You might be disappointed to learn that OOIOO and Lightning Bolt do not actually collaborate on their new LP, The Horizon Spirals/The Horizon Viral. But perhaps it is for the best. The pairing of two of the underground’s wildest bands, powered by two of the most formidable drummers in the industry—OOIOO’s YoshimiO and Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale—is a lot to handle as a split album. A true partnership might prove too much for this fragile reality to bear.
On the surface, Spirals/Viral presents a study in contrast. OOIOO contributes two long tracks, filled with shifting tempos, interlocking rhythms, and metaphysical grooves. Lightning Bolt provides five quick, overdriven barnburners. The ever-restless OOIOO push their sound forward, building on and refining the Balinese gamelan elements they began exploring on 2013’s Gamel; Lightning Bolt sticks to the blistering, relentless ecstasy with which they made their name. A closer look, however, reveals some intriguing links. Both bands reference other musicians: Opening track “The Horizon” pays tribute to Sun Ra’s “Horizon,” one of the legendary Afrofuturist bandleader’s most experimental numbers, while Lightning Bolt nods to such scene luminaries as Clown Core, YoshimiO’s former band Boredoms, and Deerhoof.
OOIOO and Lightning Bolt navigate their inspirations in different ways. The Japanese quartet takes Sun Ra’s skein of electronic noise as a starting point, wrapping it in a sizzling no-wave funk beat, vocals that veer between incantatory and playful, and bewitching mandalas of chimes and gongs. YoshimiO, sharing fellow ’90s icon Flea’s recent interest in the instrument, turns in a credible trumpet line during the track’s shuffling, exuberant second half. Lightning Bolt has less interest in construction or expansion, instead boiling down their already heavy sound into a dense, nutrient-rich slurry. Brian Gibson’s gangrenous bass riffs and gibbering, muffled vocals have even more gonzo energy than usual, while Chippendale mixes bombast and finesse with his customary flair.
“The Runners 2” begins with a noxious black-light bass drone and proceeds through a demolition derby of blast beats, hyperactive polyrhythms, and pummeling distortion. It is less than half the length of OOIOO’s “The Horizon” but feels twice as long, and any resemblance to the deft noise-pop of Deerhoof has been pulverized. It bleeds directly into the Boredoms-indebted “Wow 13,” which has a bit more space and a clearly identifiable, if hopelessly mutant, swing—at least for a few seconds, before the riffs kick in.
Two extreme bands coming together to make an album of extremes has a certain pleasing logic. But even in its most opposing moments, from its depths of disintegration to its peaks of pattern-building, Spirals/Viral has a cryptic unity. OOIOO’s mesmerizing melodic repetitions hover on the edge of chaos, while Lightning Bolt’s melted entropy often suggests a greater, probably incomprehensible order. Whether built as a hypnotic, recurring shape, a rampant contagion, or both, music this uncompromising and unpredictable always carries a message for those who need to hear it.