Ippu Mitsui / Annie & The Station Orchestra – Ippu Mitsui / Annie & The Station Orchestra (Bearsuit Records, 2016)

This split LP introduces new music from recent Bearsuit signings, Japanese electronic artist Mitsui and Irish musician Chas “Annie” Kinnis, currently based in Glasgow. Many of Bearsuit’s eclectic releases include material and collaborations from Japan and Scotland, a sort of East-meets-West sampling of some of the best and most intriguing electronic and experimental music around. And this release is no exception. Mitsui is the more hyperactive of the pair, from the playful, chase-scene groove of ‘Lalanona’ to the frantic tape manipulations and headspinning booty-waggin’ ‘Doramyu-Kick Off’. The tracks are mercifully short (four tracks in about ten minutes) so you have time to reset your bearings without falling too far off the deep end. Recommended to glitch mongers and experimental, avant garde electronics whizzes everywhere.

On the other side we’re reintroduced to Annie & The Station Orchestra, which some of you may recognise as the title of a track on another Bearsuit release, Bunny & The Invalid Singers, which presumably provided Kinnis with his band name. He was also previously exposed on Bearsuit’s label sampler from last year, Tomato Sauce Lasers, Sausage Lassos, which we previously enjoyed here. He begins his set with ‘Time’, featuring more electronic noodlings and sharp-edged percussive effects that sound like the march of the robots is upon us.

The follow-up, ‘No More Pirates’ is more sedate and cinematic, perhaps there’s a sci-fi film in development somewhere in need of some playfully cautious recording cues? ‘Heavy Artillery Ward’ sounds just like the sci-fi horror show its title suggests, and closer ‘Bustippers’ delivers ominous dark noir, a chill out come down of Lynchian and Badalamenti proportions.

Overall, another set of evocatively challenging sounds for fans of experimental electronics, glitch, noise, and the occasional wtf was that?