George Garside - Oasis (1984)

| Synth-Electronic | Ambient |

Oasis is the first record by the '80s genius George Garside. A very interesting album, it presages the late '90s and '80s electronics. Though mostly an Ambient album, it has tons of synth-electronics use, and its experimental soundscapes brings a huge mind-travel to the listener.

The album's highlight is the first track, Journey To Oasis, a big journey through heart-stirring melodies, and the second, Landscapes, the album's Ambient side. The track Oasis is pretty much an electronic music, and reminds me a lot of Kraftwerk. Riverside Dub is pure experimentalism, with the addition of external sounds and real-world samples to the music. "Riverside dub uses an artificial head and is best listened to on headphones", says the liner notes.

Catalog: ICR 16 (ICR)
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George Garside - Mind Over Matter (1987)

| Synth-Electronic | Ambient |

George Garside is one of the most underrated musicians from the '80s early electronic/ambient wave. Being one of the bests of his time, Garside delivers giant soundscapes produced with a very relaxing atmosphere, very experimental, but always without losing the touch.

Mind Over Matter is his last work, very conceptual and largely hypnotic. As most of the musicians from his time, his last works tend to a more synth-electronic approach than atmospheric and ambient moves. But Mind Over Matter is by far an step further. He can skillfully mix the best of his early works with more moving patterns and, though it doesn't have soundscapes as big, a more rhythmical and changing atmosphere. This is a great piece of lost and forgotten art, and will touch the depths of your consciousness with a push through outworlds.

Catalog: GAR 03 (George Garside Self-released)
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Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - Guitar Works I-VIII (1994)

| Avant-Garde | Free-Jazz | Experimental Guitar |

This is one in a series of 12 guitar-related seven-inch records released by Table of the Elements back in 1994. As the title says, this little coaster sports eight really short cuts of mood variety: from shy plinks and plonks to subtle wafts of cigarette smoke to little blasts of noise—all via a fairly dry electric guitar piloted by Keiji Haino. Highly influenced by Free-Jazz musicians (yeah, this might remind you of Derek Bailey a lot), this is one of Keiji's most experimental guitar albums, and by irony, one of his most short and simple. Though it feels directionless sometimes, it's a nice listening.

Catalog: Mg 12 (Table Of The Elements)
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Aihiyo ( 哀秘謡 ) - Aihiyo (First) (1998)

| Experimental Rock | Noise Rock | Psychedelic Rock |

Aihiyo is a guitar, bass and drums trio fronted by Keiji Haino that played skewed versions of traditional Japanese pop songs back in the late 1990s. Along with the first Fushitsusha Live 2-CD (PSFD-3/4) this is the most “accessible” Keiji Haino music available, yet it’s sufficiently scattered off-center to be of interest to those who enjoy staring at aquariums.

The CD opens with a rapidly jaunting little verse-chorus-verse number that is a very joyful listen—especially coming from Haino. It’s not too often you hear something so peppy coming from this camp. Track two is something of a ballad that starts off with mellower melodies that explode into loud feedback guitar with spare bass and drum accompaniment. Haino busts out the harmonica on the next song—interspersed with his exclusive feedback microphone vocal attacks. There’s no guitar on this one, and it’s still more raw than than your average trailer park. Track four is a very quiet, floating guitar and voice ballad with nary any other accompaniment. The following song is propelled by a looping bassline and steady drum beat; along with an exquisite, trebly, psych-guitar workout from Haino-san. It’s really a rocker and one of his best, most popularly enjoyable tracks anywhere. Track six is more slow, and lurches forward in awkward stutters. The last three songs are fairly mild ballads–with track eight adding keening vocals and sections of rising amplitude—exploding into feedback and agitated vocals at the end. Unfortunately, there are no English lyric translations with this CD. If you’ve never heard Keiji Haino, this is one of the best points of entry.

Catalog: TKCF-77022 (Tokuma Japan Communications)
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Hijokaidan ( 非常階段 ) - The Lord Of Noise (2004)

| Harsh Noise | Psychedelic |

The Lord Of Noise is a collection of live tracks ranging from 1979 'til 2004. It has almost everything Hijokaidan has developed, since from huge barrages of white noise to a psychedelic mix of irregular rock and noise.

Live At Bear's (04.20.2002) is the finest track here, and one of Hijokaidan's bests. A huge 24min tidal wave of harsh noise and pure destruction, mixed with shouts and everykind of weird drums and electronics. Basic Policy and Angel Dust are nice samples of Hijokaidan's early psychedelic-noise, too bad they are the shortest on the album. In The Wake Of Nao, Queen Of Beer is another highlight, another 12min of pure wreckage and brutal sound.

Catalog: TECI-1072 (Imperial Records (Japan))
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Les Rallizes Dénudés - Electric Pure Land 1974

| Avant-Garde | Noise Rock | Psychedelic Rock |
| Experimental Rock |

Electric Pure Land 1974 is an unofficial bootleg (as most of their albums is) of the japanese psychedelic/noise rock masters, Les Rallizes Dénudés. A relatively short set of 53min, comprised in 5 tracks and recorded live with a very low quality (it's in nice quality though, for LRD standards...), what makes them even more noisy and loud. You can hear echo almost everywhere, from the drums and even from the feedback, and they sound as fine as they should. Though it's not as aggressive or mind-blowing as their '77 Live, it is one of their finest albums. Great live, and good as a starting point for those who aren't pretty much into their sound, as it is short enough and summarizes exactly how their late sound is, since '67-'69 studio et live shows their early and doesn't sound as the rest of their records.

