Jo Passed

Time: its passing, its enervated encroaching, its visibility evident in changing seasons and inconsistent climes and the fearful questions of how to fill it, live it, fight it and spite it permeate this Sub Pop debut LP,

Throw in rootlessness, existential self-exile and the need for a ‘home’ (‘Another Nowhere’; ‘Places Please’) and the result is a guidebook for navigating yourself within the muddied matrices of identity politics.

The sinister ‘Left’ articulates the erosion of temporality from the onset, a sparse bout of finger picking develops into an enveloping disorienting finale.

‘MDM’ evokes Silversun Pickups’ fuzz-scuzz buzz, warped and mangled guitars that stray and flail backed by thump-drums creating an air of claustrophobic paranoia: ‘Let me in so I can be free’

The shattering ‘Glass’ mixes shards of NYC alt-trio Blonde Redhead with pre-punk-post-rock ‘n’ hollers Pere Ubu, an unsettling and unrestricted outpouring of exclamations and proclamations in a sonically avant garden.

Twenty plus years of alleged tech-emancipation and the realisation it’s not called ‘web’ and ‘net’ for nothing delivers ‘Millennial Trash Blues’; channelling Rocket from the Crypt’s shockabilly goats’ gruff, on the ropes they live in hope for different days and better nights.

A bewitching array of noise and poise, morose without being verbose, Jo Hirabayashi’s ghostly mutterings exercising exorcisms from above and beyond make Jo Passed a worthy addition to the Sub Pop roster.

Postscript: The album cover of a hole in the ‘sky’, punctured inwards and offering a glimpse outwards also merits close semiotic analysis. *rings Noam Chomsky*