Medama Records – mr04
Like the meme says, punctuation saves lives; likewise, crediting order
clues you to process. The alphabetical name order on this trio’s first
album, Tina Formosa, implied a non-hierarchical collaboration, and the
sound-blending they sustained during that record’s instrumental passages
bore this out. But let’s face it -- anytime Keiji Haino sings, he’s
king, and he’s definitely first among equals throughout Imikuzushi.
The trio’s third annual collaboration is, once more, excerpted from a
live performance in Japan. But instead of prepared pianos and
electronics, they used the primary colors of rock: guitar, bass and
drums. And while any combo that lets Haino’s sobbing, roaring,
terrifying voice into the mix can never be just a rock band, these guys
rock out quite formidably.
Whether your favorite power trio is the Minutemen or ZZ Top, part of
what makes ’em great is their ability to simultaneously exploit the
format’s simplicity and transcend its limitations. These guys do both.
Each knows exactly what is required of his instrument. O’Rourke’s bass
is often massive and monolithic; he spends most of the first piece –
entitled “still unable to throw off that teaching a heart left abandoned
unable to get inside that empty space nerves freezing that unconcealed
sadness I am still unable to fully embrace” -- pounding out one note
with unwavering precision and absolute brutality. But he also delivers
gently exquisite counterpoint to Haino’s intricate, almost
harpsichord-like guitar on the third piece, “invited in practically
drawn in by something facing the exit of this hiding place who is it?
that went in coming around again the same as before who is it?”
Ambarchi’s drumming veers between precise beats and big clouds of cymbal
smashing, but it’s always propulsive, and his shifts of attack exercise
the same mastery of long-form dynamics as his recent, rigorously
constructed solo album, Audience Of One.
O’Rourke and Ambarchi don’t always play it straight, though. Much of the
enormous tension on “still unable…” comes from their careful shifts in
and out of synch, which they manage and sustain with exacting
discipline. And if you’ve been waiting for Haino to get his rock-god
ya-yas out, you’re in luck here; there are plenty of stark, single-note
solos blowing through this joint like dust devils down a ghost town’s
widest thoroughfare. Turn the corner and they blossom into chords that
contain orchestras. Whether it’s the djinn unleashed by massive volume
or simply judicious marshaling of pedals, Haino usually seems to have
several things happening at once inside every down stroke. He commands
everything about him like some thunderbolt-wielding god atop a mountain,
abetted by pitiless angels who know that their power comes from keeping
him at the peak.
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