SWARRRM (Japan), ゆめをみたの - i dreamed... + The [re]Birth of Cephalochromoscope

You may not know this, but Swarrrm is the reason why Cephalochromoscope exists in the first place (as for the term itself, read some Philip K. Dick and get back to me). Swarrrm is also the reason why me and Orfee exchanged the first of our many, many emails (since 2008) and jumped straight into the creation of our own sentimental sketchgrind. And if Nino Rota came to be reincarnated in Japan (Kobe, to be exact), where he then developed an insatiable appetite for blastbeats at a far too early age, perhaps we could get to hear another band of similar sensibilities during our lifetimes. It doesn't sound very likely, I know, but to be fair, neither does Swarrrm. Unlike their simple slogan, 'Chaos & Grind,' their work is profoundly complex. All things considered, I reckon it's about time to (attempt to) do the band justice, no less than thirteen years after this place inconspicuously sprung to life within the blogosphere, died, and was born all over again, like a blossoming phoenix of blastbeats, out of the same old passion; incidentally, in the same year that Swarrrm released a new album.

The old Cephalochromoscope banner...

Swarrrm formed in 1996, put out Chaos & Grind, their first EP, two or three years later, followed by a couple of split releases as well as Against Again, their first LP, four years later. Suffice to say, they haven't stopped since, putting out an album every 3-4 years (except for the seven-year-long wait for Flower), as well as splits in-between with a myriad of consistently great bands (Atka, Narcosis, Muga, Dimlaia, Endon, Crowpath...). A whole quarter of a century with an unchanging lineup certainly holds some importance. The band was always Chowrow's explosive drumming which I would argue acts as the condensing agent, Kapo's emotional, dramatic, punk-as-fuck tremolo impressions of a melancholy The Good, The Bad & The Ugly on guitar, and Futoshi's big, confidently independent bass-bone that the band made certain would be clearly intelligible in the mix (from the very beginning; see the Chaos & Grind EP), in character within their collective play, though just as often elaborated beyond the riff.

Against Again & Nise Kyuseishu Domo

In regard to the vocalists that fronted the quartet, they've been deemed escapees from the psychiatric ward and such, and I trust that mostly any Swarrrm fan will speak fondly of the unnerving impact they might have had on first listen. As a big fan of Hatada's (& Oka-Z's) deranged screaming (Against Again, 2000 & Nise Kyuseishu Domo, 2003, respectively), I wasn't too keen on any sort of replacement despite knowing that they had found one in none other than Tsukasa Harakawa of Hellchild (as well as Force & From Hell) fame, a remarkably guttural vocalist and intense (vaguely) death metal band in their own right, with whom they joined forces back in 2007 for Black Bong, the first full-album exhibition of a denser and darker Swarrrm, stepping away from punk roots into harsher, charred territory (evoking even black metal, although actually calling it so would just be silly).

Black Bong

After the bong Harakawa stayed for good; in fact, it might be divulged that he, as vocalist and lyricist, came to be instrumental for their further development, as well as, eventually, somewhat of a symbol for the band, despite Kapo being the de facto capo macchina. The new formation kept pumping their blood, sweat and tears as fervently as ever into what might be deemed their attitude toward creative freedom. For in the aural sense Swarrrm is a band in the most rock'n'roll sense of the word - all for one, one for all - where everyone gets to have a say (or so it sounds).

From the viewpoint of a fanboy, throughout the course of more than twenty years the band hasn't changed all that significantly: it always sounded like Swarrrm (for a fact in itself a bit problematic to review as there aren't many obvious points of reference; certainly not in the US or Europe). Then again, through the lens of a would-be objective listener they've defied genres from the get go, yet it always seemed effortless, perhaps necessary from the band's perspective. Call it what you will - grindcore, hardcore punk, screamo etc. - and you really won't say much if meaning to describe the actual experience, but, as even Kerouac would admit, trying to write down jazz isn't the same as playing it; there's only so much you can do with words, so any way your guide tones lead you is probably at least somewhat right.

