[Editor’s note: Ball of Wax 63 is available now for pre-order! Grab your copy now, and join us for a live streaming release show on Saturday, March 20th at 7pm PDT on Facebook Live!]
I’ve found myself introduced to several multimedia/multidisciplinary works in the last year. While I’ve yet to produce such a piece of art myself, the idea has long intrigued me, and it’s both inspiring and thrilling to see independent artists diving in, sharing their myriad talents, and essentially baring their souls for us.
“II. Yoyogi Park” is one such work and, if I’ve followed the right threads, is the second movement of a musical extension of a poem narrative called One and Half of You by one Leanne Dunic (who I’m hoping is the artist here called tidepools). I have not yet read the book, but my feelers are out for a copy. In the meantime, I have fortune and Levi to thank for bringing into my orbit this gorgeous opener to the newest edition of Ball of Wax.
Melodically playful and lazily ebullient (work with me here) like an orchestra made of toys, synths, and offstage pianos filtered through a transistor radio as conducted by a microdosing maestra making up the composition on the spot, “Yoyogi Park” hooks the ear immediately and refuses to let go until the last chord, adding and stripping away layers in a way that insists on repeated listens. Full disclosure: I am a headphone listener because I need to hear those little nuances that make the best music come alive and build its nest in your brain. This is what “Yoyogi Park” has done for me and for that I am warmly thankful. Added disclosure: I’m having difficulty getting through this review because I have this song on repeat and I’m constantly interrupting my typing to whip my hands about in the air after the manner of the conductor I’ve imagined.
BONUS: Go to tidepools’ Bandcamp page and listen to all three movements of One and Half of You and become as enamored as I have with these aural confections!