were Neung Phak, Oakland's finest purveyor of Southeast Asian folk-pop with members who are not entirely Southeast Asian. They were great. Or not, I don't know—I didn't see them.
When OOIOO did start, they kicked right into "UMA" from the group's last album Taiga. It pretty much set the bar for the night as they walked onstage sans ceremony, sat two drummers behind Yoshimi as a guitarist and bassist flanked her right and left, and immediately charged into a tribal funk-punk blast that lasted for about five minutes. Hints of the Burundi drum style once favored by early 80s new wave types (and, some say, even the people of Burundi) gave the track an extra weight. But Yoshimi's vocals really drove it home, doing a call-and-response chant on the music's off beat.This is the part where I inform you that this whole song is actually a reworking of a track by from an Italian opera from 1976 called La Gatta Cenerentola. Roberto De Simone is the composer and the track is called "Secondo Coro Delle Lavandaie." I have to bring it up because it is an absolutely amazing tune and worth hunting down. It was recorded as a folk-tribal chant from the opera, but it actually sounds like the greatest no-wave post-punk track ever recorded. That said, it's still amazing.
The thing about their record Taiga is that, despite the fact that it's their most organic, least bleep-y record, it still doesn't lock into any grooves that knock you over. It's great, it's frenetic and wild, but it's not the same thing live. In person, you feel it work. The songs are driven by this percussionist who filled in every hole left by the primary drummer. She was banging on congas, toms and whatever else to drive the energy level through the roof. The bassist and guitarist, while not aloof, weren't there to make any concessions to the audience, they were there just to kick out some serious art-funk. But it's Yoshimi who ultimately keeps everything in the air. She's the one standing proud, shrieking at times like a woman with her hair on fire, other times getting into some primal elements. Other times she is coo-cooing like a small animal. At least that's what it sounded like to me. As you can tell, my Japanese is not so good.
Throughout their set, they were able to balance the atonal bits—the shrieks (man, what a shriek it is, though), the chunky guitar splats, and the catch-and-release tension with this four-on-the-floor minimalist, haphazard funk. Not every song was razor tight (they didn't so much end a song as they did just stop playing), but the looseness, the tattered switches between ass-grabbing rhythmic attack and shambling art-rock made this a low-key spectacle that was totally fascinating.
OOIOO's new full length TAIGA is out NOW on Thrill Jockey.
