Flower With No Color

Yoshimi & Yuka | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 8, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Ipecac Recordings
• ASIN: B00008OM69
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #296,621 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ambient, loungy stuff, February 12, 2004

By 

Elliott Brown (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flower With No Color (Audio CD)

"Flower With No Color" reminds me of a poem by Araki Yasusada:

A mud snail crawls-
in the world, sorrow and unhappiness
undulate, undulate

Like the poem, this collaboration between Yoshimi P-we of the Boredoms and Yuka Honda of Cibbo Matto is kind of pretty, kind of somber, but kind of meaningless. The songs are sparce conglomerations of faint melodies, backed by windchimes, barking dogs, computer blips and xylophone (among other sounds). Jazz and traditional Japanese music are obvious influences, but overall, the scattered ideas expressed by the songs on "Flower With No Color" are more exotic and experimental than anything else.

I've always enjoyed Cibbo Matto, Smokey and Miho, and at least appreciated the Boredoms. The prospect of a collaboraiton between Yuka and Yoshima excited me, because I thought it might bring Cibbo Matto's dancehall fun together with the Boredoms' heavy ambience. Instead, I find this album adrift in a sea of artisitic indulgence.

However, it is pretty, soothing and well-crafted. The trumpet on "Spy Said One" is lovely, and piano riffs on "UMEgination" and "Mow Deck In Eye" give hints of the amazing musical talent these two bring to the table. The album reminds me of some of the better Martin Denny albums, which is to say experimental lounge music. Delightful, really, but probably not what anyone buying this album would have expected.

Now you know...

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars digging "flower" in the desert, September 13, 2004

By 

Lynn Burnett (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flower With No Color (Audio CD)

I was living in a community called Arcosanti, way out in the high Arizona desert when I heard this. After a crazy week I had asked a friend of mine with a great music collection to lend me some of the most relaxing, mellow music he had around, and this is one of the albums. I was living in a small, isolated cement cube on the edge of a deep, sandy dried up river bank. Large cottonwood trees grew along the shore and shaded my place, and a mesquite forest grew up on the other side of the bank, where cows would roam through. Chickens and peacocks ran around. I lay down in the shade and listened to this, and I more than chilled out... more than de-stressed. My heart opened up, I saw clearly again how beautiful my surroundings were. You know how in meditation, you're supposed to find that fine point between laxity and excitement? "Flower with no color" gave that to me. I lay there, completely awake, completely calm. And its no wonder... this album is very playful, and very elegant. No masturbatory experimentalism, no "take me seriously" wackiness. This is fun, and it feels incredibly natural. If I made some music, I mould hope to make it in this vein.

And it's not just me. I played this in the bronze foundry, where we "toiled" all day long sculpting gorgeous bronze bells. The foundry overlooks a series of mesas and fields. And I'm telling you, I put this on one afternoon when the more tiresome work was done, and everyone was just like, "What IS this? This is incredible!" It was good spirit food for everybody... and just to drive it home, I was doing a pretty wacky DJ set by my cement cube one day, playing everything from Merzbow to happy hardcore tracks (preferably together,) James Chance to Tibetan Buddhist chants, and I really noticed, out of all the dozens of artists I played, that people were in love with this. I put it on later at night during a going away party, and the love and discussions flew. In fact, my friend who had lent it to me slipped away with it just afterwards.

I'm sure the environment I was in, and the place I was at personally, leant a lot to the experience, and maybe the other reviewers didn't dig it so well because they were in to much of a "my living room" environment. But that's good! The fact that this music expresses where I was at during that wonderful time says it all. Take it on the road, take it through the desert and up into the mountains. And yes, I've enjoyed it many times since I moved to San Francisco, just sitting in my living room. PS: Mileece's "Formations" album did quite a lot to me out there too... peace.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars playful,ambient soundscapes, April 22, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Flower With No Color (Audio CD)

Fans of Yoshimi's OOIOO should have no trouble liking this,it's even more ambient and sparse than said group.You really get the feeling they are inspired by their trip up the mountain,just sitting around soaking in everything and playing what comes to mind.Neo-tribal drums,synth squiggles,beautiful piano melodies,occasional chanting/wordless vocalizing,snippets of passerbys,dogs,plenty of birds,even the hum of the truck they are riding in swirl in,out and around the listener.The overall vibe I get from this is "playful",it's not earth shattering,it's not so bland as to be disposable.Just playful soundscapes.