There is a rare thrill in hearing three seasoned musicians return to the studio. Minako, the debut LP from We Contain Multitudes is a record that shines with experience, knowledge, creativity, talent, skills, brilliant ideas, and outstanding musicianship. It takes its time, it moves with purpose, and it never loses its hold on attention. The band’s lineup carries an impressive pedigree. Guitarist Jon Fine and drummer Orestes Morfin first made their mark in the late 1980s with Bitch Magnet, landmark players in the American post‑hardcore underground. They later split paths, only to rejoin for reunion tours in 2011 and 2012. Along the way, Fine worked with Don Caballero, Morfin joined bands like Walt Mink and Bored Spies, and they both later sought a bassist with a deeper melodic sense. They found that in Simon Kobayashi of smallgang and Hurtling fame. That trio-driving chemistry is precisely what Minako captures. Over seven years in incubation, through the upheaval of pandemic isolation, three distant lives in New York, Tucson, and London have converged here. The result is a layered work of instrumental intelligence and quiet haste.
From the moment the tone settles into the first inverted chord, Minako establishes its terrain, heavy, intricate, and deeply instrumental. This is not music for passive listening. It demands engagement. It doesn’t hand you melodies. It presents textures and turns that unfold in your hands. Sometimes sparse, sometimes dense, but always intentional. The band’s approach is precise enough to show their math‑rock roots, but unafraid of noise‑rock abandon. It is post‑punk logic, post‑rock mood, and a riff structure that nods to the heaviest corners of King Crimson and Neurosis. Yet it is neither retrospective nor derivative. It is forward‑looking. Producer Abe Seiferth joins Fine, Morfin, and Kobayashi in crafting a dynamic and detailed sound. The mix lets the low-end rumble but not overwhelm. The upper registers, guitar harmonics, cymbal sizzle, and synth hum, are revealed with clarity. Every instrument has its own airspace. And when the trio seeks maximalism, they crash together like tectonic plates. There is room to move, and momentum always drives forward. This is the sound of musicians asking questions of each other. It is music that responds in real-time. It takes patience and rewards it. In a shift from their post-hardcore pasts, the songs breathe between peaks. They start grounded, then spiral outward, and then settle again. Nothing overstays its welcome. Even at ten minutes in length, these tracks feel focused. There is so much power in what the band leaves unsaid. Without vocals, every note becomes a voice and every silence is a sentence. That is where Minako finds its poetry. A refrain returns not because of melody, but because of rhythm. A chord returns not because of progression, but because of contrast. You feel the tension between repetition and rupture. We Contain Multitudes gives us pieces that operate as units and as parts of a living organism.
Instrumental bands often face the risk of abstraction. They can drift into prettiness or stiffness. But Minako never loses gravity. It has weight and life because each musician anchors the other. Morfin’s drums are propulsive and full of texture, never metronomic. Fine’s guitar work ranges from brittle angles to swelling chords, often carrying melodies that start and stop at the edge of perception. Kobayashi’s bass holds it all together but never stays hidden. It moves in counterpoint and tandem. It is always on the edge of song and encore. This is a band that took time to find its sound. Minako feels the better for it. What feels anarchic in your ears is actually carefully constructed, but that construction is invisible. It unfolds from within the music, and you lean in, follow, and discover it. To call it noise rock doesn’t quite fit the palette. Math rock doesn’t capture the breadth. Post‑rock only tells part of the story. The record feels post‑everything. It is music for the living room and the concert halls. It is physics and architecture made of riffs. Expert Work Records, the label behind Minako, has released the LP in an ultra-limited orange and standard black double vinyl. The vinyl’s heft and color mirror the album’s qualities, vibrant, tactile, and rare. Here, playing the record feels like a ceremony. It is cinema for the ears. Some will hear this and miss the thrill of a vocal hook. They may yearn for the direct voice that guides them through this material, but such a reaction would miss the point. This is an instrumental rock album that has found its shape in complexity and texture. The human voice may not appear, but you sense musical conversation between the band members. You see the blank space where a singer might stand, and then realize you don’t need that voice because you hear the soul behind the beats and strings.
Minako also presses upon us the thrill of craft. There are themes, textural hues, rhythmic motifs, and tonal color shifts that return across the record. You feel a narrative arch in instrumentation and hear emotional shifts though there are no lyrics. That is not easy to pull off. No singer, no chord box, no frills beyond precision drums, bass, and guitar. Yet beyond those basics, they create amplitude, intelligence, atmosphere, and movement. They build songs that feel alive, and they do so with every note earned. The band sounds unhurried, unafraid, honest, and alive. In its way, Minako is a lesson in how far music can reach when you peel away everything unnecessary. In Minako, We Contain Multitudes have done what they set out to do. They gathered their distance and disconnected studio sessions and turned them into something that takes shape slowly and deliberately, vibrates internally, and then blooms fully. It bleeds in every direction, complex and cinematic. It is post-whatever, but never post-heart. They have made a record worth the wait, spins, and gossip of reunion duties and yesterday’s glory. It is music that loves the body of sound, the space between notes, and the minds that listen. Minako doesn’t tell you how to feel, but it gives you the capacity to feel. It’s not just the product of distance brought together, it is the result of collision. This is the instrumental rock without boundaries and you should immediately head over to Expert Work Records and grab this gem on limited orange or standard black double vinyl.
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