Two legendary, singular bands in their own right, Japan’s OOIOO and Providence, Rhode Island’s Lightning Bolt, have announced a split LP THE HORIZON SPIRALS / THE HORIZON VIRAL, out Apr. 24th. Along with the album’s announcement, Lightning Bolt have shared the track “CLOUD CORE,” a dizzying piece of pummeling breakneck percussion and timeless riffing that showcases how relentless the duo’s energy remains. OOIOO have also announced a rare show at Open Melody Festival in Los Angeles on April 4th – more dates forthcoming.
Lightning Bolt drummer/vocalist Brian Chippendale explains their approach to the track and their side of the LP: “OOIOO set the tone with THE HORIZON SPIRAL but we didn’t really roll with the spiral theme. We’re more Viral than Spiral though they both can dump you in a rabbit hole and we definitely like rabbit holes.”
OOIOO and Lightning Bolt are both bands whose music is wholly unique and whose creators’ influence would be impossible to overstate. YoshimiO, OOIOO’s founder and bandleader, has been a guiding force in uncompromising art across the continuum of rock and improvised music for four decades, from her work in UFO or Die to BOREDOMS to SAICOBAB and beyond. OOIOO serves as a core outlet for melding freeform experimentalism with hypnotic rock pulses, defying boundaries with her acrobatic voice, electronics, trumpet and gamelan. Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale and Brian Gibson have remained unparalleled in their ability to transmute frenetic whirls of percussion, gargantuan fuzz and dizzying melody into monolithic vistas. THE HORIZON SPIRALS / THE HORIZON VIRAL is a split that captures the parallels in ethos between these two ensembles, their sense of gleeful abandon and freight train momentum, in inspiring detail.
THE HORIZON SPIRALS, composed of OOIOO’s gamelan-infused sagas “THE HORIZON” and “Gamel BE SURE TO SPIRAL” demonstrates the boundless scope of OOIOO’s music. YoshimiO explains a core contrast between these pieces and 2014’s Gamel lays in the physical materials used: “Back then in Bali, bronze-keyed gamelan were mainstream, and GAMEL uses bronze. THE HORIZON SPIRALS’ gamelan is iron. Black-painted iron. This time, incorporating Koheysai’s iron sound (iron gamelan) allowed us to see OOIOO’s songs spiraling upward with greater lightness. The iron gamelan infiltrated OOIOO’s sparkling elements, grounding that sound within the audible range as a new wave sound. It also blends exceptionally well with Mishina’s cymbals.”
Lightning Bolt’s THE HORIZON VIRAL evokes the limitlessness of their improvisations and distills through more sophisticated home recording techniques.THE HORIZON VIRAL reignites the flame of their storied home recordings, capturing the duo unfiltered and on their home turf and bolstered from bassist Brian Gibson’s experiences composing and recording for his acclaimed games Thrasher and Thumper.
Visit the Lightning Bolt bandcamp page here and check out their track “CLOUD CORE”.
Lightning Bolt by Scott Alario
OOIOO by Takashi Homma
