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)
On Last.fm
Download

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)
On Last.fm
Download

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)
Album overview on Arcane Candy
On Last.fm
Download

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)
Album overview on Arcane Candy
On Last.fm
Download

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))
On Last.fm
Download

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
On Last.fm
Download

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.

Album Overview on Allmusic
On Last.fm
Download

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)
Album overview on Arcane Candy
On Last.fm
Download

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)
Album Overview On ArcaneCandy
On Last.fm
Download

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)
Album overview on Arcane Candy
On Last.fm
Download