Matthew Ford

Robert Millis

Min Yee

 

​Idol Ko Si's first full-length tangible material object, having previously released several full lengths digitally, references a life of musical investigation without distinct clarity for the derivation of those references. Yes, the group has devoured sounds from other times and lands, but never once do those influences announce themselves. It is a minimalist result with a maximalist intent. Every group does this to some extent, but Idol Ko Si seems to consciously avoid the "recommended if you like" syndrome.

 

Idol Ko Si has been called an abstracted supergroup -- featuring as it does members of Aframes, Climax Golden Twins, Factums, Dreamsalon, AFCGT, Sublime Frequencies, and Yves SonAce. But supergroups tend to yield competing sounds and here Min Yee, Matthew Ford and Robert Millis congeal into something significantly distinct that is not immediately audible in any of their other projects -- fractured sounds, broken beats, cocaine ambiance... low key, lo-fi and hazy. Sinister has never had a more appropriate companion.

 

A disorientation begins as you get further into the album. The sounds are crisp, but by "'ludes and words" the obfuscated vocals galvanize a confusion that lasts until the album's end. It wouldn't be surprising to learn this creation originated from a part of the psyche that we prefer not to acknowledge, or it may just be a result of present times. It seems these sounds wouldn't be out of place as a soundtrack to the Zone from Tarkovsky's Stalker.

 

Unharmonik is Idol Ko Si’s second physical release and finds them continuing to stumble through post-apocalyptic shuffling soundscapes of broken dub, mangled machines, and apoplectic ambiences. But it’s not as dark as that might sound. Some tracks are named after butterflies (Magellan Birdwing), and there’s a continuing love of texture and sound for sound’s sake that brings it all together, puts its feet up to the fire and lights a pipe.

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Idol Ko Si "...don't rock so much as they creep, tremble, warble, and emit a strange glow, a muted luminescence.  These three dudes have rocked so much in their lives, they can afford to leave that all behind and deviate into more enigmatic territory. And that they do with subtle brilliance and unerring instincts for offbeat "ethnological forgeries" (to borrow a concept from CAN)." -- Dave Segal, The Stranger

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"I loved echoes. Odd radio transmissions. Footsteps in the distance, rustling through leaves. Lines smacking against flagpoles or masts in harbors. Crickets. Water through the pebbles on a beach. The sound in my head while chewing. The rhythms of car tires on uneven pavement. I don’t think I even understood that to most people these noises were different than “music.” To me they were all part of one big sound world: the emotion in a singer’s voice, a guitar, the disquieting squeak of a chair, conversation in a theatre before the movie starts, someone hollering. It all connects. I tried to foist my collage and found sound proclivities on rock bands I was in, figuring that it was all the same, that everyone thought like I did...." -- Robert Millis from Prepared Guitar