This certainly touched our yes.
[Video][Website]
[7.10]
Ryo Miyauchi: This relentless firestorm of a rock song musically compacts her entire kitixxxgaia album into a 5-minute pop single, so Seiko Oomori understandably had to cut a good portion of it for a late-night TV performance. Out went the year’s best opening gag: “Moshi moshi, it’s me, God. Wait, you don’t know who I am? Proof? Hm…” But curiously, she also had to censor out “fuck you.” A petty edit, not just because this aired on Japanese TV, but also every other lyric is far more radical for a frankly conservative public to hear. “Dogma Magma” follows Oomori, a deity who wakes up in the mortal form of a Japanese woman and discovers this society won’t take her seriously without following certain rules. She shreds apart those rules in regards to gender, marriage, labor, beauty standards and any other societal pressures unabashedly as she blitzes through her sprawling rock music. Hearing a musician who vaguely looks like me (at least from a foreigner’s eye) scream things like “I can’t even go outside in this body without putting on make up,” “I don’t really want to get married, I’m content, so don’t mind me,” or “ugly or just a piece of shit, I want to change the world” in my first language shattered my world. Now, watching her do the same but for a live audience? It’s a miracle any part of “Dogma Magma” was even allowed for broadcast in the first place.
[10]
Katherine St Asaph: Like elevator music for the malfunctioning Tower of Terror that was 2017. It’s better as song.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: “Dogma Magma” has ambition oozing out of every corner of it, but at five minutes long it kind of feels like ten. The opening verse sounds suspiciously like “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and Oomori squeaks large portions of the song, struggling to be heard above musical theatre armageddon. Ambition not fully realised for mine, but an impressive racket anyway.
[5]
Juana Giaimo: Probably not the right song to listen to after a yoga class. The desperation of Seiko Oomori is out of control and by the end, the sweet beginning is completely overshadow by the hellish end. “Dogma Magma” is a song that I can find musically interesting but hard to relate to.
[5]
Will Adams: Given how much Seiko Oomori’s voice sells the bombastic arrangement, the additional flourishes via phone chatter, whole tone dream runs, accordion waltz and blockbuster explosion feel unnecessary. Still, “Dogma Magma” is a rush to listen to no matter how up for the pyrotechnics you are.
[6]
Josh Langhoff: This volcanic spew of ideas couldn’t have been made by ’70s Tubes or ’80s John Zorn, but it seems like something they’d dig. The song opens with a gong. Other items of note include abrupt tempo shifts and mixed meters, catchy hooks, a drummer who’s exceptionally proud of her cymbals, a double-time DDR hardcore bit for a bridge, two seconds of French cafe waltz, and the English command “touch my yes,” which pretty much sums up the aesthetic here.
[7]
Alfred Soto: Tour de forces impress and exhaust — that’s the point of them. This mishmash of the show tunes ethos, the wilder bits of Coltrane, and J-pop shouldn’t be consumed at a single sitting. Play one section, pause, grab a glass of water, return, pause.
[5]
Micha Cavaseno: Sometimes, life feels like a giant parody of a parody no matter how hard you try to point out its absurdities. Nothing’s too special in pointing out the mundanity of life, and inevitably in trying to point out how the world’s a fool, you look like a fool. So sometimes, the best way to go about is to mock yourself and the world all at once, so nobody’s safe! JOKE’S ON YOU BUDDY, Seiko Oomori’s in on the joke! She is the joke! You’re the joke! It’s all jokes! And the best way Seiko lands all of her punchlines is the scrape of sincerity with a will to disprove both, undermining herself thematically and sonically to make those bursts of seeming earnestness so dizzy; they could easily be real or yet another joke in themselves. When you spend enough time proving that everything bad is good and what’s good is bad, you’re never quite sure.
[8]
Iain Mew: It’s a big musical number, and there’s one woman at a piano playing a brisk showtune, but the curtains are moving and there are all kinds of horrors and wonders hiding in the shadows, waiting on hidden cues to each pounce out for their moment. By the end the piano is probably on fire too. But the real trick is that, even amidst the ludicrous spectacle, it’s impossible to turn attention away from her voice.
[8]
Nortey Dowuona: A propulsive, energetic, brilliant pop song that skews between pillowy piano, simple, humming bass, scalpel sharp guitar and thick, gushy and solid drums and raspy, sparkling guitar, grim, unflinching bass and rapid, viscous drums.The singing is…/I gotta./Do it for the culture./////////#Blessed.
[10]