All the 5 performances here are sharp, with lots of distortion and as psychedelic as it must, but we have 2 highlights: The first track, that ironically is The Last One, with the hugest distortion on the record, with the feedback sounding like breaking crystal, and the closer Angel, a nice mix of their psychedelic rock and experimental folk side within pretty much noise as the rest of the record. Enter the Mirror and Flames of Ice are performed masterly here, and Cry of Bird shows how fine they can pick a folk song and mix with it elements of noise and loud rock.

Catalog: unknown
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Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui U.X.O. (2002)

| Post-Rock | Experimental Rock |

Montreal politico-art/music terrorist unit Godspeed You Black Emperor! has been working on the material for Yanqui U.X.O. (unexploded ordnance-landmines) for the past four years. Some of the material predates Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven and even Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada. Recorded with Steve Albini, the nonet that is Godspeed has issued its most mysterious recording yet. The sound over these three long cuts, like all of the band's recordings, develops slowly over time and creates layers of dynamic tension that expresses itself in waves and off-kilter, shimmering flows. Usually these elements resolve themselves in earth- and ear-shattering, dissonant intensity that leaves the listener emotionally drained -- especially live. But here, a more minimal and -- dare I say -- quiet approach is used. For over 75 minutes, no "found" voices are wafting through the mix like displaced ghosts at a musical inquiry into the nature of mass control and fascism. The ghosts here are not disembodied or free to roam; they are contained within the vibrational structures and harmonic encounters along the dynamic field itself. There is more melody, not less; there are more sections in each piece, complex parts of compositions that articulate themselves more slowly and pronouncedly. Above all, there is beauty, aching, anguished beauty created by dissonance between electric guitars, keyboards, and a string section propelled by a drum kit that is barely contained within the frame of the music. Tonal extensions of simple melodic structures create new melodic fragments that are incorporated into an already growing mass of tension that is alleviated not by force, but by engaging silence as a compositional and improvisational tool. This is evident in all three tunes, but particularly in the second section of "9-15-00," which begins by stepping out of a void into a fullness of color and texture that eventually raises the tension bar over 22 minutes without resolution. For the second section, spare fragments and chords are placed carefully next to the altar of silence and engage it in dialogue, in contradiction, and in echoing its own concerns at how it is possible in our world, very possible, that at the whim of some fool, all of this -- the music; it's haunted, hunted melody; the veritable grain of its voice; along with all life -- could enter into the silence forever.

A close inspection of the record cover with its photograph of bombs in free-fall and its indicting chart shows concretely how the major record labels are all involved with the creators and purveyors of weapons of mass destruction. This may be melancholy music, but this is a dark time. At least it isn't music of mourning -- yet. And for the record, though the stupid critical backlash against Godspeed You Black Emperor! has already begun, the band is making the finest music in the history of its collective. This is music for a different kind of engagement -- that of becoming aware of tyranny and disappearance.

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Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - Abandon All Words At A Stroke, So That Prayer Can Come Spilling Out (2001)

| Avant-Garde | Experimental Hurdy-Gurdy |
| Experimental Electronic | Noise |

Two full CDs worth of slowly-inching tectonic continental sound plates from Tokyo’s supreme sullen small one, Keiji Haino. The first five-inch tiddlywink in this set finds Haino teaming up with the hurdy gurdy for the fourth time–in CDland, that is. Unlike the relentless PSF, Tokuma and Halana screech cloud forays of yore, however, this’n’ here forges onward into much more subtle, almost shy areas of own-foot-starin’ quasi-gentle puffery. But such a nicely suspended example of sustained spirit envelope hasn’t often been floated by anyone else in such a pristine manner as this. Deep, drifting atmosphere with distant banshee vocals emanate from the direct center of infinity. What a nice addition–a la Affection, Nijiumu, etc.–to a catalog now hinting at the vastness of Sun Ra’s.

Disc two marks Haino’s first recorded use of the wave drum. This instrument “allows you to select/design your own drum sound, and because it uses a drum head with mics for its source waveforms, it accurately captures the nuances of various drumming techniques—including brushing, etc. It has not sold well, probably partly because of the price, and partly because of the culture and mindset of most drummers, who seem to prefer a diverse kit that they can whack with a stick to the sonic possibilities that the wave drum offers.” This disc features one long track divided up into numerous different sections, ranging from far away echoey mists to dry percussion taps with flangey electronic washes that sound exactly as you would expect something called a “wave drum” to. And it’s almost constantly accompanied by a wide variety pack of vocals, including grunts, groans, moans, squeals, squeaks and screams–you know, the full treatment of pure Haino vocal cordness.

Catalog: ALIENCD 027 (Alien8 Recordings)
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Kikuri [ Keiji Haino + Merzbow ] - Pulverized Purple (2008)

| Harsh Noise | Experimental Electronics |

Considering the fact that musical maverick Keiji Haino has been on the scene since the beginning of the 1970s and that legendary noisester Masami Akita (better known as Merzbow) got his start at the end of that decade, it’s sort of mind-boggling that it took a full three decades for these two icons of the Japanese underground to join forces and release an actual legit album. Recorded live on May 21, 2007 at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Canada–during their first-ever gig together outside of Japan–what a semi-surprising collection of sounds it is! Although one might have expected Haino to don his overdriven axe or man the hectic air snyth to engage in a titanic noise battle with Akita’s power electronics, that’s not exclusively the case here.

Wisely, Haino often eases back a bit and, by way of some gentle, cooing ghost vocals and dry, squiggly “mini-guitar” stabs, provides some subtle yet poignant counterpoint to Akita’s scalding maelstroms. On one track, Haino even mans the staggered drum kit while Akita’s laptop chatters away. During the final 30-minute blowout, the two pelt each other with vocal bile and Haino makes his amped-up axe fly like a screeching Mothra over Akita’s flame-spewing Godzilla as they perform a gargantuan dance of death in an earnest attempt to destroy the sun. Then it’s time for a break as the duo relaxes in some rather tangled-up woods in the booklet’s centerspread. Overall, I must say that Pulverized Purple is more than worthy of your hard-earned bucks.

