YAMANTAKA//SONIC TITAN, UZU (Paper Bag). Release date: October 29.
Toronto-Montreal experimental music and performance art collective Yamantaka//Sonic Titan have a vision as big as their sound.
Their debut, 2011’s YT//ST, turned heads with its astonishing “noh-wave” blend of metal, J-pop, noise rock, operatic vocals and prog, which they perform in kabuki and noh theatre-style costumes enhanced by endearingly homemade props.
According to core member/drummer Alaska B, who also engineers and produces their albums in her Toronto basement, their follow-up, UZU, centres on the mythological character Mazu, Chinese goddess of the sea, who has visions and can swim unnaturally well for a human.
“At one point her father and brother are fishing at sea and she goes into a trance state where she sees their ship capsize in a storm,” Alaska explains over the phone. “In her vision she manages to swim out and save her brother but has to let her father go because there is no way to save both of them.”
In the aftermath, Mazu’s grief prompts her to leave human society.
“There’s a recurring theme of heartbreak and not belonging that goes from the beginning to the end of the record,” Alaska says. “The various songs have different narratives in them but are all based around an underlying theme of the whirlpool or vortex in the ocean.”
That goes for the title, too, which roughly translates to whirlpool or eddy in Japanese. Alaska compares an ocean vortex to a black hole, where gravity is so deep no light can escape.
“In the ocean, you have similar occurrences. Only recently they’ve managed to get footage of these vortex sinkholes that suck anything down, so if any ship came across them it would sink. The whole album deals with the concept of drowning in emotion.”
Interview Clips
Alaska B talks about the sonic differences between new album UZU and the debut:
About Yamantaka//Sonic Titan’s songwriting process:
