| 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)
Album Overview On ArcaneCandy
On Last.fm
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