ALBUM REVIEW: P.H.0 - Karma

P.H.0's full-length debut, Karma, combines cyber-synthwave, black metal, drum & bass, and East Asian traditional music into a head-spinning, reality-warping fusion.

Reviewed by Alex "Ash" Han

 

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Before reading this review, be sure to stream Karma via P.H.0's Linktree page!

 

FEW THINGS ARE AS EXCITING as an LP which fully commits itself to breaking genre barriers and challenging our preconceived notions of how to categorize music. In this regard, it's hard to think of a more striking example than P.H.0's debut album Karma, released at the tail end of last month. Though this album rollout took place at a bit of an inopportune time for me—mainly because I was getting steamrolled by a particularly brutal final exam period at the time—Karma has soundtracked much of the last three weeks for me, mostly on account of its insane depth and level of commitment to its crossgenre spirit. For me, this is an album which seems to throw me something new every time I put it on, with a seemingly-bottomless repository of details that speak to the amount of love & care that went into this thing.

Borne out of the collision of talents between five alumni of the MTech graduate program—producer Howard "Sen" Ouyang, drummer Pierre Zheyu Pi, guitarist Jun Guo, erhuist Danting "Chi-Chi" Qiao, and modular synth artist Minghim Tong—the eclecticism that defines P.H.0's work is evident just from the lineup. My first taste of P.H.0 came in the form of "Ascension", the lead single from Karma, which showcased an epic, larger-than-life collision between Mongolian morin khuur music, black metal, and breakcore. That song showcased a number of really compelling crossover points between the various artists in P.H.0's lineup, as "Ascension" threw us a ton of moments wherein everyone just seemed to click, their synergy propelling the song forward with an infectious and relentless sense of momentum. In short, hearing a lead single as interesting and driven as "Ascension" really got my hopes up going into Karma, and I found myself hoping that the whole LP would build on the wild eclecticism and impeccable pacing of their prior material. Suffice it to say that that expectation was definitively met, as Karma proved to be nothing less than a rollercoaster ride of mind-boggling proportions, pulling from a world's worth of different sounds to create a very compelling showcase of the artistic identity that makes P.H.0 who they are.

"To say Karma is a meticulously planned project is an absolute exaggeration, as it was initially intended to be an EP but quickly grew into a full-length album because we are an indecisive bunch with a strong tendency toward perfectionism, which can be excessively fastidious at times. However, despite resulting in a very intensive production and engineering process, that insistence on perfectionism is what made us very proud of the end product, and we are finally able to share with you our debut album: Karma." –Howard Ouyang a.k.a. Sen

 

The LP opens with "Vanity", featuring a distant East Asian traditional sample replete with pentatonic woodwind melodies and tangu drumbeats before crashing into a black metal breakdown anchored in heavy guitars and huge acoustic drums. The momentum of the pounding drums lends the LP a very real sense of urgency and energy from the track's opening seconds, blasting out of the gates with a great degree of fanfare. Pierre and Jun combine to make for a very compelling introduction to the universe of P.H.0, combining hard-hitting drumming with thick, distorted metal riffs that jacks the energy up to 11. Minghim also makes an early appearance here, contributing little synthesizer notes and sound effects that flicker in and out of each ear, which add a nice bit of diversification to the rhythmic soundscape provided by Pierre's drums. Before long, we hit a huge curveball of a sudden tempo slowdown that seems ripe for headbanging, giving Minghim's wailing background synth textures and Jun's heavy guitar a moment to shine. Soon after, though, the tempo speeds back up to normal, and Jun throws us some clean arpeggiated guitar picking over tangu drums; Chi-Chi's erhu makes its first appearance here, its weeping, singsong timbre making for an excellent break from the heavy metal wall of sound textures that defined the track's first half. Chi-Chi's erhu playing is truly beautiful, lending the track a really nice expressive and contemplative edge that serves as a nice contrast with the track's more aggressive metal leanings. Chi-Chi maintains her posture as the lead performer throughout this second leg of the track, even as the background synths begin to swell and we collapse into a section backed by electronic drums and sidechained synth bass, serving as a detour into a sort of listing, darkwave-esque groove. I thought the sidechaining of Jun's distorted chords to the kick drum was really well done here, and gave this section a really nice sort of hybrid synthwave/metal vibe I really enjoyed. In short, "Vanity" feels excellent in terms of its pacing; no one section drags for too long, and the arrangement choices made in taking us from metal to erhu soloing to synthwave feel earned and natural. The journey-like experience of this track is excellent, and it does a wonderful job at capturing a meandering, winding path through many different musical territories that sets up the ground we're to cover in the rest of the LP very well.

