Hats off to Touch and Go for being the first American label daring enough to release music from the budding Japanese "no-core" scene. Let's hope their daring doesn't wind up biting them in the wallet.
If you're unfamiliar with no-core music, here's the quick explanation. A no-core artist begins by writing a perfectly normal, straightforward piece of music -- typically a pop or jazz song -- with a single, central riff, melody or progression upon which the entire piece pretty much depends. He then removes that crucial piece (either by never recording it, or by deleting the track in post-production), leaving the supporting elements to slump uselessly together in a song with, literally, no core. With no central idea to distract it, your mind explores the empty space as your tongue explores a broken tooth, with a sort of sick fascination. It's a challenging, sometimes downright unlistenable genre dedicated to establishing the significance of deliberate planning as opposed to aimless improvisation. Mung, along with contemporaries like Tai Noong and Sumito Glasshouse, are considered the heavy hitters of the genre.
Of course, it pays to know this stuff in advance, or you might wind up ripping Ceramic Eye from your CD player and cramming it down the garbage disposal. The six ten-minute compositions here play a maddening game of hide-and-seek with your ears, and Mung know the hiding places better than you ever will. Only "Salamander" and "Heat Drip" really convey the no-core concept, while "Sun Hair Galloping" sounds like Kenny G on very, very bad acid. And if the unspeakably irritating "Chaw Fill" floats your boat, you should really think about giving a much larger portion of your music-buying money to charity.
Ultimately, Ceramic Eye is a pick not because of the quality of its music, but because it's the first domestic release in a potentially important new genre. Touch and Go might have been better off starting with a compilation or a "best of" album; as it stands, Ceramic Eye comes across like the soundtrack to Waiting for Godot: The Musical. There should have been more than this.
