OOIOO

Japanese experimental drum-punk band OOIOO doesn’t seem interested in doing anything in a straightforward manner. Taiga, CMG’s 28th favorite album of last year, certainly didn’t play by any but the most loosely-defined rules of song-craft. It shouldn’t have been too surprising, then, that their entire US tour consisted of a meager six shows. But there was no way I was going to miss Yoshimi P-we and company, so I booked it up the Eastern seaboard to catch their sold-out show at the Knitting Factory.

I’ve listened to Taiga a lot; I think it’s a great, genuinely exciting, and listenable piece of experimental music. Nothing, however, could have prepared me for the sheer force of OOIOO live. The five musicians — the band has brought on a second drummer —just attack the music. There’s no feel of improvisatory abandon or drum circle wankery here, either; rather, there’s just the power of these five women locking into synch and absolutely laying into these songs.

They opened with “Uma” and “Umo,” the two immediate stand-outs from Taiga, and managed to make them seem at once faster, funkier, and meaner.

From there they just seemed intent on destroying any conceptions the audience might have about genre. With two drummers and a bassist the rhythm section was pretty much unstoppable, but Yoshimi was willing to toy with the direction the music would take. Songs ran from hard punk reminiscent of the best of Black Eyes to elements of Boredoms psychedelia to pop weirdness to noise rock to free jazz associations to even dancier numbers. The band turned on a dime, rarely stopping and diving between songs and genres with glee. Yoshimi played guitar, trumpet, some sort of noise-box that I didn’t recognize, and sang and chanted her way through the 45-minute set. There really are no comparisons other than to the multitude of acts (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Deerhoof, Liars, etc.) that they make totally irrelevant.

I’ve seen better shows than this, but not many, and not in a fair while. The band is able to walk that fine line between being far out as a coherent musical project while still putting forth an incredible stage presence and performing a totally engrossing show — engrossing, I expect, however you feel about them on record. They had the crowd — a healthy mix of rock critics and Asian women — wrapped around their fingers. For 45 minutes they absolutely owned the Knitting Factory. Hopefully next time they come over to the States they’ll make it a longer of a tour.