"…the opening track 'Vanity' started over a year ago, even before the band was formed, as Howard’s experiment with the goal of integrating Beiguan, a traditional form of music that originated in northern Taiwan in the 17th century, with laser-like guitar riffs that aim to imitate the atonality and the articulation of the suona, a traditional Chinese wind instrument commonly used in Beiguan… Jun, bringing his post-rock influences, added an ambient guitar section filled with reverb washes, which inspired Howard to add an erhu solo on top of it as well as Pierre to follow up the post-rock section with a synthwave breakdown combined with Djent-like, palm-muted riffs and a lead part played with a real suona by our friend Tong, a professional Chinese flute and suona player based here in the city. What was originally a straightforward, mosh pit-friendly experimental metal track became an amalgamation of our musical experiences spanning across progressive metal, post-rock, synthwave, and traditional Chinese folk music." –Howard Ouyang a.k.a. Sen

The LP's second track, "Shin (feat. Her Dark Heaven)", opens on a heavy, cinematic sweeping pad sound punctuated by little synth notes here and there. A distant vocal sample soon layers over the soundscape, asking, "where's the substance, the substance of the soul?", which I thought made for a nice meditative vibe. Jun plays a clean, Metallica-esque riff over a heavy, harmonically rich synthwave sub bass as the slowly-building synth arps and touches of Chi-Chi's faraway, reverb-soaked erhu build tension in the back. The track reads like something of an interlude to me, and though I'm not normally a fan of interludes appearing this early in the tracklist, the swell into the subsequent track "Yè" is amazing and works really well as a buildup within the context of the greater project's pacing.

"My life is split into two parts: during the day, I follow the rules, working along the L train between Bushwick and Chinatown. I present myself as the ideal image that my parents, who believe in the Chinese Communist dream, prefer. Every day, they remind me about my life in America—on the other side of the Earth—which they both hate and miss deeply.
At night, I tear off my stockings and immerse myself in the horror of the darkness, enjoying the collective nightmare of a surreal and bizarre humanity, as if the rules and suffering of the daytime no longer exist. I no longer remember how I clutched my visa and struggled to survive on this land, forgetting how people reminded me that different faces and voices were my sins.
At this moment, my music is my scream, it is the only language I have in my panic. It represents me, if you listen." –Danting Qiao a.k.a. Chi-Chi

Jun's riff from "Shin" continues and grows into "Yè (feat. Her Dark Heaven)", the third track on Karma. Heavy metal chugs punctuate the soundscape between shredded melodic passages on electric guitar, loosely echoed by Minghim's screaming synth textures in the background. Distant, almost-androgynous, light vocals enter during the verse, bringing a plaintive timbre alongside octave doubling and supremely catchy, soaring melodies. Vocalist Jack Doyle's vocal performance on the track is awesome, bringing a somewhat disaffected, numb-sounding emotional texture that nonetheless conveys a great deal of pathos, reminding me a bit of Julian Casablancas in the process. Amidst this titanic vocal chorus, we catch little atmospheric washes of erhu and occasional clean guitar chords poking through the soundscape, which I thought made for a really nice touch. The middle section brings a come-down moment where Jun's melodic guitar gradually builds layers on top of itself in polyphonic harmony before pulling back slightly to make room for Minghim's textural synth touches. The whole band feels utterly locked in on this track in particular, with each member seamlessly coming to the forefront at select moments and passing the spotlight around; Jun and Chi-Chi have excellent interplay as the two predominantly "lead" performers, if you will, backed by Minghim, Howard, and Pierre in equal measure. Nevertheless, the soundscape never threatens to overwhelm Jack, whose lead vocals anchor the track and provide a nice sense of pathos to play off of Chi-Chi's expressive erhu playing. In short, I thought the pacing of this track was particularly excellent, and the interplay between each member of P.H.0 was done really smartly as well. After an ending section featuring a half-time breakdown where the vocals return, the track ends and we fade out to the sound of static noise.

