Am I writing a review of Dustin Wong and Takako Minekawa's collaborative LP
Are Euphoria because I'm putting off drafting a retrospective on the previously mentioned players' 2018 collaboration with Good Will Smith, titled
Exit Future Heart? I mean... maybe? I saved Exit Future Heart to my Bandcamp wishlist the week it came out, but only recently (as in two days ago) recalled that Dustin and Takako had an album out together just the year prior, and at some deep psychological level, my reluctance to cover EFH after all these years may be manifesting in a further fit of creative procrastination at the moment. As much joy as I take in floundering humiliatingly in front of you in the moment, I do actually want to take a moment to put a frame around
Are Euphoria and point to it as a thing that exists today, because as far as things that exist are concerned, it's one of the pleasantest in my estimation.
Are Euphoria is the third collaboration between guitarist Dustin Wong of the Baltimore art-punks Ponytail and Takako Minekawa, best known for her contributions to the Shibuya-kei pop scene in the '90s with Fancy Face Groovy Name, after which she developed her love of French pop, Latin, and electronic music over the course of a storied and splendid solo career. All of this being true and relevant, it doesn't get you to the point of departure for
Are Euphoria, though, as sonically, it exists in a self-contained, if expansive, dream atrium, with an effusively tactile, yet strikingly spongy structure, where the listener is seized by the enticement of the abiding and unfurling edifices, and seduced into temporary rapture of peculiarly intimate and prevailingly recognizable motifs that lack an unequivocal origin point or visa, but instead coalesce intrinsically into internally magnified loops of mindful rendition of material precognition, embroidered with the discrete narrative overlays of the diffuse human clay whose evaporated aspirations have been condensed into a psychic biosphere, more diverse and fertile than even the sum of its parts can account for.
Are Euphoria is an attempt to siphon and divert a limited sample of the spectrum captured from the combined pillar of light beaming from 8 billion brainstems in a manner that is representative of all and yet perceptible by the same, without overwhelming the senses—a reharmonization of the chorus of the heart so that it may resonate with the ecstasy of others. As I said, among the things that you may find manifest in this world,
Are Euphoria is undoubtedly one of the more delightful.
What's a synonym for Joy Rider? (Thrill Jockey Records)
