Music Extreme:
Here we have amazing experiomentation with sounds and electronics constructing weird soundscapes through all the compositions of this album. Here we have sounds that when are put together in the correct way achieve full coherence and create passages full of originality. Doug Theriault uses a sensor guitar that triggers this sort of sound and he manages this noises, sound lines perfectly keeping everything under control but surprising constantly. And all the sounds that are delivered here, besides being spontaneous, have the quality of fitting really well the wave of other sounds that Theriault has delivered previously. The compositions here have no limits regarding to experimentation and Theriault constantly surprises with new ideas and sonoric experiments. An album for lovers of experimental music and originality.
Federico Marongiu (www.musicextreme.com July 2005)

Music Extreme:
This is pure experimentation with sounds, with some jazz elements and also with some hip hop rhythms here and there (also...is it tango a piece that is in the middle of track 1?). But everything here has a lot of sense of humour. This duo (Doug Theriault on sensor guitar and David Chandler on Percussion and synthesizer) is absolutely crazy and experiments with musical pieces and parts and also with a lot of noises and sounds delivering passages of absolute sonic madness. The good thing is that the experimentation does not overwhelm the listener because of the use of some recognizible sound bits and because of the use of some melodic parts here and there. If you like experimental music then you must check this one.
Federico Marongiu (www.musicextreme.com August 2005)

Willamette Week:
local CUT: THE CURE FOR PORTLAND MUSIC FEVER Ainu It!
Leading hi-fi séances to music-making machinery, Ainu find the soul in the circuit board.
There's a hypnotic dance beat rattling the oversized speakers in the cavernous front room at Holocene, and the crowd is responding like any crowd would to an able DJ. But the music isn't coming from some DJ's turntable. This is a live performance; the sounds goading these dance-floor revelers are invented at the very instant they are heard. This is what they call a "Live PA" in rave-speak.

The two men responsible hover like yellowjackets around a small table overflowing with bite-sized instruments-drum machines, bass generators, sound-effect generators and compound tangles of color-coded cables. Their arms never rise from the electronics-strewn table as they jitter about, looking as though their hands are soldered to the knobs and buttons they manipulate. They are called Ainu (pronounced "I knew"), and they live to make electro, live and old school-style, with real machines and seat-of-the-pants improvisation.

Electro-that funky, feisty, robot-celebrating child of German synth pop-was quintessentially represented by Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock." Though that song is known for popularizing hip-hop, its underlying aesthetic soon faded into obscurity, only to see revival as a mixer in flash-in-the-pan genre concoctions, such as Miami Bass and electroclash.

Ainu makes no attempt to water down the classic electro formula (paperlike snare drums; big, low bass; and machines only, please), though it has taken some cunning to make the sound resonate in the band's native Portland, which "is really more of a House [music] town," Ainu's Ted "Roshi" Laderas explains; the unapologetically synthetic sound of electro starkly contrasts with the warm, familiar, disco-based House vibe. "People don't always get what we're doing, so we had to learn how to lead them into it."

That Ainu is able to lead Portlanders to its brand of electro is largely due to the kinetic live performances. The duo must be aware of this, since its debut album, Octoporn (which hits the shelves later this month), was designed expressly to capture the feel of the stage show-to the point of including unedited improv sessions on the record: "A lot of the tracks we played live, like we just came up with it at that moment and recorded it," Carlo "Señor Frio" Pearson confides. "We mastered it, and that was it.

It was...totally stream-of-consciousness electro."

As sketchy as that all sounds, the listener is hard-pressed to identify the improvised songs without checking the liner notes. The arrangements on Octoporn are all confident and coherent, and sophisticated enough to make antiquated old electro feel modern.

Though they suffer no lack of snob credibility, the members of Ainu admit they design their music to stimulate dance floors. "We don't just make weird, esoteric pieces." says Pearson. "We want to put it into the structure that makes people move." Their populist attitude is a 180-degree turn from the infamous solipsism that has kept "true" electro inaccessible and unnoticed by most of the cover-paying public. The way things are going for Ainu, those days may soon be over.

By Corban Lester, Willamette Week, Originally published on WEDNESDAY, 5/25/2005

AINU RECORD RELEASE SHOW FEATURING OBELUS, DEREK FISHER & THE PERFECT CYN (Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison) According to the Oregon UFO Review, here have been 214 UFO sightings in Oregon since 2001. Because EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED, we can only imagine the correlation between the fair state as spaceship parking lot, and the wobbly electrical arcing from Ainu's new CD, Octoporn; it's a record of oscillating and ambulating space-junk electro, all weightless darkness on the beat-engine grind. Ainu consists of Senorfrio and Roshi, and they've made sci-fi electro on the quirkier side for five years, so it's weird that Octoporn is their debut; thank Portland label Toast & Jam for its birth. And it's so Portland: only Stumptownies can sound this swampy, radioactive, seasonally affected and still worship at the shrine of a rude dancefloor rhythm. The track "Idosep" offers a minimal take on their stalactite space styles, with beats on a linear uphill build, sounding like a procession of tiny doorbells and laser-guns and a holodeck warning buzz. I mean, why wouldn't aliens want to land?
by Julianne Shepherd

Jason:
Ainu continues to surprise weary listeners on their latest offering, the full-length Octoporn. This energetic, peripatetic record worms its way into your subconscious until you're caught in public trying to ape unsingable songs and tic out never-before-danced rhythms. Octoporn plays like a salad of Ben Milstein, Carl Finlow, Freaky Chakra, and Transparent Sound all tossed together with healthy portions of good old acid???as moody and curious as Ainu's two brilliant progenitors, Roshi and Senorfrio.

The album's crispy opener, which sounds like the whole story of electro rolled into one track, epitomizes Octoporn. After progressing methodically through a series of increasingly interesting change-ups, Ainu finally latch onto an infectious synth melody around the six-minute mark. It's an epiphany, especially on a record with little regard for melody. No, Octoporn's nine tracks deal almost exclusively in atmosphere, whether it be dark textures punctuated by stabbing snares or classic video game timbres crutched by severely broken beats. It's hard not to be in the mood for this record; and yet, before you've finished listening, your mood is bound to have gone the way of the sinewave, mimicking that head you can't keep from bobbing.

Jason is an editor and electro/techno/hip hop DJ in NY. He currently is one of the editors of the Barnes and Noble Classics Series.

Music Extreme:
Two tracks full of violence is what you will find on this 7". With a sound that is a combination of utter aggression and mechanical drums, Decapod Claw surprises with this tracks that combine interesting riffs with sort of an industrial feeling in the rhythms. There are some electronic sounds here and there but the main thing here is the atmosphere that Decapod Claw has created here, a sound full of oppression due to the use of keyboards, electronic drums and distorted guitars. Track "Cursed" is more electronic giving a different feeling to the music here. The sound is raw and direct making the band really violent at moments. A release that leaves you wanting to listen more from this band.
Federico Marongiu (www.musicextreme.com January 2005)