V/a — Audiotion- Sonic Tribute to Takashi Miike

Musical or sonic tributes to artists have always been hit & miss, let alone trying to do a sound tribute to someone such as Japans Genre shifting director Takashi Miike- who’s tattled most type of film  you can think of be it: gangster, horror, comedy, musically, social satire, fantasy. So how does this double disk stand up? Well on the whole it’s enjoyable enough, but  it only really tattles one side of Miike visual pallet i.e. the more shocking, with nods towards some of his more surreal touches here and there.

There’s an impressive collection of names on offer mainly coming from the noise/ dark ambient/ avant electronic side of the tracks. Some of the stand out moments for me are KK Null's  in the form Abyss, which comes off for the first half  like a distorted  oriental chase scene theme, before build up to a noise thundering peak. Then calming it’s self down  for a bit before looping out a almost danceable beat Patten, with typically KK Null sound matter on top. We have a great  building atmospheric piece from Jazamer entitled Virgin flower which mixes together  bird song, water, bell like harmonics, then suddenly takes a turn for the unpleasant as reaching and chocking sounds are added, really giving the once almost mediate track a very disturbed air. The bell like drones also seem to take on a sinister almost sleazy vibe. Another favourite moment comes in the form of the horrific and clastrobic air of  Sunao Inami’s- Stagnate that opens in fine looking-around-for-the-killer  piano/synth pitter patter, before drifting into long dark tunnel of drone craft, weaved in and out of by low down echoed growling tones. It just seems to build and build the tension to such a level, before holding the listener under teaming a flesh ripping sound waters.

We also  have tracks from the likes of  Shinjuku Thief, Contagious Orgasm, Henrik Noordvargr Björkk, A few less recognisable names. Disk one  seems to be the most rewarding and constant in quality, though there’s some rewarding enough momments on the second disk too. It’s packaged in a rather eye cachting double DigiPak with pictures of inside someone’s mouth

Worth picking up if you have interested in any of the mentioned artists or Takashi Miike work, just don’t expected as musical varied collection as the great man’s genre hopping and prolific film career.