For many years, Providence noise-rock legends Lightning Bolt and experimental Osaka wizards the Boredoms have recognized each other as fellow travelers. I once saw Lightning Bolt open a New York Boredoms show, and let me tell you, that was a good night. Boredoms drummer YoshimiO, whose name you probably recognize from that one Flaming Lips album title, has led the side project OOIOO since 1996. This spring, Lightning Bolt and OOIOO will join forces on a split LP called THE HORIZON SPIRALS / THE HORIZON VIRAL.
This upcoming split marks the first new album from either Lightning Bolt or OOIOO since 2019, which is when Lighnting Bolt released Sonic Citadel and OOIOO dropped Nijimusi. According to a press release, THE HORIZON SPIRALS, the OOIOO side of the album, builds on the gamelan explorations of 2014's GAMEL. YoshimiO says, "Back then in Bali, bronze-keyed gamelan were mainstream, and GAMEL uses bronze. THE HORIZON SPIRALS' gamelan is iron. Black-painted iron. This time, incorporating Koheysai's iron sound (iron gamelan) allowed us to see OOIOO's songs spiraling upward with greater lightness. The iron gamelan infiltrated OOIOO's sparkling elements, grounding that sound within the audible range as a new wave sound. It also blends exceptionally well with Mishina's cymbals."
OOIOO's side of the record has just two tracks, "THE HORIZON" and "Gamel BE SURE TO SPIRAL." Lightning Bolt add five more. Human-beast drummer Brian Chippendale says, "OOIOO set the tone with THE HORIZON SPIRAL, but we didn’t really roll with the spiral theme. We’re more Viral than Spiral, though they both can dump you in a rabbit hole and we definitely like rabbit holes." Be that as it may, I hear Lightning Bolt applying just a bit of OOIOO and the Boredoms' percussive space-out sensibility to the new track "CLOUD CORE." Below, check out that song and the tracklist to THE HORIZON SPIRALS / THE HORIZON VIRAL.
TRACKLIST:
01 OOIOO - "THE HORIZON"
02 OOIOO - "Gamel BE SURE TO SPIRAL"
03 Lightning Bolt - "WAVERS"
04 Lightning Bolt - "CLOUD CORE"
05 Lightning Bolt - "THE RUNNERS 2"
06 Lightning Bolt - "WOW 13"
07 Lightning Bolt - "HEADLESS HORSEFOLK"
THE HORIZON SPIRALS / THE HORIZON VIRAL is out 4/24 on Thrill Jockey. OOIOO will play a rare live show 4/4 at Open Melody Festival in Los Angeles, with more dates on the way.
