Birushanah - Akai Yami

Birushanah are one of the stranger bands I've come across. Even at 924 Gilman St., an intimate venue that reduces icons to mortals, they puzzled me. Their setup consisted of drums, fretless bass, guitar, vocals, and makeshift oil drum percussion. Songs were long and intricate, yet seemingly randomly thrown together. Vocals teetered between yowling and singing. The two drum kits pounded out mighty unisons, yet I couldn't lock onto their grooves. Out of this din popped fretless bass slides and chords. It was one of those "what the hell was that" experiences that leave one vaguely pleased.

Akai Yami (excerpt)

Even in the isolation of my home, Birushanah still baffle me. "Doom" would be the closest genre. But with percussion having equal (if not greater) weight with guitar, Birushanah are nowhere near as heavy as fellow Osakians Corrupted. In staggering gait, Khanate could be a reference point, but Birushanah have more overt method behind the madness. Their trademark is subdividing eight-beat phrases into groups of three and five (13- and 17-beat phrases also crop up). The initial three feels familiar, as 3/4 time is common in metal. But the following five feels foreign; my body just doesn't move in 5/4.

In between these odd grooves are melodic bass mutterings and Japanese acoustic bits. I don't know much about traditional Japanese music, but those tonalities seem to dominate the riffing. I think I also heard a koto at one point. (You can play a virtual koto here, and a virtual shamisen here.) Even though Akai Yami sounds unstructured, it's actually tightly scripted. After a short intro, two massive tracks chew up 20 and 17 minutes, respectively. The tracks are more like suites, with discrete passages adding up to a whole. It's rare that a band so organically melds its native sounds with metal.

Akai Yami is available from Level Plane, Relapse, and Interpunk.