"The title track 'Yè' (or 'Karma' in English) and its overture 'Shin' are the only two tracks with vocals (huge props to our great friend Jack Doyle from Her Dark Heaven for contributing their angelic vocal!) that we wrote from scratch and later produced together as a group. 'Yé' started as two guitar parts written by Howard playing pentatonic scales to imitate traditional Chinese plucked string instruments, but what truly defined it was Jun's addition of an ambient guitar lead that set the tone of the track: ethereal, heavy, at times eerie, and most importantly, East Asian — and not in the Western, on-the-surface sense where we could simply add a gong at the beginning of every section or a sample of any traditional East Asian instrument on top of a heavy metal or EDM instrumental." –Howard Ouyang a.k.a. Sen

"Jiva" begins with muffled, sub-heavy, pounding drum pattern, eventually becoming ornamented with additional shakers and percussion. Jun's guitar outlines a distorted, wailing melody in Phrygian dominant mode to introduce us to the harmonic soundscape of the track, setting the mood with a rather alien and desolate vibe. Chittering percussion and ambiguously tonal synth pads contribute to the growing apocalyptic mood of the track, before we hit a short vocoder break, followed by a tempo change that speeds us up and ratchets up the energy of the track. Electronic drums and heavy bass enter in full force, taking us into another synthwave/metal crossover section featuring octave-lead guitar and swelling synth arrangements. The vocoder returns, outlining a cacophony of speaking voices, talking over one another and becoming increasingly digitized in a really cool moment that evokes a sort of robotic symphony. "Jiva" feels like a sonic hurricane, a barrage of sounds that nonetheless remains tightly focused and evocative of some really cool sonic territory.

"The modular synth and the erhu production started later in the entire production pipeline, taking place mostly at Minghim’s studio apartment where he recorded and [engineered] the erhu by himself. Minghim’s addition of modular synth and additional production works also elevate the production value of the entire record, most notably on 'Jiva' and 'Wu Wuo': for example, the fragmented, modular chaos at the end of 'Jiva', which was made using Howard’s and his wife’s recitation of a poem from the game Cyberpunk 2077, and the thick, immersive layers of textures and pads under the erhu solo in 'Wu Wuo'." –Howard Ouyang a.k.a. Sen

The LP's fifth track, "Mo", features drum & bass influences front and center, as we open on a distant, weeping string sample and an uptempo, sped-up breakbeat. Chi-Chi's pentatonic erhu melodies are once again utilized nicely over a huge sub bass and distant, wailing pads. Minghim hits us with a breakdown section augmented with stereoized downers and distant flashes of chopped-up erhu in a moment that I thought made for a really cool moment of calm before the storm. However, in true P.H.0 fashion, it isn't long before we return to the aesthetics of black metal & doom metal. Pierre brings us a rapidly-subdivded kick drum and a syncopated rhythm that synergizes well with Jun's heavy chugs. Soon, the rhythm section finds a steady, driving pulse, where Minghim gets the lead, articulating some cool, icy synth melodies over the top of Jun's wall of guitars. A really cool moment came during a 12/8 time switch, where a plucked string instrument enters the stereo field; I'm not totally certain, but I think the string instrument is a guzheng, which made for a super cool addition that feels right at home amidst the guitars somehow. I remained seriously wowed by the intersectionality of P.H.0's synthesis of traditional East Asian instruments within an electronic metal context, and I thought that the inclusion of the guzheng here was a really tastefully done example of this. Shortly thereafter, Chi-Chi gets an erhu solo where she truly shreds, playing some super impressive fast riffs over Jun's massive guitar backing. In keeping with P.H.0's signature sound, "Mo" is another track which feels like a journey from start to finish, with stops along the way in various musical landscapes which P.H.0 harnesses and makes their own.

"Maruya" is a shorter track, clocking in at just under two minutes, and opens on a distorted, warped, almost-vocal sample. Minghim's synth textures soon enter to provide a steady arpeggiated techno, acid-house bassline, augmented with pleasant dissonances and faraway flashes of percussion. The track maintains a dynamic and constantly shifting soundscape on account of the use of arrangement FX and moving filters, which I thought was really cool. Soon, we get a four-on-the-floor kick which steadily builds energy heading into a huge key change accompanied by icy, howling synth pads and a haunting, arrhythmic vocoder. The cinematic, sweeping energy of this track is truly awesome, and feels like a movie trailer-sized spin on the artistic leanings of artists like Kid Reno. The inclusion of this interlude-like track made for a nice moment of respite from the otherwise-breakneck pace that defines this LP, allowing the listener to take a breath and be quietly immersed in the heady, apocalyptic, cyberpunk world of Karma for a second, while also serving as a very compelling showcase of Minghim and Howard's talents.

