Review: Koji Kondo/Eat Avery's Bones Split 7-inch

The split 7 inch is that much celebrated format where two artists can either highlight their differences or smugly display their similarities, but in either case, it's ultimately a show of unity no matter how philosophically different the two bands might be. The line between similarity and difference is blurred with the new split 7 inch release by Eat Avery's Bones and Koji Kondo, two bands that sometimes share a taste for busy visual aesthetic and equally busy music, but also leave subtle clues along the way that provide occasional insight into the motives behind their two willfully obscure sounds.

First of all, it's remarkable that bands still release vinyl. It's seen as a novelty by some but considered timeless and sacred by many, and no amount of gimmicky special edition Insound-only releases will ever change that for the diehards. I wonder if the shitty split Myspace Standalone player format can ever truly replace the split 7 inch as a cultural icon. My guess is that it cannot. Listening to this 7 inch on a turntable blasting through two huge analog towers instantly made me realize what you're missing when you're rocking an unintentionally distorted little file pushing through monitor speakers. I've accepted the pendulum swing of New Media and technology as they slice through the ghost of the 20th century, but I don't think the vinyl experience will ever be properly recreated or replaced. I'm sorry, but I just don't like to get down to a cell phone. The depth and dimension of music on vinyl can fill an entire room rather than settling for what usually feels more like the sound of a meek and thin advertisement clip obnoxiously being spat at you from a computer screen.

Eat Avery's Bones visually display their most telling difference with Koji Kondo by being the band in the 7 inch insert with smiles on their faces, a rather fitting pose for a group that has such a playful attitude towards everything they do. From their impossibly colorful flier art to their neon merchandise, ridiculous live antics and jittery song structures, the group has one of the most self assured senses of identity that I've ever encountered in a local group. The obvious insecurity and awkwardness that young bands often exhibit in their stage presence and general presentation is largely missing from Eat Avery's Bones, and the result is quite refreshing. Their half of the record is a perfect three song sliver of the E.A.B. sound. "Nice Ice" starts off with tentacled guitar parts crawling over a menacingly simple keyboard pattern that becomes as progressively complex as the main lick before they both begin to mock each other to climactic effect. The singing on the 7 inch is a showcase for lead singer Matt's high pitched vocal frequency, and the band somehow manages to sound even more piercing on a recording than they do live. This might be partly due to the fact that when playing live, they tend to use a telephone in lieu of a mic, or maybe its because they often have someone dressed in a wizard costume as opposed to, say, having a mic stand. This causes the vocals to be heard only part of the time in many cases, and hearing the band in such shrill clarity on this record was a good reminder that they have never had any desire to be subtle or easily digestible, though the catchiness of their memorable backing tracks will sometimes cause you to forget that. There is a purposely immature and irreverent humor that runs through their songs, and though I've heard that "Nice Ice" is possibly about meth, it's anyone's guess as to what "Vowel Sounds" or "Dike Hike" is about. Something tells me they don't care whether or not you ever figure it out.

Koji Kondo is not smiling on their half of the insert and that is no accident, a fact only reinforced by what you hear when you flip the record to their side: a brief earful of power chord distorto-sludge coupled with a screaming intro. This is intro is somewhat misleading, however, and "Bee Vomit" is a more proper example of the band's main strengths: unique semi-clean guitar splatter with a very direct singer who sounds like he's reading from an angry journal he keeps while slugging it out at some miserable day-job. I can't overstate how startlingly great Koji Kondo's guitar parts can be, by the way. I'm sometimes reminded of the extreme technical prowess of Upsilon Acrux, the avant-guitar originators in The Magic Band, or Deerhoof side project Natural Dreamers. This is high praise considering all three groups I just mentioned will make you rethink the possibilities of guitar based music. The experimental aspects of Koji Kondo's music are usually reeled in by a dedication to hardcore rhythms that break through with stampeding intensity, and the lyrics are literate without showing off, offering poignant little shards of pessimistic observation like "evading terminal diagnosis/if it doesn't kill you/it'll be with you 'til something does". Reassuring. It's little moments like these that will have you reaching for the lyric insert over and over, which is quite a rare thing in the North Texas music scene.

Koji Kondo features two thirds of The Blonde Girls, who's 7 inch we praised here last year. Koji is decidedly less experimental than The Blonde Girls, and that's a plus or a minus depending on your take on music. Whereas Blonde Girls had long instrumental parts and often performed without microphones, Koji Kondo wants every word and note to sink in as a whole, and it shows. As much as I enjoyed The Blonde Girls, I think Koji Kondo is an improvement on some of the concepts of that band, serving as a good example of how mixing a healthy amount of traditionalism with more outlandish approaches can make for a rewarding listening experience that might please gutter punk and turtle-necked indie nerd alike.

Speaking of that divide, I was told that Good Records doesn't usually carry local 7 inches, but that they did so with this one because they "liked the art". How big of them to designate what will probably amount to less than a square foot of store space, huh? I hate to criticize a brick and mortar record store in these tough times, but their dismissive attitude towards projects like this has bothered me for most of a decade. I want them to survive even if I don't agree with them, but they should hope that the last shouted lines of the Koji Kondo side of this record don't read like a prophecy: "We'll do it ourselves and put this asshole out of work".