Ruins - Refusal Fossil

Released

Label
Skin Graft Records

Reviewed by
Michael C. Lund

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Last Edit/Update
14 February, 1998

Ruins

REFUSAL FOSSIL

Track Listing

1. Refusal Fossil
2. Uskilsdos Zaimm
3. Stara Planina
4. Eccentric Ditch
5. Etymology
6. Empty Hands
7. Der Strudel
8. Still Life
9. 7th. Dimension
10. Faux Numero
11. Calnac
12. Heraklion
13. Ramification
14. Burning Stone
15. Plexus
16. Dhaskrive
17. Gravestone
18. Del Fanci Kant
19. Infect
20. Prog. Rock Medley

          With more than a decade -- and an impressive list of releases -- behind them, the Japanese duo Ruins has recently entered the Skin Graft camp, and has just released their first CD Refusal Fossil on the label. Producing all their songs exclusively on drums and bass, Ruins' music is like a dial moving across the entire musical spectrum from jazz to punk to noise to traditional rock to pseudo-opera. This new CD contains new recordings of twelve previously unreleased tracks, along with eight live tracks featuring a number of guest musicians from the Japanese underground music scene.
          The songs on Refusal Fossil come in all shapes and sizes, but common for them all are the playful arrangements of songs, with numerous breaks, changes in tempo and displays of technical virtuosity. It all sounds so unfettered and unrestrained, even improvised at times, yet, every song is carefully scripted and executed with minute precision. Both bassist Sasaki Hisashi and drummer Yoshida Tatsuya sing on most of the songs, alternately in English, Japanese and a strange self-invented language. Hisashi has high-pitched falsetto voice and Tatsuya a deeper burr; at times they sing in harmonious unison, and at others they shoot off in opposite directions or engage in bouts of vocal rivalry.
          A few of the tracks ("Empty Hands," "Faux Numero," " Burning Stone" and "Dhaskrive") clock in right around the one-minute, and are frantic, all-out musical explosions, with vocals spat out machinegun-style as if they were the last rantings of a condemned man. Most commonly, however, Ruins' songs are 2-3 minutes in legth, and, due to the breaks and shifts, often feel more like two or three songs compressed into one. The title track, for example, opens with some wildly acrobatic drumming, whereafter the song totally shifts gears into a passage of laid-back bass riffs, which are then again splintered by a rain of drums towards the end of the piece. "Stara Planina" begins very melodically with emphasis on vocals and bass thematics, however, later in the song things speed up considerably, and the song ends with Hisashi and Tatsuya running amock on their instruments. Both "Calnac" and "Heraklion" are structured with alternating passages of melodic and harmonious arrangements, and segments of shattering, discordant aural chaos. Of the handful of longer pieces on Refusal Fossil, the closing track "Prog. Rock Medley" is probably the most fascinating. Here, Ruins cover approximately twenty of the classic rock bands in just under five minutes. The result is a plastic, fast-forward, skip-jump-skip romp that weaves the many fragments of sons together into a seamless rock 'n roll tapestry.
          Ruins are perhaps an acquired taste, appealing to those with a more adventurous taste in music, while sending most of everyone else screaming for cover. As mentioned the prolific Japanese duo these days reside with the Chicago-based Skin Graft label. Rumor will have it that the self-proclaimed "outhouse of ideas" has great plans for Ruins, so watch out for further releases in the near future.

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