"Avant-garde" is one of those terms like “jazz” and “post-modern” that has become tiresome and meaningless – anything remotely out of the ordinary is suddenly a revolution to which hipsters and their remora tack these labels with seemingly no idea of what the words mean. Ueno need not live in fear of this fate – Sui-Gin is a blissful collection of beeps, boops, scrapes and other processed noises that honestly deserves the tag “avant-garde”.

When I put on my headphones and let the harp-ish strings and R2-D2 beeps play – the latter sound almost aquatic, like water dripping into a bucket in a vast, echo-y room – I find that I have been swallowed by this album. Despite the fragmented composition, each “song” is soothing and expansive, reminiscent of Harold Budd or Liquid Mind in its soundscape aesthetic. Perhaps one of the most blissful things about Sui-Gin is that it is a record beyond category; there are clearly strings and percussion of a sort, and an equally clear electronic element, yet neither “electronic” nor “instrumental” does it justice. It simply is what it is, and the freedom from trying to classify makes for a listening experience that is so much more enjoyable.

There is something Asiatic, something pseudo-Chinese in the sound of this record. The disjointed songs, the tone of the strings, the big skips from note to note, all combine to create something with the pentatonic sound of traditional Chinese opera, but with an outer-space twist. This is an exotic affair that, provided you suspend any expectations, will whisk you away to a strange and wonderful land somewhere in your head, an accomplishment that few projects in any media can claim. In that way, Ueno is akin to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, a group that never failed to transport me to someplace other than where I physically was.

This is not a record for those who need melody or structure – I should be clear about that. Though much of electronic and experimental music is broken up or heavily processed, there is usually some method that can be recognised by both artist and listener. Sui-Gin has a chaotic bent and a complete disregard for all that came before (except, perhaps, Scott Walker's The Drift, and John Zorn's I.A.O). Ueno is like an Ingmar Bergman of music: the goal is clearly to make something original and unique, maybe shocking or distasteful in some way, and in that, Ueno has unquestionably succeeded.

Sui-Gin is a work of utter brilliance. If you single out the notes and focus exclusively on the quantitative aspects, it might be easy to reduce Ueno's latest to being merely “weird” or “different.” The music carries so much else with it, though, that if you allow yourself to be carried by it, it will surely move you to a place of magic.

-Lee Stablein