Japanese experimental musician Keiji Haino released “Koko” in late 2003, comprising of a single 31-minute long track. Though Haino typically dabbles in very discordant, jarring experimental music – often favoring free improvisation and noise – “Koko” offers a much different sound.
It takes a very atmospheric and ambient route, with gorgeous, echoey guitar strumming adorning the instrumental throughout its runtime. Haino’s vocals also come across as particularly beautiful, as he sings in a beautiful falsetto that compliments the space-y instrumental perfectly.
The entire piece comes across as very melancholic and almost heartbreaking, though what the song is about isn’t exactly clear. Most of the vocals are choir-esque in that they don’t have actual sung lyrics. However, lyrics do come in towards the last third of the song, but unfortunately none of them are publicly available.
Despite this language barrier, it still gets its emotions across. Its emotional tone becomes especially clear and potent towards the end, with louder guitars coming in and creating a thick layer of harmony on top of the instrumental, effectively obfuscating a good portion of it and coming off almost claustrophobic.
This ramping intensity continues right until the last minute or so, when it abruptly cuts off before building back up after a moment of silence and dropping off again.
It’s this very distraught, anxious and heartbroken weight that this song brings that truly makes it special. It feels almost as though the song itself is mourning the loss of someone or something. It’s utterly gorgeous and absolutely absorbs the listener, making the half hour runtime fly by.
Rating: 10/10