Catalog: VICTO cd 110 (Les Disques Victo)
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Aihiyo ( 哀秘謡 ) - Live (2000)

| Experimental Rock | Noise Rock | Psychedelic Rock |

This is release number two from Keiji Haino’s bar band. (The first self-titled one was released on a Japanese major label called Tokuma, catalog number TKCF 77022.) It features covers of The Ronettes, The Rolling Stones and The Spiders—among a slew of “hoary old Japanese MOR classics” with titles like “Your Eyes Have the Sparkle of 10,000 Volts,” “150 Tons Of Dynamite” and “Vent Your Anger.” These tunes, brightly recorded live in tiny dumps and mostly played in a vaguely straightforward manner, display Haino in some of his most regular rocking moments ever—albeit in full-on garage mode spackled with squealing distortion. It’s interesting to hear “Be My Baby” plod along as the vocal lines are joined with keening guitar distortion. The main riff of “Satisfaction” is somewhat recognizable, despite the fact that the song is submerged in screeching dissonance, but not much else of the original remains within the lengthy 14 minutes of this irreverent psych / dunce workout.

Haino spits some words (in Japanese) in apparent disgust, the amplifier whistles, the rhythm section of Ikuro Takahashi on drums and Masami Kawaguchi on bass plods ever forward. If you insist that covers must be done, this is surely the way to do it. Serious garage fans and likers of the first Aihiyo disc better put a sticky note on this CD that reads, “Buy very soon.” The all-black package boasts numerous photos of Haino kicking it around Tokyo, hanging out by a high rise building and stone globe or sitting in a local café enjoying a cup of tea. Can you say lifestyle?

Catalog: PSFD-8006 (P.S.F. Records)
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High Rise - Durophet (1999)

| Psychedelic Rock | Noise Rock | Garage Rock |

Durophet is a Live from 1998, Paris. One of High Rise's most explosive performances, they're as noisy and fast here as seen on the Live (1994), or maybe even more. Feedback, loud guitars, strong basses and ballistic drums, the group fronted by Asahito Nanjo blows everything through the air, and that includes your mind.

The openers Ikon and Right On are perhaps the best in this one, and they sound even better than one would expect. It seems that High Rise gained lots of experience through all these years, and they've finally achieved their best, being simply perfect at every point. The whole album stands consistent and pretty much mind-blowing, but Turn You Cry, the most fast and stirring song on the whole album, and Pop Sicle, very well known for its explosive guita solo, are other Highlights. There's a cool version of Psychedelic Speed Freaks, one of their earlier songs, closing this amazing record just after the just-cited.

Durophet stands as one of High Rise's best works, essential for every fan of psychedelic rock, noise rock, or even hardcore and punk rock. And that's one of the most beautiful covers I've ever seen in my life (such a shame I couldn't find it in a better resolution...). Wondrous!

Catalog: Fractal005 (Fractal Records)
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Enno Velthuys - Landscapes In Thin Air (1985)

| Ambient | Synth-Electronic |

Released just after his masterpiece (A Glimpse of Light), Landscapes in Thin Air marks the beginning of a new sound development for Enno. Though it still feels more ambient-oriented, it has a strong presence of beats and a more melodic use of synths. It doesn't feel completely formed, as A Glimpse of Light or Different Places do, but it's still a great album, and has very good highlights.

The best two songs from it are Staring At The Lake ( At 6 A.M. ), a perfect example of his beat-oriented ambient works, and Pigeons In A Hovel, a short but touching piece. Morning Glory feels too long and drags out more than would be good, but Turning The Tides and Ebb And Flood shows that he can still make long 'tripping' pieces without losing touch. The closer Dawn By The Stormy Sea is another example of how beautiful Enno Velthuys can sound, even when not doing proper ambient-structured songs.

Catalog: KC 023 (Kubus Cassettes)
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My Bloody Valentine - You Made Me Realise (1988)

| Shoegaze | Noise Rock | Dream Pop | Alternative Rock | Post-Punk |

My Bloody Valentine is back in the indie music headlines with plans for two new albums of unreleased material that will be the first new releases from the band as a whole since 1991’s landmark record Loveless. Outside of that and Isn’t Anything, their work is spread out over a string of almost a dozen EPs, many of them documenting the band’s earlier gothic rock style. As the band moved into shoegazing, a genre My Bloody Valentine could pretty much be credited with as creating, one of the earliest examples of their later style is in the EP You Made Me Realise from 1988 and just prior to Isn’t Anything. It is uniquely more instrumentally upbeat than Loveless and more lyrically clear while still captivating with the “wall of sound” that is the band’s hallmark.

You Made Me Realise begins with the namesake of the EP and one of the strongest tracks in MBV’s catalog “You Made Me Realise,” a powerful song featuring soaring vocals from Kevin Shields and Belinda Butcher and a simmering guitar riff. As opposed to the use of vocals as sounds more than anything in Loveless, the lyrics are quite clear even amid distortion and carry out the frenzied pace of the song. A little past the minute and a half mark, the song begins to descend into a very thick layer of guitar distortion, almost seeming to showcase the use of ambiance to deliver the surrealistic sensations of their music, before the standard guitar riff reappears to close out the forceful opener.

More relaxed and dreamy is “Slow,” which seems to make little effort in trying to conceal that it is about a blowjob. Shields’s groaning vocals encapsulate the quite explicit nature of the song, which fits under the intimate themes in much of MBV’s music. Evident here is a consistent ambient melody through the entire song that is indicative of Loveless. More sunny and pleasant images come to mind in the next song “Thorn,” which showcases MBV at one of their lightest moments. The strongly pop-oriented melody is only restrained by the distorted ambiance that carries on in the background.

