Gigs are commonly places of communion, sweat, uncomfortable proximity to strangers, ringing ears and spilt beer. However, with Maya Ongaku’s most recent album Nothing Space Music representing their attempt to reconnect with silence and find beauty in the spaces between noise, it is hard to know how it would translate to a live setting. In a perfect scenario, Yes Basement ought to be kitted out with bean bags, sofas or ideally beds for the full meditative experience.
Another pertinent question was how to find a support act compatible with Maya Ongaku’s unique perspective. Tonight’s answer is Hedgehog, a local five-piece using guitar, infrequent drum, xylophone, saxophone, whistle and violin. Their name suggests something spiky but cute, a friend to gardeners and there is definitely an awkwardness to their set. A reverence for silence as a thought-provoking and confrontational act is evident on the third piece which starts as a lengthy onstage mime before a couple of the band run into the audience, one then shouts about taking drugs and some a cappella singing breaks out. The audience response during their set is a muted sense of intrigue causing the drummer to ask, “cat got your hands?” The final tune, word used advisably, features creaking and croaking violin. It is a set that is puzzling, fragile and often atonal but there is something to be said for watching a performance and being unsure whether it’s terrible, genius or some point in between. It is certainly far preferable to seeing four lads aspiring to be bloody Oasis.
In the press for the sublime ‘Nothing Space Music’, Maya Ongaku describe how it was a response to playing to larger audiences and the performances getting louder. I prepare myself for a set of contemplative and introspective sounds but quickly have my expectations jolted by the first number, a pulsing krautrock piece with swirling psychedelic visuals more conducive to being dazzled by incoming vehicles on the Autobahn. This is a facet of the trio with which I am less familiar but while their debut album ‘Approach to Anima’ is also delightfully minimal, their second full-length release ‘Electronic Phantoms’ has a synth heavy sound that feeds into their live performance.
They do then settle into a more relaxed pattern, samples of birds leading into Shoei Ikeda’s clarinet that conjures images of beach walks in a breeze and enjoying the distant tide. Floating somewhere in the ether Tsutomu Sonoda’s vocals are incredibly undemonstrative, a polite presence that adds extra textures rather than being an out-front presence.
Whereas the records are feather-light, in the live setting sometimes Ryota Takano’s bass creaks and booms too intrusively, once even occasioning thoughts of visiting the dentist. On other occasions, the bass echo is more favourable, as on the dubby fourth song where the clarinet has an Ethiopian jazz flavour. Throughout their seven song, hour long set, the pleasure comes from these special moments, such as the instances where the synths twinkle, rather than anything resembling a chorus. It creates a gradually more immersive mood that reaches its pinnacle with the closing tune which has a momentum of its own, starting like one of Clinic’s slower tracks, throws in some flute wrangling before developing into a psychedelic wig out. Some people are even calmly dancing to it.
On this evidence, a Maya Ongaku gig is an entirely separate beast from their records. While the albums are extraordinary, strangely their shows require more patience, taking their time to ignite.
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
