There is still a sense of forceful danger to Ono's early records, crystallised in Plastic Ono Band and Fly. When the needle crashes onto the vinyl and Lennon's guitar sparks into action, an incredible freedom flight emerges, which almost kicks Ono into a frenzy of screaming and screeching in retaliation, stretching beyond rock's safe language into free jazz assault. Spread across those albums is an intense physicality and an enjoyment of textured, studio experimentation. More uncontrolled than most of her far more valued contemporaries and less regular than some of the punk rock she was supposed to have been a pioneer of, she later fell into writing songs that weren't as daring or spontaneous but were pretty off the wall and once in a while she'd create something invigoratingly strange and thrillingly catchy. Ono is an outsider, despite her fame and age, she has a much needed arrogance to fight conventional derision and a continuous urge for adventure.
On her collaboration with Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore she explores an unsteady, ceremonial territory which links back to her initial Cage inspired improvisations. Her guttural, harrowing yet tender voice often setting fearful words against Gordon's sombre intonations. Layers of guitar tones map shivers and drones, ghostly whispers for her to build a waste landscape which sees the idyllic through challenge. There is a feeling that she has been stripped of her positivity and been left to experience a cold emptiness perturbed by strangled notes between the silence. It is sometimes rare for seasoned players to allow an element of worry in their music, an uncomfortable, disturbed concern of where the tunnel might extend. Often arid confrontation can be expected from forms of so-called oppositional interruption, Ono here does not devour chaos but instead seems to internalise it's force, casting a shield with vigilance, armed and amorous.
