Saturday, 3 September 2022

Caged Birds Think Flying Is A Sickness (2022) by Andrei Rikichi - Music Album Review


I often say I'm never confident when reviewing music on my site, and that isn't going to change anytime soon. However, my news inbox is currently empty, and needing a fifth post for the week I thought I may as well listen to Andrei Rikichi's Caged Birds Think Flying Is A Sickness. The press release was amusing, giving a flowery background to Rikichi, before admitting that the person doesn't actually exist, and is instead a moniker of Dave, the man who runs the small Edinburgh based indie record company Bearsuit Records and who has put out music under a variety of different names. Anyway, this is a fourteen track album from Andrei Rikichi, is it a good fit for this site? Who knows, I haven't actually listened to much of it yet, I guess we will find out. 

I've gave it a few spins now and can confirm that it does feel like something that for the most part belongs here. The fourteen tracks here often sound quite experimental, with the music being more of a soundscape or mood setting. Many of the tracks are under two minutes, with the shortest being This, which clocks in at a whopping ten seconds! From the brief notes I made while listening to this I mentioned that a lot of the tracks felt very Silent Hill-esque, I could imagine them as a soundtrack to some unfolding terror occuring in a small forgotten town. Rather than the more heavily industrialised sounds of someone like Akira Yamaoka the tracks have a more technology based sound with looping vocal samples that sounded like an opera singer, while Player Name: The Syracuse Apostle had a rustic Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 Carter Burwell style feel to it, perhaps my favourite of the album.

I listened to the album first time around while doing admin on my blog, with a second listen as I painted some zombie miniatures, it was a fine background accompiment to those activities. From the style and how the tracks feed off each other it felt like this is best enjoyed in one large chunk rather than something to dip in and out of. I often state an albums success on the merits of whether it would be something I could listen to time and time again. Due to the experimental soundscape style this wouldn't fit all occasions, but as music which suggests darkness and an uncaring horror this was an entertaining journey. Caged Birds Think Flying Is A Sickness was released on CD on 31st August.

SCORE:

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