Loren Mazzacane Connors & Keiji Haino - 1997 - Vol. 2

 Menlo Park Recordings – Menlo Park 7005  134.01MB FLAC

In Pittsburgh stands apart from most of the collaborative recordings Loren Mazzacane Connors made during the late 1990s and early 2000s because it does not attempt to find common ground between two distinctive guitarists. Instead, it documents two fully developed musical languages occupying the same space while refusing to compromise their identities. Connors and Keiji Haino share a fascination with the expressive possibilities of the electric guitar, but they approach the instrument from radically different emotional and physical directions. Connors searches through hesitation, fragile melody and carefully measured silence. Haino confronts the instrument with overwhelming force, transforming amplification, sustain and distortion into nearly physical events. The remarkable achievement of In Pittsburgh is that neither approach overwhelms the other. Their differences become the music itself.

Recorded live, the album preserves every uncertainty that accompanies an improvised meeting between musicians who possess complete confidence in their own vocabularies. There is no gradual introduction, no cautious negotiation of style. Haino enters with dense electrical energy, allowing sustained feedback and violently textured chords to occupy enormous amounts of sonic space. Connors responds not by matching the volume but by remaining faithful to his own language. A single bent note, held patiently against Haino's electrical storm, becomes unexpectedly powerful simply because it refuses to disappear.

This contrast defines the first movement. Haino often treats distortion as a living substance, pushing amplifiers until harmonics bloom into unstable clouds that seem constantly on the verge of collapse. Connors, meanwhile, continues placing small melodic fragments into the openings that briefly appear. His phrases are neither drowned out nor presented as delicate ornaments. Instead, they function like human voices emerging through overwhelming environmental noise. The music continually asks how much fragility can survive inside immense force, and again and again Connors demonstrates that quietness can possess extraordinary resilience.

The relationship between the two guitarists never settles into conventional dialogue. There are moments when Haino appears to answer Connors directly, but just as often each musician pursues an independent trajectory. Rather than call and response, the performance resembles two weather systems intersecting. Their interaction produces constantly shifting conditions without requiring either participant to surrender individual character. Listeners expecting neat exchanges or recognizable themes may initially find the performance elusive, yet repeated listening reveals countless subtle adjustments through which both musicians continually reshape the shared environment.

Connors' blues vocabulary remains visible throughout the recording, although reduced to its emotional essentials. Bent intervals, hesitant phrasing and unresolved cadences still appear, but now they exist inside a vastly expanded acoustic field. Haino introduces textures that seem almost orchestral in scale, using sustain and amplifier resonance to create immense walls of sound that remain in constant motion. Against this background, Connors' melodic restraint acquires a different significance. His refusal to increase density becomes an artistic decision rather than a limitation.

Silence also behaves differently than on Connors' solo records. In albums such as Moonyean or The Departing of a Dream, silence often forms an equal partner with the guitar, shaping every phrase through absence. Here true silence rarely exists. Even when neither guitarist actively attacks the strings, amplifiers continue humming, feedback circulates through the room and resonant frequencies slowly evolve. The space between gestures remains fully alive, occupied by electrical energy rather than emptiness.

As the performance develops, surprising moments of convergence begin appearing. Haino occasionally reduces his attack, allowing individual tones to emerge with unusual clarity, while Connors gradually permits longer sustained sounds to occupy more of the available space. Neither musician abandons his identity, but each becomes increasingly responsive to the other's methods. The collaboration never arrives at stylistic agreement. Instead, mutual listening allows both vocabularies to expand without becoming indistinguishable.

The recording quality contributes significantly to the experience. Rather than smoothing out volume differences or emphasizing one performer over the other, the mix preserves the physical reality of the concert. Amplifier hiss, room resonance and shifting perspectives remain audible throughout. The listener experiences not simply two guitars but two bodies interacting with loud amplifiers inside an actual performance space. This documentary quality reinforces the music's unpredictability and immediacy.

One of the album's greatest strengths is its patience. Although Haino is capable of extraordinary intensity, he never relies exclusively upon relentless volume. Long stretches of sustained sound gradually transform through internal movement rather than dramatic shifts, while Connors continues extracting remarkable emotional weight from minimal gestures. Time expands naturally as both musicians trust slow development over obvious climax. The result is music that rewards close listening rather than spectacular display.

In Pittsburgh occupies a unique place within both musicians' catalogs. It is not a meeting where contrasting styles become comfortably blended, nor is it a competitive encounter seeking resolution through dominance. Instead, it documents two singular improvisers maintaining complete artistic integrity while discovering unexpected possibilities through coexistence. Connors' haunted lyricism and Haino's volcanic intensity remain unmistakably themselves from beginning to end, yet together they create a landscape neither could have produced alone. The album stands as an exceptional example of improvisation built not upon agreement but upon sustained, attentive difference.