Modern cover

Modern

Released

If there’s a ‘classic’ line-up of Jojo Hiroshige’s long-running noise outfit Hijokaidan, this would be it – Hiroshige on electric guitar, Junko on bass and voice, and Toshiji Mikawa on electronics, which is here named, wonderfully, ‘The Mikawa’, hinting back to similar self-named electronics kit of Simeon of Silver Apples. Indeed, Hijokaidan have always seemed the most rock-reverent and -referent of the Japanese noise groups, something that bleeds through the 74-minute running time of Modern in its hypnotic dynamism, its continuous crests and peaks of sound, and the use of rock-primitive wah and sky-strafing feedback, while Junko’s scream carves up continents.

Jon Dale

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