Friday, November 6, 2009

Keiji Haino ( 灰野敬二 ) - Keeping On Breathing (1997)

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


For his umpteenth solo CD, Haino offers up yet another guitar and voice affair—again all recorded live with no overdubs. This time, we’re on a major label, but that sure hasn’t affected Haino’s approach at all, as this easily sounds like it could’ve came out on PSF years ago. Sometimes bent folk strums with gentle, beautiful vocals effortlessly merge into lengthy feedback juggernauts as other low-moaned words float pensively behind massive curtains of unruly amp sound-dust. Haino’s solo albums certainly don’t sound like anyone else’s solo albums, and while some of his other CDs feature one track drifting on for 45 minutes or more, Keeping On Breathing is 73 minutes long, nicely broken up into seven “shorter” tracks. This album's atmosphere can easily reminds one of his Fushitsusha works, but skinned alive to only guitar and voice. Though this's not as inflammatory as with the rest of Fushitsusha, Haino still manages to sound like a monster, a devil, a wizard on the guitar.

Some choice words from “Wafting”: “I’m floating / wafting / much further down than before / a place where no one wants to go.” From “Here”: “Even saying there is nothing / is a lie / only saying that everything ‘is’ / is permitted.”

Catalog: TKCF-77016 (Tokuma Japan Communications)
Album overview on Arcane Candy
On Last.fm
Download

1 comment:

  1. My favorite musician!
    To me his Black Blues series is his most difficult record, although it really captured the ugliness of the blues.

    ReplyDelete