“Cigarette in Your Bed” brings the EP back into a darker, dreamier landscape that is complemented by cryptic lyrics (“Arms untied / Scratching your eyes out / With a smile”). Be it some description of S&M or something else, while the song is perhaps a bit off-putting, the band keeps the song from reaching any more morose with the familiar fast strumming of an acoustic guitar and more innocent vocalized melody from Butcher.

The EP’s conclusion with “Drive It All Over Me,” the only song here given joint-writing credits between band members (the others written by Shields), shows that each band member was right on the same page. Back into “Thorn” territory, “Drive It All Over Me” is another uplifting daydream, spearheaded by the once-again innocent vocals of Butcher backed by a wall of distortion and powerful drumming from Colm O'Ciosoig.

Alongside the popularity of Loveless, You Made Me Realise showcases the band’s ability to apply the same shoegazing innovations to a more down-to-earth release that could even be considered more accessible.

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Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - I Said, This Is The Son Of Nihilism (2002)

| Avant-Garde | Noise Rock | Experimental Rock |

This is another 1hour effort by the japanese dark wizard. One of his bests albums in the noise entourage, this one contains much more placid phases of space-filling guitar and voice bliss with occasional sections of rising volume. Large giant waves of feedback and uncontrollable harshness strikes from all the corners, in a mind-blowing way that's startling, even for Haino's standarts. For sure it's one of his bests songs.

Catalog: Ar 18 (Table Of The Elements)
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The Velvet Underground - Loaded (1970)

| Experimental Rock | Psychedelic Rock |

After The Velvet Underground cut three albums for the jazz-oriented Verve label that earned them lots of notoriety but negligible sales, the group signed with industry powerhouse Atlantic Records in 1970; label head Ahmet Ertegun supposedly asked Lou Reed to avoid sex and drugs in his songs, and instead focus on making an album "loaded with hits." Loaded was the result, and with appropriate irony it turned out to be the first VU album that made any noticeable impact on commercial radio -- and also their swan song, with Reed leaving the group shortly before its release.

With John Cale long gone from the band, Doug Yule highly prominent (he sings lead on four of the ten tracks), and Maureen Tucker absent on maternity leave, this is hardly a purist's Velvet Underground album. But while Lou Reed always wrote great rock & roll songs with killer hooks, on Loaded his tunes were at last given a polished but intelligent production that made them sound like the hits they should have been, and there's no arguing that "Sweet Jane" and "Rock and Roll" are as joyously anthemic as anything he's ever recorded. And if this release generally maintains a tight focus on the sunny side of the VU's personality (or would that be Reed's personality?), "New Age" and "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" prove he had hardly abandoned his contemplative side, and "Train Around the Bend" is a subtle but revealing metaphor for his weariness with the music business. Sterling Morrison once said of Loaded, "It showed that we could have, all along, made truly commercial sounding records," but just as importantly, it proved they could do so without entirely abandoning their musical personality in the process. It's a pity that notion hadn't occurred to anyone a few years earlier.

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The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground (1969)

| Experimental Rock | Psychedelic Rock | Folk-Rock |

Upon first release, the Velvet Underground's self-titled third album must have surprised their fans nearly as much as their first two albums shocked the few mainstream music fans who heard them. After testing the limits of how musically and thematically challenging rock could be on Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat, this 1969 release sounded spare, quiet, and contemplative, as if the previous albums documented some manic, speed-fueled party and this was the subdued morning after. (The album's relative calm has often been attributed to the departure of the band's most committed avant-gardist, John Cale, in the fall of 1968; the arrival of new bassist Doug Yule; and the theft of the band's amplifiers shortly before they began recording.) But Lou Reed's lyrical exploration of the demimonde is as keen here as on any album he ever made, while displaying a warmth and compassion he sometimes denied his characters.

"Candy Says," "Pale Blue Eyes," and "I'm Set Free" may be more muted in approach than what the band had done in the past, but "What Goes On" and "Beginning to See the Light" made it clear the VU still loved rock & roll, and "The Murder Mystery" (which mixes and matches four separate poetic narratives) is as brave and uncompromising as anything on White Light/White Heat. This album sounds less like the Velvet Underground than any of their studio albums, but it's as personal, honest, and moving as anything Lou Reed ever committed to tape.

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The Gerogerigegege - Senzuri Power Up (1991)

| Harsh Noise | Noise-Punk |
| Japanese Ultra Shit Band |

Yet another infamous balls to the wall blast of pure frenzied noise with a slight hint of something a little deeper than DRI's first 7 inch. Very unique although somewhat similar in production to the 'instruments disorder' cd, this album, while rather short, does contain several different great interpretations of noisey punk music. The artwork has a rather "maternal" feel to it and the liner notes contain a clean and clear gerogerigegege discography leading up to the release of this album. The sound of an old japanese pop song starts the whole cd off before it violently jerks into a full frontal feedback laden attack on the senses. The entire album flows together very well as all the tracks sort of bleed into one another. The main instruments of choice (aside from juntaro's tortured japanese-man-caught-on-fire screams) seem to simply be guitar, bass, and drums, although the use of a guitar tuner turns the final song into a rather hypnotic drone. You may also notice an ever so subtle use of a chorus pedal on occasions as well. The song titles are worth the more than likely high import price alone. The track 'car sex macdonald drive in let's go,' which happens to be the album's epic orgasmic peak, speaks for itself. Totally indispensible.

