The Retail Sectors / Yaporigami: The Retail Sectors / Yaporigami
Symbolic Interaction

Six-track split EP from The Retail Sectors (guitar-bass-drums-centered post-rock by Kentaro Togawa) and Yaporigami (post-punk by Yu Miyashita) on a new Kyoto, Japan-based label Symbolic Interaction.

Togawa's three pieces alternate between stately melodicism (the opening half of “The Distress”) and an oft-blistering rawness (the beehive swarm that slowly swells during the second half). Clean guitar lines weave gracefully in the episodic “The Dread” before the volcano erupts and the cauldron overflows, spilling lethal contents everywhere while “The Decadence” incrementally transports chiming six-string lattices to a blissful peak.

The Yaporigami material's clearly the wilder of the two: “Otogaku” approximates carnivalesque hip-hop being shredded into a thousand dirty pieces, “Zipangu” is ear-shattering gameboy breakcore, and “Yesterday” writhes for three minutes like a squealing spawn of Merzbow. Believe it or not, buried almost inaudibly under the noise lies a sing-song melody or two.

January 2007