Malaise – Malaise (UP56)

There is something deeply evocative about the word ‘Malaise’.  So much so I turn to my dog-eared copy of the Cambridge Dictionary and have a quick gleg.

Malaise: a general feeling of being ill or having no energy, or an uncomfortable feeling that something is wrong, especially with society, and that you cannot change the situation.

So while this Malaise recording is certainly taking its own sweet time I‘m not sure I would say it was without energy. In fact the guitar, effects and Theremin mix seem to crackle with a mischievous determination and resilience; a singular dedication to the scalding psychedelic possibilities of steel strings and invisible electricity. 

First a little bit of background.  Malaise is one Mr Kento Oiwa, a suave musical polymath, whose long-running project stretches like a cat over both sides of this tape. 

Kento is a master of the notoriously tricky Theremin along with electric guitar, turntables and all manner of sound design and production wizardry.  My research also revealed Kento is a bone-fide popstar with his other long-running band IQU a genre-blurring electronic duo who toured with bands as diverse as Fugazi and ‘Add N to X’.  Pretty cool eh?

I caught up with Kento and asked him a little bit about himself and Malaise…

Hi Kento.  I’m really interested in your musical journey.  What were your early influences?  How did you move from being a listener to player?

This going to be long…

My musical journey began as a kid with piano lessons, very typical for an Asian kid at the time. The first show I ever went that I remember was by Akira Sakata, the Japanese avant-garde saxophonist, when I was barely ten or so. I think my mother won tickets by calling a radio station or something without knowing much about the musician. I remember her being taken aback by the wild performance. I loved it.

I became infatuated with the saxophone. Saved my allowances and bought a tennor when I was 14, but quickly gave up. It was difficult to practice the loud instrument in my neighbourhood with all houses built so close to each other and neighbour relationships had to be kept sound.

So my next natural step was to pick up an electric guitar, like all other fourteen year olds do.

I never felt like being a part of the cool guitar kids, who all talked about Yngwie, Vai, Blackmore and Van Halen. The how fast can they play-school? Soon enough, I discovered the British noise rock: Jesus and Mary Chain, Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Boo Radleys, Slowdive and Spacemen 3. I ate it all up; the noisier and the weirder, the better.

From there on, I started digging deeper and learnt the existence of Japanese experimental music scene: Merzbow, Ikue Mori, Keiji Haino and Fushitsusha, Violent Onsen Geisha, etc. And also the not so noisy ones too: Kan Mikami, Kazuki Tomokawa, Haruomi Hosono, the list goes on. I went into the lifelong rabbit hole of pursuing music that was an individual voice. 

And it was the 90s. Even Tower Records had the slogan “Corporate Rock Sucks”. 

I picked up the theremin around this time.

Then I went through the whole Ninja Tune / MoWax thing. Luke Vibert’s Plug and Squarepusher blew my mind.

Then there’s jazz. I got into free jazz: Ornette Coleman, Anthony Braxton and Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Kento playing in IQU (pic courtesy of The Stranger Magazine)

I read you studied at Evergreen State College studying ethno-musicology (especially Balinese music/Gamelan).  Is this where you met Jeff and the Union Pole bunch?

I met Jeff around that time. I don’t exactly remember how, but we hit it off because of the similar ways we appreciated music.

I can only see one ‘Malaise’ release on Discogs.  Was this your only release?

Yes. I never meant to have anything released really. Malaise was for the experience, the time and space we shared with the audience. In hindsight I am glad Jeff encouraged me to put the tape out on Union Pole, though, so I can revisit the past and continue to have cool encounters with people such as yourself. We had to be proactive in archiving your work back then.

On ‘Malaise’ I can hear guitar, effects and Theremin .  Is this right?  Can you talk me through your set up?

You hear it right. A guitar, a theremin, two guitar amps, a wah pedal, a delay pedal, a pan pedal, and an old cassette deck used as a distortion box.

And is the tape all live in one take?

Yes.

Dumb question but I have to ask.  Do you have any guitar heroes, who are they and why?

Brad Laner. If you never heard of his late 90s band, Medicine, do yourself a favour and go listen to them. They were on Creation Records. (Editors note: I was aware of Medicine as my friend Ben Jones often wore one of their T-Shirts but I couldn’t recall the music.  A quick search reveals they were pretty awesome – another band I missed at the time!)

I have to ask you about your work in the excellent IQU? From K records to Coachella.  That’s quite a trip.

That started out as a dub project playing at house parties where I mainly manned a mixing console with delay effects while mixing sampled beats and live musicians. That turned into the Electronica project. People dug seeing live theremin in the pop music setting. We had a good run. Got to meet some good people along the way.

I know you still play as Malaise.  How is that going?

I still play when I can. Amazed that people still remember what I do and ask me to perform when I have virtually no online presence. 

Vintage Union Pole advert in Bananafish #10

But what does this tape sound like?

The first thing that hits me is the actual sound quality.  It’s outstanding: bright, loud and dynamic, just like I am sitting in the room. 

‘Side A’ starts with an exploration of motorik chug-chug.  Imagine Spacemen 3 with their skinny wrists strumming, time melting into the constant ‘now’ until swooping, soaring electric lightning strikes, once, twice, three times.  Sound bristles with magnetic fibres.  The air shimmers as breath is sucked from your lungs.  Eventually the guitar loses its beefy roar to be replaced by gentle waves of light reflected from distant satellites.  It’s all about wide open space and the hard blue indifference of the horizon.

Until…the earth moves, the black tarmac buckles and rips.  Hendrix-style shredding and tremolo dive-bombing feels like a Jack Kirby illustration come to life; all bold purples and unnatural organic constructions with thick black outlines.  The last few minutes feature some pond-life riffling, the sound of tiny creatures clacking their hollow carapace bodies together that swiftly becomes fuxx doom riffage.

I have a feeling ‘Side B’ follows straight on from the recording that is ‘Side A’ and announces itself with some Jojo Hiroshige-esque blues-rummage; explosive postures with the excitingly itchy tangles of free skronk. The feedback jams melt effortlessly into the Theremin’s glass-goose honk as the decaying crackle of the amp moans all ghostly.   We are in solo-guitar-as-noise-orchestra territory.  Each squeal and squeak of the strings slice ears like cold silvery injections.

At the halfway point the guitar drops out and the Theremin becomes a darker beast, it’s more ‘wailing painful regret’ than Buck Rogers retro-futurism.  Then I get sideswiped by a slice of industrial funk represented in this case by a shower of sparks transforming into an Eddie Hazel robot puking remote insect drones buzzing in a million tiny arcs.  Phew!

The final section is what I have heard described as destroyed music.  A tiny, sliver of a finger-picking tune gets flattened by collapsing scaffolding; the whammy stretches buckling notes into unforgiving shapes, or is that the Theremin?

At this point it is hard to tell, my waxy lugs have taken so many sonic thumps.  I’m uncomfortable, something is most definitely wrong and there is nothing I can do about it. 

Wait a minute!  (checks dictionary) Malaise innit?

Ride the invisible radio waves here for $1…

https://unionpoletapes.bandcamp.com/album/malaise-up56

OR…you can download the whole damn Union Pole discography of 76 tapes for $5 here.   Don’t be cheap!

It won’t surprise you to learn that I often make mistakes!  Please leave a comment below if you spot a mistake in the blog or have a tale to tell to drive this Union Pole story forward.  Everyone is invited on this ride.