Catalog: VAV91-012 (Vis A Vis Audio Arts)
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The Gerogerigegege - Saturday Night Big Cock Salaryman (2001)

| Harsh Noise | Japanese Ultra Shit Band |

This is currently (as of may 2003) the most recent release from the gerogerigegege and it clocks in at a whopping 12 minutes. Calling upon recent gero collaborator Shobu Saitoh and the legendary Gero 30 (who must be in his mid 60's by now), Juntaro plows through your headphones and offers up another heaping pile of regurgitated audio vomit. All the 'songs' are actually just one big mess separately indexed into 35 tracks. The sound of an amazingly distorted guitar that sounds almost like a synthesizer leads the assault followed up in the rear by Juntaro's best imitation of the tasmanian devil in the heat of passion. Gero 30 makes a brief (maybe 30 seconds) appearance in the 9th track "senzuri punch parma." The 19th track "s.n.b.c.s.m" is a recording of a french radio announcer saying "the gerogerigegege." Anyway, this whole mess of an album (or EP?) sludges along and Juntaro is there to offer his guiding hand and whimsical words of wisdom. For the first time ever, we are offered a gero lyric sheet. Songs like "tokyo anal dynamite.com" and "dick echo" offer the listener a poignant inner look into the sensitive and soft spoken side of juntaro that we would normally never see. Buy it for someone you love.

Catalog: FVA-01 (Full Volume Agency)
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Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - Black Blues (Violent Version) [2004]

| Avant-Garde | Experimental Blues | Noise Rock |

I guess it was destined to happen. After unleashing a mountain of material over the course of three decades, it was only a matter of time before Keiji Haino would release two different versions of the same album simultaneously. Titled Black Blues and unveiled by French label Les Disques du Soleil et de l’Acier in March 2004, the only thing that sets the twin albums apart visually are the cover photos, which are mirrors of each other, and the catalog numbers. But, that’s where the similarities end.

The second version, DSA 54088, also known as the violent version, is pretty much the opposite. With its gobs of angular, dissonant, fuzz guitar spitting out all kinds of squiggly slides; quick, fractured riffs and mellow strums that arc into the sky-highest fuzz destruction–all seamlessly blended with scads of intense, screaming, gargled vocals–this album is practically an unrecognizable version of its predecessor. Yet both somehow come highly recommended for devout fans of Haino’s many moods.

Catalog: DSA 54088 (Les Disques du Soleil et de l’Acier)
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Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - Black Blues (Soft Version) [2004]

| Avant-Garde | Experimental Blues |
| Experimental Classical Guitar |

I guess it was destined to happen. After unleashing a mountain of material over the course of three decades, it was only a matter of time before Keiji Haino would release two different versions of the same album simultaneously. Titled Black Blues and unveiled by French label Les Disques du Soleil et de l’Acier in March 2004, the only thing that sets the twin albums apart visually are the cover photos, which are mirrors of each other, and the catalog numbers. But, that’s where the similarities end.

The first album, DSA 54087, is considered the soft version–and for good reason. It’s completely packed full of some of the most super-personal, quiet music this side of a dusty old casket–featuring close-miked, cooing vocals with distant guitar strums; ultra-sparse, bent, quavering notes and louder, melodic singing with even more distant reverbed-out guitar.

Catalog: DSA 54087 (Les Disques du Soleil et de l’Acier)
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Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada (1999)

| Post-Rock | Experimental Rock |

A low hum is the first thing heard. It's nearly an inaudible sound, like the opening of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Soon other instruments join and overlap: strings, guitar, and glockenspiel. For a while, the listener hovers in a mist feeling the musical waves ebb and flow, warning of impending danger. In these moments, uncertainty breeds and devours the weak, swallowing them whole. This is probably Mile End, the location alluded to in the liner notes of the Canadian ensemble Godspeed You Black Emperor!'s Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada. Mile End is described in detail, and the influence of this locale on the recording of the Slow Riot must have been immense. In fact, the best way to describe this album is as a direct result of Mile End's setting: the abandoned buildings, haunting forest, burned out railroad cars, and empty train tracks. All of these physical images pervade the tone of this album: they are its sadness, beauty, and anger. The darkness is there too. Once immersed in Mile End, it's near impossible to find your way out. The darkness limits your freedom, and at the same time hides you from the rest of the world. You are alone and it is both frightening and liberating. As for the music, there's really not much to say. If this description of Mile End appeals to you or intrigues you then it will be a worthwhile listen.

"Moya," the album's first piece, is a lot like weathering a torrential downpour: torn between moments of uncertainty a final deluge occurs absorbing everything in its path. The second piece, "BBF3," is a history lesson set to music, a story of dysfunctional government, militias, and human rights. This one album spans the emotions of terror and delight in 30 minutes. The same feelings of fear and triumph found in Beethoven can be found here, and there is perhaps no better endorsement for such music.

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Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - Won't Becomes Can't (2006)

| Avant-Garde | Experimental | Noise |

Japanese Title: Yaranai Ga Dekinai Koto Ni Natte Yuku. Hot on the heels of albums in which he experimented with air synth, acoustic guitar, drum kit and even a sitar army, Keiji Haino revisits his past to offer us another take on the kind of forlorn solo vocals with electric guitar atmospheres that he does so well. One long track splays out for well over an hour, building from quiet, sparse, late-night picking to atonal strumming and, eventually, virtual storms of multi-layered guitar. So, did Haino do overdubs or simply stomp on a delay pedal? Since there are no liner notes and he so seldomly does the former, I cast my vote for the latter. The overall modus operandi on this disc involves maintaining a simple, stark, space bliss soaked in massive reverb that gives way to a sudden stop punctured by a sour, wailing field of distortion chaos and eventually back again. Lather, rinse, repeat. And most of the vocals throughout are surprisingly up front. Pretty much all this album amounts to is another near-classic to throw on the pile.