"Wu Wuo" returns us to techno territory, kicking off with a steady kick pulse and warped, robotic vocal samples. The Kid Reno & Dog Collar parallels remained strong for me here, with the heavy, subby pulse of the drums reminding me a little of the Ecliptic collaboration track "jacuzzi" from Dog Collar's Jungle Fairy Tale EP last year. Flickering percussion breakbeats (maybe bongos?) pair with offbeat open hats to create an interesting cross-section of traditional music that nonetheless exists in firmly electronic territory. Soon, Jun's guitar comes crashing in, outlining an indisputably sick Phrygian riff that intertwines throughout Chi-Chi's erhu passages. The interplay between Chi-Chi and Jun is showcased really well here, I feel, with both getting plenty of chances to solo and flex their instrumental chops; in particular, Chi-Chi's rapid, nimble sixteenth note shreds made for a really cool addition. A spoken, 1950s radio play-esque vocal sample plays over a short break, proclaiming the forthcoming abolishment of worldly pleasures in a moment that furthers Karma's ominous vision of the future. Finally, there's a really cool halftime break in the last leg of the track where the guitar breaks off into syncopated chugs as Minghim's wailing synth textures take up residence in the background before the track's eventual end. On first listen, the dynamism that so often defines P.H.0's work for me felt less present here, and I felt less like I was being taken on a journey as compared to some of the other more rhapsodic endeavors in the tracklist, but as I've come back to this track more and more, it's slowly entrenched itself as being one of my favorites on the album. The apocalyptic soundscape of Karma is conveyed nowhere better than through the distant spoken proclamations, erhu shredding, pounding subs, and crashing metal riffs of "Wu Wuo", and the vibe of this track is nothing short of incredible.

"Bodhaka" is another short, interlude-style track that opens on soaring, dark-80s cyberwave synths before collapsing into a huge open fifths vocal sample that rides the line between organic and synthetic. Minghim's sound design really shines here, with a ton of cool evolving chord tones that incrementally fade in and out to keep the musical soundscape slowly yet resolutely moving forward. Around halfway through, the track enters a big switchup with a bunch of pseudo-vocal synth pads entering, accompanied by what sounds like a distant howl in the background. It's a really cool sound; I'm not sure whether its origins are organic or fully synthetic in nature, but either way, it makes for a really cool cinematic moment, a cloud-clearing rush that takes us into the LP's final act.

"While most drum parts were pre-programmed by Howard for demo purposes, Pierre, as the drummer of the band, was in charge of programming the drums, selecting kits, and perfecting the flow of the drums to make them sound realistic when they needed to. We used a mix of virtual drum instrument plugins by GetGood Drums and stock Ableton drum samples." –Howard Ouyang a.k.a. Sen

"Genko", the penultimate track on Karma, opens with a pulsing, cybernetic D minor synth groove that rather reminded me of the soundtrack to Detroit: Become Human for some reason. A lead melody soon enters over the faraway, muted pulse of the kick drum, taking the form of an erhu sidechained in quarter notes, which I thought made for a really nice touch of extra dynamism, even amongst Chi-Chi's already very expressive playing. The Phrygian zither countermelodies sound excellent in context, once again showcasing P.H.0's ability to combine melodic textures from synthetic and Asian traditional soundscapes. The track hits with a huge beat drop that takes us into a synthwave drum pattern consisting of a steadily rising & falling hi-hat pattern over a reverbed, snappy snare drum and a solid kick. The momentum of this thing feels very unwavering and purposeful, evoking images like an android factory assembly line, metallic robot arms clanging in unison up and down the way. Eventually, we break into a clanging snare with trap hi-hat rolls over a detuned synth bass and distant claps that shake up the groove a little and take us into loosely cyberpunk-ish Eurobeat territory. I thought this little change in sound selection was really nice, and made for a continuation of the previously-established vibe while still throwing us enough new material to keep us entertained. There's a nice middle section where all the synth lines slowly become more noisy, distorted, and hi-passed, before we fall back into a heavy guitar-driven section. The tempo/meter switch into 5/4 time that happens here didn't quite feel totally natural to me, though it did make the eventual return to common time amidst Jun's syncopated chugs and Chi-Chi's soaring lead that much more satisfying, so I suppose it works as a structural element. "Genko" definitely feels like an ambitious piece of work, and I really appreciated its heavier lean into the cyberpunk aesthetic of P.H.0's work—the seamless evocation of dark, neon-lit skyscrapers under a desolate, gray sky thick with smog works excellently here, and I found myself pulled even more firmly into the world of P.H.0 for a second.

