My Way My Love Hypnotic Suggestion: 01 CD

My Way My Love is a Japanese noise trio, but not in the extremist mold of Merzbow, the Boredoms, or most of Jojo Hiroshige's projects. The influences here are more along the lines of mid-'80s American indie kids like pre-Goo Sonic Youth, the Butthole Surfers, and Big Black: Yukio Murata's guitars in particular evoke those atmospheric interludes between the proper songs that were an essential part of Sonic Youth's live sets during this period. Those interludes served a practical function for Sonic Youth, allowing Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo to change guitars and tunings between songs, but for My Way My Love, the lack of structure is apparently its own reward. Only a few of these 13 tracks can properly be classified as songs; several others consist only of a brief noise squall that peters out after a few seconds. The more organized songs occasionally work up a shambolic rhythm along the lines of DNA's mutated attempts at dance rhythms, as on "Sports," or a bracing hit of punk fury like the salvo that lifts "Super Fresh!" out of its dead-end slog about halfway through the song. A few more moments like that and Hypnotic Suggestion: 01 would be along the lines of Deerhoof's quirky blend of punk anarchy and experimental pop, but as it stands, it's mostly just a noisy drag. ~ Stewart Mason

My Way My Love: Yukio Murata.