Catalog: PSFD-8024 (P.S.F. Records)
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Les Rallizes Dénudés - Mizutani (1991)

| Avant-Garde | Folk-Rock | Psychedelic Rock |
| Experimental Rock | Noise Rock |

A mostly folk-headed compilation of lives from '70 and '73. One of the most popular albums from the Rallizes, it also contains one of their best songs, Romance of the Black Grief, filled with distortion and feedback in a very unique way. Aside from that and a gorgeous version of The Last One, Mizutani contains mostly tracks of psychedelic-folk rather than noise or experimentalism, and is one of the few albums featuring Mizutani on a classical guitar rather than his (awesome) telecaster. Kiretsu and A Memory is Far, altogether with the already cited Romance of the Black Grief and The Last One makes this album a must-have in every Rallizes collection. (And i'm pretty sure Dansyo1 is a clear version of "Valle de L'Eau"...)

Catalog: SIXE-0203 (Rivista Inc.)
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Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - A Challenge To Fate (1994)

| Avant-Garde | Noise Rock | Experimental Rock |
| Psychedelic Rock |

A Challenge to Fate is a kind of compilation of Haino's live performances all around europe and japan (other albums). It contains 11 tracks of variety—from cathartic, solo vocal exorcisms to delicate, pristine guitar and vocal hazes to more exploded electric “axe” annihilation—not to mention a track or two of subtle whispers and moans. Mind-mincing, for sure. Though this isn't as consistent as other albums, it really show the range of Keiji's work on the guitar, and is one of his bests albums.

The album starts with the first of the "Blackness" trilogy. Is a vocal-based song. I mean, if you can call that 'vocal'... Keiji bursts the mic with angered, fearsome, desperate, mad, murdering shouts that can make anyone shiver of fear. Followed by the great "What A Stalking Fate!" and the delicate "My Only Friend" (one of my favorites songs from Haino), the album keeps noisy and haunted until the near end: "Affection", a very desolate and fragile song with high-pitched guitar screams and a distant and dark feedback all around.

Catalog: CDSA 54029 (Les Disques Du Soleil Et De L'Acier)
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My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (1991)

| Shoegaze | Noise Rock | Dream Pop | Alternative Rock | Post-Punk |

Isn't Anything was good enough to inspire an entire scene of My Bloody Valentine soundalikes, but Loveless' greatness proved that the band was inimitable. After two painstaking years in the studio and nearly bankrupting their label Creation in the process, the group emerged with their masterpiece, which fulfilled all of the promise of their previous albums. If Isn't Anything was the Valentines' sonic blueprint, then Loveless saw those plans fleshed out, in the most literal sense: "Loomer," "What You Want," and "To Here Knows When"'s arrangements are so lush, they're practically tangible. With its voluptuous yet ethereal melodies and arrangements, Loveless intimates sensuality and sexuality instead of stating them explicitly; Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher's vocals meld perfectly with the trippy sonics around them, suggesting druggy sex or sexy drugs. From the commanding "Only Shallow" and "Come in Alone" to breathy reflections like "Sometimes" and "Blown a Wish," the album balances complexity and immediately memorable pop melodies with remarkable self-assurance, given its difficult creation.

But Loveless doesn't just perfect the group's approach, it also hints at their continuing growth: "Soon" fuses the Valentines' roaring guitars with a dance-inspired beat, while the symphonic interlude "Touched" suggests an updated take on Fripp and Eno's pioneering guitar/electronics experiments. These glimpses into the band's evolution make Shields' difficulty in delivering a follow-up to Loveless even more frustrating, but completely understandable -- the album's perfection sounded shoegazing's death-knell and raised expectations for the next My Bloody Valentine album to unreasonably high levels. Though Shields' collaborations with Yo La Tengo, Primal Scream, J Mascis, and others were often rewarding, they were no match for Loveless. However, as My Bloody Valentine fans -- and, apparently, Shields himself -- will attest, nothing is.

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My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything (1988)

| Shoegaze | Noise Rock | Dream Pop | Alternative Rock | Post-Punk |

Like the Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, and the Jesus & Mary Chain before them, My Bloody Valentine redefined what noise meant within the context of pop songwriting. Led by guitarist Kevin Shields, the group released several EPs in the mid-'80s before recording the era-defining Isn't Anything in 1988, a record that merged lilting, ethereal melodies of the Cocteau Twins with crushingly loud, shimmering distortion. Though My Bloody Valentine rejected rock & roll conventions, they didn't subscribe to the precious tendencies of anti-rock art-pop bands. Instead, they rode crashing waves of white noise to unpredictable conclusions, particularly since their noise wasn't paralyzing like the typical avant-garde noise rock band: it was translucent, glimmering, and beautiful. Shields was a perfectionist, especially when it came to recording, as much of My Bloody Valentine's sound was conceived within the studio itself. Nevertheless, the band was known as a formidable live act, even though they rarely moved, or even looked at the audience, while they were on-stage. Their notorious lack of movement was branded "shoegazing" by the British music press, and soon there were legions of other shoegazers -- Ride, Lush, the Boo Radleys, Chapterhouse, Slowdive -- that, along with the rolling dance-influenced Madchester scene, dominated British indie rock of the late '80s and early '90s. As shoegazing reached its peak in 1991, My Bloody Valentine released Loveless, which broke new sonic ground and was hailed as a masterpiece. Though the band was poised for a popular breakthrough, it disappeared into the studio and didn't emerge over the next five years, leaving behind a legacy that proved profoundly influential in the direction of '90s alternative rock.

