ミドリ (Midori) - あらためまして、はじめまして、ミドリです。 (Aratamemashite, hajimemashite, Midori desu.)

Many times I've been asked by friends or other folks to explain to them why I enjoy this record so damn much. It's one of my all time favorites, that's no secret, but it didn't took long to discover that just putting the record on and letting the music hit the listener in the face in the same it did with me isn't exactly the right way. I guess that just like with many other "weird", "strange", or "extreme" musicians (Scott Walker, Beefheart) there needs to be a certain click with the listener, or the listener might soon find him or herself struggling to breath in an ocean of sonic weirdness. I should first say that I just love hearing something unique when I put on a record. Of course I can enjoy something familiar, but there's just something incredible in seeing something unique, like an one-of-a-kind bird of paradise that no one else has seen before. Even if the bird in question then shits itself and dies, there's still something fun about discovering, or listening to in this case, something so unfamiliar that it just instantly blows your mind out.

And that brings me to this incredible bird of a record. Luckily it doesn't shit itself, no, you may be the one shitting yourself when first hearing the thunderous first moments of the second song. There are just so many words I can use to describe this record. Intense moments that make you freeze in terror, followed my such joyful melodies that just make me want to jump up and kick down a tree full of precious birds or something like down. Playfully the two vocalists switch from howls and screams of terror to innocent and childlike voices. Take for example the first two songs: the first is an innocently sounding girl singing something something Japanese while gently strumming her guitar, then the second song starts and well, imagine quietly walking down the street and suddenly the whole fucking world around you blows up in an orgy of joyful Armageddon. On some of the songs here they start by playing some melody that wouldn't be out of place in some children's lullaby, and gradually they twist the song in such an incredible fun and fierce song. Man I just don't have words enough to explain after all.

Fact is, I enjoy punk, jazz, noise, etc, in my music. Where else can I get them mixed in such an incredibly crazy and awesome way but in the records of Midori?