My review of Asobi Seksu‘s new unplugged album Rewolf went up at eMusic today.
With the touring lineup left behind, core members Yuki Chikudate and James Hanna have a lot more canvas across which to paint their surrealist watercolor keyboard washes and twinkling, fingerpicked guitars which, now entirely buzz-free, recall in equal parts Joni Mitchell and Vashti Bunyan. “New Years,” no longer anchored by the drums and arguably one of the only songs here that doesn’t definitively trump the original full-band version, instead just drifts off on a hazy cloud of whimsy that starts making funny impressionistic shapes by the time it gets to “Urusai Tori.” More