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Keiji Haino, "Uchu Ni Karami Tsuite Iru Waga Itami"
It seems that nine times out of ten whatever instrument Keiji Haino turns his hand to (or whoever he collaborates with) he comes out of the experience with an hour or so of brilliance. This electronics-based recording features a bundle of obscure black boxes and a digital theremin that he uses and investigates to create more than just your average everyday abstract soundscapes.
There aren’t many artists with as persistently interesting, diverse and quality discographies as Haino and even fewer who can dip between solo blues and heavy electronics in a year. Seeing as, for some, he’s a near sacrosanct Japanese icon of free playing, noise, guitar noodling blues and jazz warfare it sometimes feels like Haino could never do any wrong. Whatever the truth of the matter, there isn’t a single fault or misstep on this whole record. It’s a mark of the man’s genius how incredible this release manages to sound.
Haino seems to have stumbled on the secret of balancing the ‘letting go‘ of musical exploration with creating coherent, interesting and musical pieces that can both be enjoyed and dug into. These exploratory movements gel into four separate pieces that go from susurration to all out warfare and never dip into showmanship or masturbation. This is an instantly accessible wondrous auditory hit where his other 2005 release Global Ancient Atmosphere (a solo percussion exploration) still hasn’t yielded any joy despite long hours.
The four untitled tracks here range in length from an eight minute opener to the literally dizzying near thirty minute finale. Both "Track 1" and "Track 3" create a lush sounding lost tropical forest environment through (what I imagine to be) the spiralling of his fingers through the invisible electric air. Its difficult to get my ears close enough to the speakers to pick up all the twittering and ‘monkey call’ SFX and duelling sine waves that never touch.
"Track 2" is a slightly more typical electronic noisy number; a sludgy howling blizzard mix of mauled vocals, squeaks, fog horns and that droid from Buck Rogers on vocals. The war horns and calloused thumb DJ scratch sounds add to the motionless madness, piling it on. But it’s "Track 4" that lifts the album into a whole other dimension/league. Rising up with digi-droplets in a wind tunnel into an insane bed and beautiful flute line the track is an astonishing ride. Featuring more bleeps than the first 10 Warp 12"s ascends into an oceanic expanse of ecstasy rushes and waterfalls of inchoate flourishes of his hands. Firecrackers create powerful ripostes through a basic melodic overlapping pulse lines which appear utterly unrelated to any other sounds on the rest of LP. The spare use of probing, haunting whistling drone is almost monastic in its loneliness sounding like broke-down blues recorded in the empyrean. Seriously, this track is a must hear, I can’t stress this point enough.
As for a translation of the title, Babelfish comes up a blank. I don’t think I want any clues, I’m happy to bathe in the sound.
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