Flower

Set against the backdrop of blastbeats and generally noisy music of the underground, the aural history of Swarrrm from Against Again (2000) to I Dreamed... (2021) isn't as much a bildungsroman as a picaresque novel of a band's relentless intent to express despite the odds (e.g. of a genre), to compress the full range of an emotion into a single ball of energy, highly unstable, openly vulnerable and downright beautiful. Dumbed down into three phases, the Chaos & Grind of Against Again & Nise Kyuseishu Domo comes first, already an original composite of relatively familiar elements arranged in an unusual way, carried by a hardcore punk attitude. The Black Bong & Flower era follows: organic focusing, blending the seams together into a singularity, and a majestic introduction to Harakawa as an artistic force in his own right. Lastly - for now, as I'd rather not call the latest phase final - Beginning to Break & I Dreamed... showcase a new sense of artistic freedom, comparatively relaxed, at times even lighthearted, refreshing, a long way from punk or metal for most, the embodiment of it all for some (myself included).

Music equally powerful in terms of melody and noise amounts to absurdity, at least if described without song, for what's the point of extreme music born of extreme plurality, a sound at once grindcore, post-rock, chaos and spoken poetry? Swarrrm is 'post-' anything, beyond everything, and all their professed chaos is but a heartfelt apparition. For further subtext, the aesthetic statements presented by the cover art are indicative of the sound within: the punk protest inherent in Against Again's (2000) tortured spider-messiah with his deathly skeleton advisors, the chaotic birth of the hellish, warmongering beast of collage on Nise Kyuseishu Domo (Thee Imitation Messiahs, 2003), the band-chimera finally directed and collected into a compact unit by Tsukasa Harakawa's magnetic voice on Black Bong (2007), the blossoming of its potential through overcoming the fear of self-awareness on Flower (2014) - significantly, an orchid - its further transformation into an all-too human, however hardened, mortal bust of Harakawa, the man and the symbol, on Beginning to Break (こわれはじめる, 2018), and, finally, the dissolutive rebirth of the original impulse in a phantasmagoric sepia-toned mirage (also Harakawa's?) of a bodily evaporation beneath the Sun on I Dreamed... (ゆめをみたの, 2021).

Beginning to Break

They took what they wanted from grindcore and transformed it. Same goes for any other affinity of theirs, be it American or French screamo, although I'd guess that most is to be found in much closer geographical proximity. Swarrrm always had a peculiar take on delivery that, if we finally allowed for comparison, might be deemed Japanese in the sense of Envy (cathartic buildups and heavy use of contrast) for their contemporaries, or even Endon for a newer, "grindgazing" (i.e. incessantly noisy) band formed in the year of Black Bong with whom they recently released a split EP (歪神論 -Evil Little Things-, 2019). However, whereas Envy builds up tension to release, Swarrrm is a constant, compressed catharsis, and therein lies the true reason to call them grindcore, albeit only as part of the unparalleled top acts, the very Gods of Grind (ahem, such as the defunct Discordance Axis; on a sidenote, I vaguely recall Kapo mentioning DA as one of his original grinding inspirations in one of the rare translated interviews). Part of the effect is achieved during mixing and mastering, as the instruments (most notably the drums) are deep into the red, colliding with Harakawa's distorted vocals, each other and the listener's eardrums, while the rest is an all natural emotional swarrrm (sic) on the senses, be it a convulsive scream or a spoken-word confession, almost whispered. Whereas Endon employs noise with intent, Swarrrm is noisy as a side-effect, and they will go as far as to introduce a cleanly sung refrain, the catch being that it too comes as a side-effect of a latent sound at the core, a paradox of joined opposites, the totality of contrasting extremities. The key difference between Swarrrm and the world is that they do not attempt to make chaos (or 'noise') out of grind as an orderly method or tool; rather, they make music out of chaos, and it rings true. All things considered, they have become a band so personal and remote from the notion of a genre, removed from trends of any sort and apparently blind to the very concept of publicity, the underground or the mainstream, neither best nor worst at anything in particular, merely astonishingly unique, totally convincing, undefeated forever & defeated over and over again by themselves.

I remember reading somewhere that "the best Swarrrm album is always their last one," and I can't help but think that whoever got that thought got it right, given the phenomenon. On I Dreamed..., their latest album, Swarrrm proves yet again that every inhalation warrants an exhalation, even if you know you won't find solace in the end.

Exhilaration? Perhaps.

Swarrrm's post-Flower albums (& split releases) are available @ Bandcamp (see also their label: LongArmsLongLegs Records).

Swarrrm's 2021 LP / ゆめをみたの - i dreamed...