Let’s do things recursively. Mekong Zoo’s Minimal Dance is exactly as its written — dance music with minimal gestures. Minimal Dance is the unlikely collaboration between two quietly pioneering Japanese female musicians and another intriguing one from England. A hybrid mix of world music, jazz, ambient, neoclassical, and burgeoning techno, it’s piece together all these styles with added twists that inspire further exploration since they’re unique to some of the interesting ideas played with here. Mekong Zoo has been quietly revealing itself to me as something truly special for some while now.
Mekong Zoo was a trio led by Japanese musicians Mieko Shimizu and Aska Kaneko, joined by British percussionist Graham Dids Dowdall and French studio wiz Dominique Brethes (founder of pioneering noise group Schleimer K.). Based in London, Mekong Zoo was an outgrowth of the offbeat RIO (Rock-In-Opposition) scene that had grown to encapsulate all sorts of musicians who couldn’t quite fit any experimental genre.
Mieko had roots in Japanese Art Pop, collaborating with brother Yasuaki Shimizu (of little known band Mariah…) on his own records, writing for others like Mami Koyama, and translating that gift into her own solo works from the late ‘80s, which I’ll get to soon enough. Keyboardist, singer, and elite sound designer, in this period in time, Mieko’s own stellar solo career had been sidelined due to lack of interest for it in the Japanese music market and she found herself working mostly as a session musician and CM writer.
Aska’s route to Mekong Zoo came via her notable session work. A master violinist and equally as gifted singer (when she desired to do so), Aska actually began her career as member of F/S favorite Takami Hasegawa’s groundbreaking post-rock, post-jazz group. Turns doing countless session work with Seigen Ono, Tomoyo Harada, Gontiti, and Morio Ogata (to name a very precious few), had presented her opportunities unheard of for most Japanese session musicians. Aska was able to headline her own groups like Adi and to contribute to the works of far flung musicians like Roger Eno and Bill Laswell, while getting call ups to play with internationally renowned companies like the London Symphony Orchestra. Versed in contemporary music and in classical, by the mid ‘90s, she was in England looking with Mieko to expand on ideas they hadn’t with others.
Graham Dowdall was able to convince ReR to reanimate Wolf Records an imprint run by Dominique Brethes that released Mieko’s debut and to try their hand at combining the Japanese art music they’d done before with tribal and ambient jazz styles they had encounter piecemeal. Graham Dowdall came from and played in bands like Suns of Arqa, with musicians like Nico, and already had experience creating ambient music. In Wolf Studios, in London, they decamped and created the album which would become Mekong Zoo.
One of the first thing that surprises you about Minimal Dance is how largely it’s driven by percussion and vocals. “Yaada” kicks off the album with electronic talking drums that appear African inspired. However, as the song grows things that untether it from any specific tradition seep in. Aska’s carnatic-influenced electric violin and wordless singing finds the midpoint between Cocteau Twins and something off ECM’s label. Mieko contributes floating synth pads that would sound stellar in some chill out music tent. “Kasta” then comes in with a different experience, using dual and triple multi-tracked vocals from all the members to imbibe the music with a tantric feeling. “The Last Whale” divines the dance floor via hypnotic Dowdall arrangements providing a place for Aska and Mieko to flesh out ethereal improvisations more personal than modal.
It’s a gorgeous album that, on the surface, does sound like it takes cues from dance music but below it seems to find technical inspiration from prog and jazz to create meditative and heartfelt deviations from any known routes. Compare the lifespan from “Nustarian” to “Confessions”. The former seems like it’s roots revolve in the heady world of ambient dance jazz from the misunderstood likes of Michael Cretu’s Enigma (“Sadeness” comes to mind…) while the latter admits that stuff that’s out of vogue, needs its champion, using looping/loping neoclassical and New Age motifs as things more powerful than mere mood music, approaching the rare air of early choral music sublimating into gorgeous electronic masses of, then, contemporary “trance” music. On “Confessions” newfound technology makes the brushwork of this new art form impressively textured and unrecognizable. It’s in moments like these that Minimal Dance sounds so ancient but knowingly so futuristic.
As impressive as this album sounds, I still remain surprised they went no further. Take this album out for a walk. Close your eyes at home with it. For such a minimalist idea the widescreen moments are indeed special.