Burning Star Core

The Very Heart of the World (2005)

Jesse Raub

Burning Star Core: The Very Heart of the World Vol. II; Episode IV: Japan Edition is THE only RPG to own for your Super Nintendo Entertainment System. The 16-bit graphics are awesome, and the storyline about captured princesses who have awesome magic powers that they have to unleash using summoned creatures and "metamana" is awesome, totally awesome. I mean, like, the world map feature is amazing, and so is the airship that you fly around in.

Oh wait, Burning Star Core is a band? And The Very Heart of the World is an album? Uh oh -- they're probably hippies. And not just any hippies -- spiritual, trance-out and listen to a goddamn sitar for 20 minutes hippies. Which means that the first track is about seven minutes of one droning note, possibly produced electronically, possibly produced by a bagpipe. I don't know, and I'm not sure. I do know that the song sucks. I'm not sure why I'd want to listen to it. I find Sigur Rós less boring.

The second track starts out with some badass slurping noises made by men and possibly women. It's like they recorded some crazy hippie makeout session, and then played some of it in reverse and then added electronic enhancements. You know, because the straight recording of all that hippie slobber was just not cool enough. It ends with some whistling noises and some guy chugging some milk. So I half-expected track three to start with violent vomit noises.

But it didn't! It started with some drums going in the background, sort of loosely played tribal style on a drum kit with that same goddamn hippie droning again. But hey, drums! Drums are sweet, 'cause like, without them it's not that sweet. But adding drums means that this album is slowly getting close to being the soundtrack to a pre-Bollywood Indian film.

And the fourth track completes the cycle! 15 minutes of wannabe Indian music made with much more Western instruments (did I hear a melodica in there?) and badly timed 4/4 beats. It's like an Alice Coltrane record without the musical talent. It's like what happens when I try to make a loop using Garage Band on my iBook. It's the complete absence of music recorded using a few things that might be instruments. These guys are probably like, "Oh, we'd play that song live, but we felt that the expression we gave during that recording is too good to try and emulate, so we're not going to," meaning "We totally shot some heroin, and then banged around on this shit in my basement, and we didn't even know it was being recorded. Hot damn! We have no idea how to play that song!"

They get a three, because I'd still rather listen to this than whatever you kids are listening to these days.