With that vivid image still fresh in my mind, returning to "Ascension" felt like coming home. This song had served as my introduction to the work of P.H.0 in the first place, and it served in that role in remarkable fashion, articulating a sharp, edgy, striking picture through a laser-focused artistic vision. The momentous, cinematic, morin khuur-laden buildup right from the start of the track hits that much harder now that it arrives at album's end, and the arrival of each element one by one—the soaring erhu, the fast-paced breakbeat, the growling sub bass, the chunky, jagged power chords—feels like each band member returning to the stage at the end of the show for one last hurrah, leaving everything out there once and for all. In short, it's a listening experience of epic proportions, and its inclusion here as the last track on the album was a fitting choice. Karma goes out much the same way it came in—as the final whisper of erhu fades away, Karma cements itself as an explosive whirlwind of sounds, sandblasting its way out of the gates, whistling & howling as it whips away amidst the current, leaving behind a windswept cityscape begging for more.

"What we want is to create something new using both Western and Eastern musical elements and based on the musical framework of the East and give these historically rich and now endangered musical instruments, techniques, and ideas the representation and the reinvigoration they deserve and desperately need. We aimed to capture the essence of East Asian music not by merely adding traditional instruments as superficial ornamentation but by reflecting our social, cultural, historical, and religious experiences living in various parts of East Asia, from Taiwan and China to Japan. This very much encompasses the core theme of this record: expand upon the more Western-dominated musical palette, make musical elements derived from Western music traditions serve the musical framework of the East instead of the other way around, and develop our unique musical language, which is authentic and truly East Asian. In that sense, P.H.0 is an 'experimental' band, serving as an experiment in flipping the power dynamic between the musical framework of the East and the current musical landscape dominated by Western music traditions." –Howard Ouyang a.k.a. Sen

 

Karma is an album that exists firmly entrenched in a crossroads of sorts; the various influences from heavy metal, drum and bass, synthwave, and East Asian folk music are combined and incorporated into each other in a tasteful and natural fashion to give rise to a fusion sound that truly belongs to P.H.0 in a way not many artists can claim. Each of the contributions of P.H.0's five members feel clear and distinct, pulling from a diverse selection of different lived experiences & musical backgrounds that nonetheless come together into a cogent & cohesive whole that feels far greater than the sum of its individual parts. For me, the album experience encapsulated a really poignant summation of my own experience as a product of the Asian-American diaspora. Maybe it's the album's ability to adapt familiar Western musical elements to a distinctly Eastern context that feels very evocative of my own longing to reconnect with a culture and heritage from which I have always been distanced; as a child, my own parents made an effort to make sure I assimilated into American life, and I did so successfully, but at the cost of my connections with my Chinese and Korean heritage. My own lack of immersion into my family's culture and inability to speak their languages permanently distances me from ever being truly accepted as being a part of that society and world, and perhaps it is for this reason that I found Karma so powerful. Language might be learned, but music is universal, and as such, this album has a unique ability to bridge the gap across which myself, as well as many others, including the members of P.H.0, exist.

 

In short, this LP is incredible, and hits very close to home. From start to finish, the intentionality of this LP remains its biggest selling point; despite the huge diversity in sounds from which the members of P.H.0 pull, they remain resolutely self-assured as they forge a new path into uncharted territory. The creative vision behind this LP is truly striking—the band's goal of recontextualizing Western sounds in an Eastern framework is compelling from the outset, but it was evident even from the very first listen that their conceptualization of the sound they want to be associated with is crystal clear. Not one single track on this album feels like a half-baked idea, or a loose figment of an ill-fated artistic experiment that never should have left the drawing board. The imagery elicited by this album was also extremely strong, and I found its creative vision to be exceptionally vivid and striking as a result; the conceptualization and execution of Howard's vision was achieved remarkably well on account of everyone's careful contributions, innovative sound design, and excellent management of their own soundscape. Aside from a few minor points of contention with the mix, which are likely stemming from my own personal preferences anyways, this LP is bulletproof. Karma is likely to be one of the most striking debuts I've heard in a long time, and I fully consider myself to be aboard the P.H.0 hype train now—wherever they take us next, I'm sure that both the destination and the journey will deliver something insightful, profound, and ascendant, and I await eagerly for them to take us there.

Personal enjoyment score: 10 out of 10

Standout tracks: "Vanity", "Yè (feat. Her Dark Heaven)", "Mo", "Wu Wuo", "Ascension"