Porno Porno - Lä-Ppisch

With 1995's Porno Porno, Lä-Ppisch made a rather abrupt break with the past, turning to grunge rock (albeit with a very strange Lä-Ppisch twist), and handing over the producing duties to an outsider for the first time since their first indie EP, Hoppy Kamiyama, the sometimes cross-dressing freak-out maniac behind some of Japan's strangest music, meets the band half-way, keeping their songwriting skills intact, but encouraging the band to indulge in all sort of crazy, free jazz and rock play. With their frequent blasts of two- to thirty-second long noise, the big influence on the album seems to be John Zorn's Naked City. But the more noise Kamiyama plasters on some tracks the more beautiful -- in a My Bloody Valentine-like way -- they become. "Present," in particular, is a devastating track, one of Gen Ueda's sweetest melodies discernible through a throbbing wall of distorted guitar, booming slow-mo drums, and throbbing bass. (The song was later covered by FLAGS on their Cream EP). Kyoichi Sugimoto matches Ueda emotion for emotion on his "Old Man With Balloons," which finishes the album off, revealing what seems at first to be a slight work into one of their deepest. There are other highlights too: "I Love a Happy End," which brings in cooing, XTC-like backing vocals to poppify its rock, and the single "Arigato," which breaks from its rock thunder with a jazzy, instrumental middle. ~ Ted Mills, All Music Guide