Though it's often seen as just a precursor to their magnum opus Loveless, in its own way My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything is nearly as groundbreaking as their 1991 masterpiece. Not only was it the most lucid, expansive articulation yet of the group's sound, it virtually created the shoegazing scene and spawned legions of followers. The album's tightly structured songs still bore traces of My Bloody Valentine's previous incarnation as jangly indie popsters, but Kevin Shields and company crafted wide-ranging experiments within those confines. "Feed Me with Your Kiss"'s mix of bruising guitars, drums, and sensual boy-girl vocals define My Bloody Valentine's signature sound, while "All I Need"'s weightless guitars and vocal melodies melt into a heady haze. Shields' unique tunings, tremolo, and miking techniques stand out on "You Never Should" and "Nothing Much to Lose," but Deb Googe's surprisingly funky bassline on "Soft as Snow (But Warm Inside)" reaffirms that all of the Valentines contributed to their innovative sound. Indeed, many of Isn't Anything's disturbingly beautiful highlights come from Bilinda Butcher. On the wrenching "No More Sorry," she sings abstractly pained lyrics like "Your septic heart and deadly hand/Loved me black and blue," barely audible over a swarm of fragile yet menacing guitars, while on "Several Girls Galore" she's sexy, yet dazed and distant; it sounds like she's whispering in your ear outside of a blaring nightclub. The Valentines' dark side is especially prominent on the album, particularly on "Sueisfine," where the chorus slyly morphs from "Sue is fine" to "Suicide." Isn't Anything captures My Bloody Valentine's revolutionary style in its infancy and points the way to Loveless, but it's far more than just a dress rehearsal for the band's moment of greatness.


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The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)

| Avant-Garde | Experimental Rock | Noise Rock |
| Psychedelic Rock |

One would be hard pressed to name a rock album whose influence has been as broad and pervasive as The Velvet Underground and Nico. While it reportedly took over a decade for the album's sales to crack six figures, glam, punk, new wave, goth, noise, and nearly every other left-of-center rock movement owes an audible debt to this set. While The Velvet Underground had as distinctive a sound as any band, what's most surprising about this album is its diversity. Here, the Velvets dipped their toes into dreamy pop ("Sunday Morning"), tough garage rock ("Waiting for the Man"), stripped-down R&B ("There She Goes Again"), and understated love songs ("I'll Be Your Mirror") when they weren't busy creating sounds without pop precedent. Lou Reed's lyrical exploration of drugs and kinky sex (then risky stuff in film and literature, let alone "teen music") always received the most press attention, but the music Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker played was as radical as the words they accompanied. The bracing discord of "European Son," the troubling beauty of "All Tomorrow's Parties," and the expressive dynamics of "Heroin," all remain as compelling as the day they were recorded.

While the significance of Nico's contributions have been debated over the years, she meshes with the band's outlook in that she hardly sounds like a typical rock vocalist, and if Andy Warhol's presence as producer was primarily a matter of signing the checks, his notoriety allowed The Velvet Underground to record their material without compromise, which would have been impossible under most other circumstances. Few rock albums are as important as The Velvet Underground and Nico, and fewer still have lost so little of their power to surprise and intrigue more than 30 years after first hitting the racks.


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Kousokuya ( 光束夜 ) - Echoes From Deep Underground (2007)

| Psychedelic Rock | Stoner Rock | Noise Rock |

This album is a live recording from 2001 and shows how Kousokuya has grown on the years (other albums). Just like an old wine, kept locked for years and years, it shows these japanese legends completely ripe. Their maturity reflects on their music, and Echoes from Deep Underground sounds as refined as one would expect. Refined on one hand, while on the other it keeps their raw, psychedelic and heavy-motion style. The songs still feel as fresh as on their debut, but pretty more consistent. This album is lapidated in every corner, and a must-listen to fans of japanese psychedelic music.

Catalog: archivedvd1 (aRCHIVE)
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The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat (1968)

| Experimental Rock | Noise Rock | Psychedelic Rock |

The world of pop music was hardly ready for The Velvet Underground's first album when it appeared in the spring of 1967, but while The Velvet Underground and Nico sounded like an open challenge to conventional notions of what rock music could sound like (or what it could discuss), 1968's White Light/White Heat was a no-holds-barred frontal assault on cultural and aesthetic propriety. Recorded without the input of either Nico or Andy Warhol, White Light/White Heat was the purest and rawest document of the key Velvets lineup of Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker, capturing the group at their toughest and most abrasive.

The album opens with an open and enthusiastic endorsement of amphetamines (startling even from this group of noted drug enthusiasts), and side one continues with an amusing shaggy-dog story set to a slab of lurching mutant R&B ("The Gift"), a perverse variation on an old folktale ("Lady Godiva's Operation"), and the album's sole "pretty" song, the mildly disquieting "Here She Comes Now." While side one was a good bit darker in tone than the Velvets' first album, side two was where they truly threw down the gauntlet with the manic, free-jazz implosion of "I Heard Her Call My Name" (featuring Reed's guitar work at its most gloriously fractured), and the epic noise jam "Sister Ray," 17 minutes of sex, drugs, violence, and other non-wholesome fun with the loudest rock group in the history of Western Civilization as the house band. White Light/White Heat is easily the least accessible of The Velvet Underground's studio albums, but anyone wanting to hear their guitar-mauling tribal frenzy straight with no chaser will love it, and those benighted souls who think of the Velvets as some sort of folk-rock band are advised to crank their stereo up to ten and give side two a spin.

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Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - So, Black Is Myself (1997)

| Avant-Garde | Noise | Drone | Experimental |

So, Black is myself happens to be Haino's most “empty” effort so far—one lifelong, 68-minute track of mystery electronic drone (other albums). At the 15-minute mark, low-pitched percussive knocks show up, followed by some pretty damaged rudra vina work about 12 minutes later and earliest-morning gargling vocals 10 minutes after that. These are among Haino’s lowest and most unusual vocals ever. In fact, it doesn’t even sound like him. An additional higher, louder drone joins in at the 48 minute mark accompanied by matching high-pitched vocal wails three minutes later. Some barely audible breaking glass signals “the end is near” as the sound fades away.

