Dumb mmmn
the opening track begins by layering soft, ethereal tones that could introduce any nature documentary. The vocals kick in & this becomes a different monster. More sounds begin to seep in to create a messy beast with a distinct swagger. The rest of the album swoons with the same chaos. The album is aptly named; cover art fits very well
Favorite track: Chaos & Systems.
“Invention, it must be humbly admitted,” as Mary Shelley humbly admitted in her introduction to her 1818 novel “Frankenstein,” “does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.”
Not out of void, but out of Tokyo, Sundays & Cybele have created “Chaos & Systems,” the monstrously overwhelming new album that could well serve as the band’s mission statement.
After (loudly) announcing their intentions on 2015’s ear-popping “Heaven,” the initial impression of “Chaos & Systems” leads one to believe that the systems have dominion over the chaos. The introductory title track begins the album as a piece of post-motorik perfection, so subtle and symmetrical as to sound wound by master clockmakers. But Sundays & Cybele, like all good lysergic psychedelicists, exist largely outside of the boundaries of time, and it doesn't take long before the chaos rises, an amplified antidote to what the systems dare build.
In the hands of Sundays & Cybele, the chaos is no threat, but rather an essential counterpart to the band’s massive sonic structures. One without the other could be dull and unsatisfying; throughout “Chaos & Systems,” Sundays & Cybele reject being defined by either.
By the time the vocal cocoon breaks and the band flies unrestrained into the nearly ten-minute time-warp of “Butterfly’s Dream,” it’s clear that the band’s creation is moving and breathing on its own terms. Threatening? Only in the way that the song toys with being built almost completely on a single string-bending blast, a clarion call from a crypto-“Caravanserai”-esque creature – yet one that contains seemingly endless dimensions of decibels and depth. Enlightening? Only in the way that Sundays & Cybele can be.
“Tell Me the Name of that Flower” presents itself as more of a regal request than a dogmatic demand, further evidence of an album in full bloom, here with an almost demented-Donovan appeal to the interplay of chaos (the never-too-far away electric guitar incantations) and systems (perfectly perfumed pastoral psych from Japan, anyone?). “Brujo” is the upbeat amuse-bouche of the album, enchanting in its echoing insistence, while serving as a worthy prelude to the album’s closing argument, “Paradise Come,” thirteen-minutes plus of poetically arranged acid-rock that threatens to leave listeners breathless, headbands drenched in sweat, murmuring, “Milton never sounded quite like this.”
“Chaos & Systems” offers not a choice, but a declaration: you can’t have one without the other. Endowed with both, the cosmic creature created by Sundays & Cybele has come to life.
Since 2004, Sundays & Cybele have birthed some of the most explosive psychedelic rock sounds to come out of Japan.
Essentially the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Kazuo Tsubouchi, the Tokyo based four piece ensemble create their unique illuminating soundscapes through a combination of classical psych, prog-rock, krautrock, and Japanese folk lyricism....more
supported by 136 fans who also own “Chaos & Systems”
If you were in an industrial accident in the rubber bullet factory at which you are a shift supervisor, but for whatever reason that particular day you decided to use all your braided rawhide leather belts to sandwich pillows around your body instead of wearing clothes to work, and by so doing you survive the accident... this is that, but more guitar-forward. woe_bonnet
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Former members of Phenomenal Handclap Band expand on their “everything but the kitchen sink” approach, adding rich vocals and finely-textured arrangements. Bandcamp Album of the Day Sep 30, 2016
supported by 125 fans who also own “Chaos & Systems”
I was on a train travelling to Seefeld in Austria and had nothing but the Alps to look over from the windows. This was a perfect compliment to the environment I was in Robert A Johnson