It’s not enough to have all the right ingredients.

 

I really want to like Asobi Seksu. I want to like them so much that for a brief moment some time ago, I actually did. And I still want, if only because I like the shirt I have of theirs so much. Dream pop universelle. That‘s good. Unfortunately, their music only too rarely actually fulfils that promise. Witness tonight‘s show: They have a reasonably good drummer laying a solid foundation, a snappy bass that sometimes even grooves. They have a cute chick singer who does the ethereal wailing pretty well and they have, in theory, a huge enough wall of sound from the guitarist. But it‘s not enough to know the formula – you also have to know how to use it. Songs like „Familiar Light“ and „Nefi + Girly“show that sometimes, Asobi Seksu do. 

But the way they insist on playing the game also shows that they don‘t really understand it. They repeatedly end very unremarkable songs in the pointless cacophony of white light and white noise that long ago ceased to be rebellious. Yes, My Bloody Valentine still do the twenty minute „holocaust“, but it‘s bloody boring is what it is. And same goes for Asobi Seksu: If you have to come back out from backstage (because you can‘t go anywhere backstage) for an encore nobody had the chance to cheer for cos your amp was feedbacking so loudly, then it‘s really not that graceful if you end up doing that twice. Because you have nowhere else to go. Maybe that‘s why they‘re doing this. Maybe they have nowhere else to go. Their music, at its washed out worst, drowning in echo and feedback, sounds that way. Fortunately, there are those moments when it‘s all so much better. Tonight wasn‘t one of them.