You may be familiar with the hype surrounding Legend of the Seagullmen, mostly because of the involvement of Danny Carey (Tool) and Brent Hinds (Mastodon). I wasn't expecting much but these were key bands of my youth, so I gave it a whirl, and it's whatever. It sounds kind of like a more rock/less metal version of Mastodon, maybe a less punk-y Turbonegro, a touch of Melvins (minus all the inventiveness), with horribly stupid lyrics and power rock moves like anthemic choruses and extreme guitar soloing. It's not as bad as the first track "We Are the Seagullmen", a real piece of shit, threatens, but it's not much better. It's a concept album that takes itself only semi-seriously...with the marriage of technical skill and tongue in cheek humor it's along the lines of a Green Jello, Tenacious D or a Les Claypool sideproject. But musically there's nothing here of interest, give it a skip.
DOPE re-ish of Midori Takada's 1981 debut album as MKWAJU Ensemble - you may recall last year WRWTFWW released Takada's Through the Looking Glass LP, but this one's even better - a wild mix of Japanese ambient and African rhythms played on marimba, vibraphone, synthesizer and percussion. RIYL Terry Riley or Tubular Bells, or even more new age-y weirdness like Vangelis, but these rhythms are so wild I wouldn't bat a lash at all if you told me the Animal Collective bros stayed up nights listening to these. Check out "Angwora Steps", totally out of pocket. "Hot Air" is a spacious breather, the other tracks pile up the rhythms in slowly-shifting crescendos...crazy stuff.

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