Asa Chang & Junray
Jun Ray Song Chang


Released 2003 on Leaf
Reviewed by Brian Turner, 22/04/2003ce


Apparently Asa-Chang is a tabla session player, but this record surely bends some musical borders. I am not sure who Junray is, or hardly any of the other musicians listed. Yoshimi is listed (Boredoms, 00100, etc), and this record does hint at some of the brightly-produced genre-fuck of recent Boredoms releases, but even those fail to stack up to some of the weirdness happening here. Eastern strings swirl around caribbean steel drums, hypnotic drones flow through jabbering-unknown-language voices, off-kilter rhythms somehow synch up cosmically with things they totally should not. Trumpets, melodica, bleeps and weather sounds flow through Asa Chang's tabla, some of this is lo-fi and sounding like an ancient Ocora disc, some of this could be state-of-the-art. And dropped in as well is a great cover of Brigitte Fontaine's "Comme A La Radio" (originally recorded with the Art Ensemble of Chicago on her record.) This is one of the best things to come out this year, and the follow up mini-LP I just heard is pretty mindblowing too.


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