IROIRO - IROIRO IROIRO

“Subtle and over the top at the same time” is an apt description of IROIRO's astonishing debut album, IROIRO [GU002/KLP127]. It only took a few gigs for IROIRO to establish themselves as Seattle's most exciting rock group. This may surprise fans of IQU, the ‘90s K recording artist whose Michiko Swiggs and Kento Oiwa form IROIRO's creative core. IQU combined samples and live instrumentation to put playful spins on trip-hop, drum & bass, and synth-pop, IROIRO produce extended, vocal-free jams that blossom into powerful psychedelic rock.

You can hear the band's rapid, splendid evolution on their self-titled debut album, recorded in the '70s room at Avast! with Stuart Hallerman. In the disbanding of synth sorceress Swiggs and drummer Justin Schwartz's electronic unit Zazaz, they asked Oiwa to join them in a new project. They assembled for Friday night sessions at which the trio combined Zazaz's “man-machine methods” and spontaneous noise excursions. James Drage joined the sessions and his effected bass sounds were, says Swiggs, “amazing and otherworldly. He was the perfect piece that we were missing in the band.”The resulting album will convince you that rock still has ingenuity to burn.

IROIRO's six songs gain intensity as they progress. The loping, chiming rock of “Once” morphs into an elegantly distorted whorl. “Formosa” boasts arena-rock swagger tempered by artfully noisy, psychedelic sensibilities and a wistful tunefulness. An easygoing chugger with a winsome melody and Theremin melisma, “Nanashi” is suffused with a gentle euphoria that eventually gets subsumed by tumult. “I Didn't I Will” has the feeling of an inexorable ascent toward enlightenment. “Cool Man Sicks” has a similar processional motion, but is more understated and metronomic. Inspired by a New Mexico mountain Kento visited, “Sandia” starts like a soulful, meditation before exploding into towers of fizzing guitars, then returning to calm.