Knead - This Melting Happiness - I Want You To Realize That It Is Another Trap (2003)

| Avant-Garde | Free-Jazz | Noise Rock |

Knead is the free-jazz colective of Keiji Haino with Tatsuya Yoshida and Hisashi Sasaki (drummer and bassist from Ruins). This Melting Happiness, released as a LP limited to 500 copies, is a live recording and one of the only two albums by the band. Their skeletal music consists of call-and-response compositions, mostly lead by Haino and often by Yoshida, which mix the adventurous prog-rock of Ruins and Fushitsusha's avant-rock with Derek Bailey's inspired free-improvisation. Don't expect some Fushitsusha or Ruins-like rock though, Knead is far from what these guys used to play. It sounds more like an earlier "Haino+Tatsuya" thing, but less experimental. Songs also lack a base, since the three of them just keep jamming around. But the spiritual unity of their instrumentals gives enough support for the structures the grow from paced jazz to furious noise strikes as naturally as the time passes. There's also some mad vocals provided by Haino and Yoshida thrown at some points, which just add more chaos to the uncontrollable band. The greatest thing about this is that, besides the huge mess they make, the listener is always able to touch their music. No matter how abstract they can get, their sound is so soulful that it always manages to be truthful. It's really rare to find this kind of authentic improvisation around. Overall, Knead is a must-have to every fan of Haino, Ruins and adventurous free-jazz.

Catalog: Fractal023 (Fractal Records)
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