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I've been enjoying the sickening grind-core mutant called Unholy Grave. They have a multitude of gorgeous recordings out: all wrench the stuffing out of the squares. It seems when the Japanese approach pretty much any western music genre they amp it up to a nerve burning pitch, eviscerating the viscera or some such. This band certainly has all the typical grindcore moves down, but have blanketed in such a ear popping noise hiss that it defies typical genre yawn. I can't help but jump up and down when I hear such grinding perfection. Underground Japanese Grindcore is tops.
In a completely different mood, but as wholesomely unwholesome as grindcore, is the work of Sachiko M who I mentioned earlier in this thread but felt needed a better explanation as to the magnitude of awesomeness she exudes with but a sampler and twin sine waves. Her music blows up alien brains, and violently needles the tinnitus bearers in our species. However, if the immediate feeling of her work is bemusement bordering on painful annoyance, it soon becomes apparent that her work is of a truly singular nature, producing music that becomes less about creating song but furthering the nature of sound itself. Her best work is when she functions as a opening sound field for other musicians... her work with no-imput mixing board wielder, Toshimaru Nakamura, is delightfully high end explorations of skidding electronics and pure sonic alienation. I bought their duo, "Do," on a whim years ago expecting an album that would annoy my neighbors and, like death metal, produce some sort of punishing-the-self atmosphere for me to come home to after a painful day at work or school. However, what I got was something entirely different than I expected -- it annoyed me. Now, of course, this doesn't seem like such a ringing endorsement, but this was annoyance more in the lines of not being at all to understand what the shit was going on rather than the clap your hands to your ears variety. I promptly threw it in a pile and told myself I liked it but wasn't sure why and moved on. The next album I picked up that Sachiko was involved in that actually made sense to me was her album Absinth with the Austrian trumpet player, Franz Hautzinger, the Austrian Bassist/electronics demigod, Werner Dafeldecker, and ace Morton Feldman piano interpreter, John Tilbury. It's on Grob records and I bought in a typically impressionable time in my life -- so it pretty much tore a gaping hole in my head, making me realize that there was, indeed, more interesting places left in music abstraction. Sachiko functions perfectly in this group, emitting long sinuous curves of sine wave, that like light, seems to move in both wave and particle form, depending on how you move your head. Over this timeless flow is beautiful thumps and sputters from Hautzinger's trumpet, Dafeldecker's woody thwacks, and stately, poetic Felman like tone clusters from Tilbury. This all moves out in a slow, achingly beautiful procession, allowing each player to simply breathe with one another, creating something musical out of pure, eerily organic sound. Now as far as I know, this album is not easily available anymore, which is a true pity, as it's a inspirational snap shot of electro acoustic improvisation near the beginning of the century, and probably one of my favorite albums. But I've seen copies of it for sale at www.sound323.com . Downloading doesn't really do it justice, unfortunately, as the austere, glacial beauty can be lost with crappy files. . . either way, it's Sachiko M who brings this set together, holding it together with a high pitched glue.
Now jump forward a couple years, I pull "Do" out again and lay down in the middle of my shag carpeted floor, positioning my head next to a subwoofer and pressed play. This album is fucking alive! Like a burrowing insect of high end twinge and low end pulse. It no longer annoys me, but is endlessly fascinating-- as thought the further you peer the more complex and crystalline it becomes. Possibly it was that I had heard enough Sachiko by that point to "get" where she was coming from finally, but it definitely became a revelatory listen, and forced me to look harder at just how radical and yes skillful her manipulation of, yes, sine waves had become. She punctuates these high pitches with stutters and full stops, shattering any rhythms, changing directions for the music to take. She pulls at the very function of the music0-- is this entertainment? Is this a song? Is this an expectation? Does it matter? These are all questions that can pop up listening to something like "Do." But simply on it's own, it's a compelling, strange and sometimes gorgeous album of pure sound
She's released other amazing albums... but these two are more personal to me. Undoubtedly some of her work takes a lot of commitment on the listener, but the dividends can be profound. So, yeah, some Japanese music I like. |
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