Words by Justin Turford
Yōkai (妖怪) are the supernatural creatures and spirits found in Japanese folklore, and five of them are present on this strangely entrancing five track (plus five dubs) record of knife-wielding, dark alley dub-weirdness from the acclaimed French producer Brain Damage, the veteran Japanese experimentalist Emiko Ota and the UK’s dub wizard Mad Professor. This triumvirate of rarified talents have all had career trajectories that defy commercial impulses and this assembling of their peculiar skill sets has a touch of genius about it.
Brain Damage is actually just one man these days (Martin Nathan), the sole survivor of the late 90s’ formation from Saint-Etienne, a pioneering dub outfit which has collaborated with the best of the global dub family over the last twenty five years including The Disciples, Groundation, Big Youth, Vibronics and more, ‘Oide Oide’ being their seventeenth album. Check out his intense live energy HERE.
Emiko Ota has travelled from the 80s’ Japanese experimental rock scene (OXZ) to a quarter century of multidisciplinary creativity (mainly as a drummer, percussionist and singer) in the Paris scene and elsewhere, her insanely diverse CV encompassing traditional minyo songs, psyche surf rock, composing children’s songs, a cover band for anime songs (KiriSaki Nin) to working with artists from popular and underground cultures alike such as Acid Mothers Temple, Rihanna and her own Ensemble Sakura.
Mad Professor needs little introduction. Since the early 80s’, he has been at the forefront of electronic dub, his famed label Ariwa. a defining vehicle for his particular form of weird science. His sonic playfulness has seen him collaborate on at least ten occasions with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, whilst his pinpoint, speaker-troubling production techniques have kept him in the serious remixer league, delivering abstracted reworks for artists such as Massive Attack, Sade, Depeche Mode and more recently, Gaudi. Alongside Dennis Bovell, the Professor sits atop the UK’s premier league of dub masters.
Brain Damage is the spark, the composer and the conductor of this unique collaboration but ‘Oide Oide’ as a whole feels like a cumulative identity born from the inspiration sources the French producer draws from and the disparate histories of the three artists involved. It’s certainly not just a dub record. In fact, Brain Damage claims it as ‘post-dub’. It’s modern in the sense that the 1970s was modern and the lawless post-punk underground of the 80s was futuristic. Think Throbbing Gristle, ON-U Sound, squat energy, the far-reaching impact of The Clash on the French musical psyche. Then there are the mysterious Japanese myths that populate these songs. The song titles mirror the names of these deities: Katsura Otoko, Tenome, Isogashi, Azuki Arai, and Baku, Japanese legends that are alien to non-Japanese imaginations although we have been introduced to them as the shapeshifting monsters or supernatural guardians that populate the animated films of Studio Ghibli. Whether they are benevolent or malevolent, Emiko becomes the voices of these yōkai.
The record opens with the ghostly klang of ‘Katsura Otoko’, a floating introduction of vinyl dust, flutes and abrasive strings giving way to a stark super-slow drum machine beat and Emiko’s whispered vocals. Punctuated by a hard, detuned electric guitar, warping synth lines and an enigmatic nôkan flute hook, there’s a deeply layered tension, reminiscent of early Tricky productions. Mad Professor’s ‘Katsura-Otoko-Dub’ amplifies the arcane if anything, removing layers until all we are left with is the drums at their most skeletal, a throb of bass, a barely touched violin and the echoing hisses of Emiko’s voice.
The spirit Katsura Otoko is described as “Of incomparable beauty, he is depicted as a man living on the Moon. He is known for drawing attention and potentially shortening the lives of those who stare at him for too long.”
Brain Damage, Emiko Ota, Mad Professor
Tenome 手の目
“Appearing as an old blind man, he has eyes in the palms of his hands that allow him to see in the dark and hunt his prey. He symbolizes both the fear of the unknown, vengeance, and the transformation of suffering into anger.”
Dancing around the classic digital dub punch of kick drum, rimshots, synth bass and echo box, Emiko’s voice leaps around as though she was acting out the role of the palm-eyed Tenome in a kabuki theatre production. This sense of theatrical narration is interrupted and accompanied by more guitar clangs and the loose-fitting trumpet of Frédéric Roudet. ‘Tenome-Dub’ sees the Professor accentuating the drums and sporadic instrumentation to speaker-testing limits and twisting the vocals into coiled shapes. An interesting aside is that Brain Damage took five months to complete his tracks, using zero samples and playing or inviting guests to play all of the instruments (and toys) on the tracks. In contrast, Mad Professor smashed his mixes out in a single day, a masterclass in mute-editing and instant response.
On the post-punky pop number ‘Isogashi’, Emiko sounds like a feverish Ari Up, all nervous, frantic energy as a scratchy Graham Coxon-ish electric guitar and vintage drum machines propel the song onto some kind of parallel universe pop charts. Quite bonkers. The dub gets even more playful and silly, with random volume changes that feel like tinnitus is kicking in and treated vocals that barely keep their tuning under the weight of the FX.
Bubbling water and radio interference introduce the plaintive Gallic sway of ‘Azuki Arai’, named after a spirit who resides by water, the “shoki, shoki” refrain in the song, the sound of him washing azuki beans. It’s a lovely little piece of pastoral-tinged music, Emiko at her most charming and perplexing. Without any rhythm section to work with, Mad Professor instead fractures Emiko into waterfalls of snipped echoing words that tumble and trip like any unfortunate human that dares approach this curious bean-washer.
‘Ota-Baku’ is described thus: “Designed as a chimera with the body of a bull, the head of an elephant, the eyes of a rhinoceros, the tail of an ox, and the paws of a tiger, he is summoned to devour human nightmares. He is the guardian of sleep.” What does this sound like? Well, on this viewing, he is a dramatic and surprising entity. The most instrument heavy of the songs here, there are delicious layers of acoustic guitar, strings and piano over a curious dance-challenging rhythm, Emiko’s chants and evocations unfathomable to me but powerfully delivered. Mad Professor laser cuts his way through the song, front facing previously subtle drum parts and dubbing the vocals and piano into cavernous meteor holes. An already eccentric song is transformed into an abstracted piece of art that perhaps defines Brain Damage’s ‘post-dub’ claim the most.
‘Oide Oide’ is quite the journey. Brain Damage’s vision and craft, Emiko Ota’s experimental-folkloric magic and the eccentric mixing desk wizardry of Mad Professor have between them, created an otherworldly realm of theatrical, esoteric ‘post-dub’ that is highly listenable despite its obvious strangeness. This assemblage of technical brilliance and unfathomable Japanese storytelling is a resounding success. 9/10
RELEASED ON 18 APRIL 2025
BUY HERE! https://braindamagedub.bandcamp.com/album/oide-oide