Catalog: ALIENCD 003 (Alien8 Recordings)
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Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000)

| Post-Rock | Experimental Rock |

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, the much-anticipated follow-up to Godspeed You Black Emperor's Slow Riot, is a double-disc achievement of four works (each with multiple parts): "Storm," "Static," "Sleep," and "Antennas to Heaven." It is a windfall for any fan of ambient pop, orchestral rock, space rock, or simply lush string arrangements who understands how powerful love, melancholy, and frustration can be. The main complaint voiced by critics of Godspeed's music is that their works just repeat the same pattern: start out sparse and slow, build-build-build, crescendo. While there are certainly crescendos, there is no such predictable pattern repeated among the works on Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven -- it's loaded with dynamics, unexpected sections, strong emotions and beauty.

The album opener, "Storm," is a leap for GYBE! that, alone, makes this release worth getting. It's a rapturous work that rises with a potent melancholy, driven by heartrending emotions. "Storm" vents a powerful frustration (each listener can insert their own reasons why) with majestic screams of strings, guitars, and layers, resulting in a climactic and passionate soaring. It eventually winds down into an exhausted aftermath of piano, underlying drones, and frustrated rants. The second piece, "Static," is a wandering, isolationist piece of bleak expanses shaded with darker emotions, but the remaining two works raise the album back up to the impressive standard set by the opening cut, though with less furor and even more loveliness. "Sleep" opens with an elderly gentleman reminiscing about Coney Island, and his frank and amusing narration briefly recalls the recordings of David Greenberger and scenes from the documentary Vernon, FL. This narration is followed by a slow and melodic piece featuring a pseudo-theremin effect amidst all of the other instrumentation. "Antennas to Heaven" opens with someone playing acoustic guitar, singing "What'll We Do with the Baby-O," soon washed over with sound, which then gives way to a brief chorus of glockenspiels, and on.

During most of Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, musical and emotional opposites alternate as regularly, and naturally, as breathing: delicate string work and rock-out guitar and drums, spoken word and walls of sound, gracious and possessed, tip-toes and cliff-diving, dark hallways and blinding sunshine.

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Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F♯A♯∞ (1998)

| Post-Rock | Experimental Rock |

"We are trapped in the belly of this horrible machine, and the machine is bleeding to death." Few albums begin with such promise and foreboding, but this first full-length from Canadian genius collective Godspeed You Black Emperor! succeeds in the first few moments. F♯A♯∞ contains three compositions that run the gamut from grotesque to sublime. The term "composition" seems an appropriate one to use as this band does not write songs. Each piece is at least 14 minutes in length, consisting of three to four sections. The band, a nine-member unit consisting of guitar, drums, bass, strings, keyboard, marimbas, and woodwinds, intersperses voice-over narrative with sprawling instrumental melodies. The arrangements move slowly, building from hushed silence to cathartic crescendo and back again. The narratives that accompany the music meditate on the corruption of the American government and the seeming emptiness of the postmodern era. At times, it seems that the music might offer hope, but alternatively, the haunting melodies can serve to emphasize the confusion encountered in these stories.

As "Dead Flag Blues," the album's first track, unfolds, the speaker's voice is undercut by a poignant string melody and the piece builds to a beautiful peak. "Dead Flag Blues" is a four-part arrangement in an apparently symphonic pattern. A theme is stated, followed by a quiet interlude out of which the tension builds to disaster/epiphany and finally a quiet reprise of the initial melody is given. The albums second piece, "East Hastings," follows a similar pattern, producing brilliant results. "Providence" is the album's final piece, a bit longer than the others, but lacking the consistency and unity of its counterparts. The music on this album is unique and powerful. One would be hard-pressed to find any imitators of this revolutionary musical form created by GYBE! Its origins are as much avant-classical as they are rock & roll, and the band has achieved a true synthesis of the two forms, expanding them to new boundaries. This music is inherently inexplicable, and this is its beauty.

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Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - Affection [ 慈 ] (1992)

| Avant-Garde | Noise Rock | Experimental Rock |

This long, one-track affair (Haino's other albums) starts out with some barely audible, poppy, “shopping mall” music, which is quickly cut out by mysterious reverb interjections. A simple, melodic, solo guitar-picking section follows, then some strumming with vocals that get louder, only to folk-rock out for awhile. The track then fades back and forth several times between some fairly massive feedback juggernauts and more desolate folk activity.

A strangely muted, abstract, noise guitar cloud closes out the piece. Completely stunning and beautiful, one of my favorite records from the japanese black wizard. And it somehow feels like a romantic song, with lots of 'sentimental' passages. Extremely touching.

Catalog: PSFD-23 (P.S.F. Records)
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Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - Ama No Gawa [Milky Way] (1993)

| Avant-Garde | Noise | Experimental |

Milky Way is a proper title for this Live recording, which feels like the sounds from the universe origins (Haino's other albums). A 47min of Keiji all by himself evoking a dense, swirling stew of churning, unspecified noise electronics and distant, wailing horns. This is how the galaxy would sound after being consumed by a giant and ferocious super nova. A live from 1973, this is one of the earlier noise records, though being completely ahead of its time, and ours. This is a song from the beginning and the end of the universe, interweaving time and all the dimensions into a primal, desolate, and perfect atmosphere.

Drifiting into the beyond, chanting the screams of the dark matter, filling the whole space around him and devouring the fading stars like a voracious massive black hole. This beautiful song pierce your mind and slowly consume you subconscious, pushing you into this utterly black and lonely afterworld travel.

Catalog: MOM 19 (Mom 'N' Dad Productions)
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