Mukaizake – Unknown Knowns

Mukaizake might be a hard band name to pronounce but its music doesn’t challenge in the same way. That’s not to say that it’s AM-radio fare. It’s decidedly indie rock but it’s also paced to let you absorb the sounds without haste.

What would happen if you took Red House Painters and gave them Wheaties before recording? Mukaizake’s languorous rhythms and stretched-out singing, as well as its minor-key melodies, do take a page from RHP. The songs hide a certain complexity, though, that might get them tagged as math-rock were the band to play them at twice their speeds. As it happens, playing somber math rock at half speed brings out subtleties that you might miss otherwise.

The 6-minute “Frisbee” goes from Codeine to Explosions in the Sky. Even in the quiet passages, the band can’t help itself from throwing in syncopated rhythms and unexpected guitar notes. Same goes for “Corporal Steam.” Its subtle guitar runs place it in a league with Idaho, the band that first took this kind of music into longer passages of stark beauty. Mukaizake might actually be as much prog-rock as indie when you start piecing together its songs’ compositional threads. Of course, you’d need more showmanship if you were going to pull off any serious Yes makeovers.

Another slow sleeper of a track is “Slack Bees.” Patient in its unwinding, the cut floats by without hardly disturbing the air around it. You barely notice the nuanced way it shifts its time signatures and chord emphases. In comparison, “The Yeah Conditioner” sounds like a sprint. It’s not, of course. Its unusual chord and note combinations don’t sound out of place by this point because you’ve been inured to it. You barely notice that the band has been sneaking in the odd beat, the odd melody, the unusual attenuation of form because it’s always delivered fluidly and naturally. Maybe Mukaizake is best described as a thinking man’s slowcore.

Hidden Shoal Recordings