HESS USUI SUEN “もも (MOMO)” (Already Dead)


Joe Hess and Mabel Suen, the Free Noise nerds of Complainer (and Hess in Fuck Lungs), join with Kenji Usui of An Atomic Whirl to slip a tape under your door that you should probably pick up and pop into your deck. Don’t worry about looking down the hallway, they’ve already left. But what you have in your hand may contain all the answers to every secret question you’ve ever asked. Either that or it will blow open your mind so wide that you won’t even be able to contain the content. How can you go wrong? Do it, do it!

The unpronounceable “もも (MOMO​)​” (which is probably totally pronounceable by some, I just need a quick tutorial) begins with the scrappy rhythm experiment “Dead Dance” before plunging into a nether region of flailing bass guitar, sax, and drums. Veering all over the road from noise rock to free jazz freakouts, stopping at every psychedelic truck stop in between, Hess, Usui, and Suen plunge us into a chaotic alternate reality where strange creatures batter us about our heads as we try to fend them off for the sake of our own sanity. I mean, just look at that j-card – all kinds of monsters and aliens are our enemies here! We must endure.

The trio finds sideways grooves to ride off upon, staying frickin’ inventive no matter how long those chaotic routes last. But we avoid disaster by strapping in and feeling the Gs, just like a coupla Max Powers, letting tempo and intensity dictate our experience. And that experience is incredibly robust, a smash hit to the mouth that shakes your very skeleton. Isn’t that what you want from this kind of musician these days?



--Ryan