Keiji Haino - Watashi Dake?
1. Untitled 5:24: None of these songs have titles, but the whole album is less than forty minutes, so that is a vast improvement over Frownland's first rec. Even if I hate this, at least it won't feel like a marathon of "Oh my god, make this end, now!" Here we go...
Random... talking, but with no music. Half a minute in, and no music, just... melancholy talking? Let's call it talking. Hints of feedback, but still mostly talking. Screaming? Breathy pain exhalations that may or may not be words?
So, like, is that a black metal album cover? Better than most BM covers, but that is still a ****ing black metal cover.
"Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!" Three minutes in, and that's the most that I've heard. Now silence. I have a feeling my ears are about to be assaulted. So, like, this is the entirety of the first track? Talking/exhalations/screaming, and hints of feedback?
Oh, that was a piano. Assuming someone was extremely timid about playing the piano, but very comfortable with arbitrary vocalizations.
Yup, that was the whole first track. Still better than WISSK.
2. Untitled 5:39: Wait a minute. The track listing on RYM says this album is less than forty minutes, but the Youtube vid is an hour and thirteen minutes long. Am I being had?
Some kind of string instrument. Not doing much, but it's an instrument that's doing something sustained.
Nothing much going on, so I'm checking my Youtube replies. Some chick named "penny maria briggs" is explaining to some ****nut who Jane Austen is (about Saints Row IV), and somebody +1'd my comment about some guy who claimed that his ringtone was Pig Destroyer's "Starbelly" (I said, "Remind me to call you at Thanksgiving"). I'm up to +10 on that comment. Score.
Was that the end of track two? Yup. Just sparse strings and Keiji talking. Seriously, Frownie? This is great? This is like, boring. Nothing is happening. WTF? You are almost as cartoonishly pretentious as Innerspace Cowboy.
Almost.
3. Untitled 3:05: Louder strings now. I'm now assuming this to be guitar. Or some kind of Japanese thing. Never can tell with these Japanese wackadoos.
Is this album really gonna be this for an hour and thirteen minutes? If so, I'm cutting this off at RYM's track list. Might as well. Twenty-five extra minutes of boredom isn't going to make me any more enlightened.
4. Untitled 2:48: Are we at track four? I think so, but who the **** can really tell. He's just playing the same sparse strings and mumbling. Was he just really tired when he recorded this? Every once in a thirty seconds he'll play a noisy riff that lasts for a second at most, but that's about it.
I think we're almost to track five, but it's really hard to tell, since Youtube doesn't give a track listing. I'm having to use math to add up the track lengths on RYM. **** math.
5. Untitled 2:37: Track five? I think so. I don't know that it matters, but the math seems to suggest so, and he kind of paused long enough that I think it changed songs. Now the strings are kind of making... bubbly noises? Close enough.
What's the point of this? I feel like I'd have to be on drugs, staring at the ceiling, and not really paying attention to the music in order to really pick up what this guy is putting down. Active listening just makes this mindlessly du- RANDOM GUITAR NOISE!!!
Alright. Something not boring.
6. Untitled 3:04: Oops. Changed songs without me noticing. The guitar noise stuff was track six. Probably.
This is really just marginally more entertaining than the boring quiet ****. I think the next "song" starts at approximately 22:30. I'll have to remember that.
Just kind of the same repeated guitar noise/feedback.
7. Untitled 2:00: Alright, if this song is two minutes long, and track six ended at 22:34, then 24:34 is the next song. I'll have to tie a string around my finger.
Alright, I'm calling this instrument whatever is the Japanese equivalent of the mandolin. An electric mandolin. Is that a thing? Kinda droney now. Dissonant and yet somehow mellow and melodic. And now it's done.
8. Untitled 4:15: Song ended at 24:40 or something, so 28:55 is what I'm waiting for. I'm not so much waiting till the end as I'm taking gratification in figuring out when one song ends and another begins. It's an academic thing. Gotta get something out of this boring, pretentious... wank? Can I call this wank? I don't know. Snooze either way.
Loudish electric mandolin thingamajigger. Of course it's droney and boring. I need heroin for this. Mushrooms would probably just give me a lame but still somehow bad trip.
Oh yeah, he's mumbling louder. I don't know how you can mumble loudly, but he is. Not
loud loud, but louder than he was.
Next song yet? Nope. 'Nother minute.
9. Untitled 4:23: God damn it, I accidentally went back to 22:something or other. Now I have to go forward again. There we go. Song starts at 29:00 I think, so 33:23 is where we're aiming for. Definitely not listening to the whole vid. If thirty-eight minutes is good enough for RYM, then it's good enough for me. ****ing bonus tracks. I'm assuming.
Quiet noodling. Riveting. There's the sad mumbling again.
Seriously, Frownland, what's so great about this? Can you honestly tell me that you'd give a flying **** about this album if you weren't on hardcore drugs when you listened to it? Even John Cage would be like, "This **** is too quiet, dude."
10. Untitled 3:51: Last song (as far as I'm concerned).
Piano, or Japanese mandolin-thing? Who ****ing cares? Even Keiji Haino doesn't really sound like he gives a ****. I'm kind of waiting this out, but I guess I should mention that this song is just more sparse mandolin-thing noodling with more mumbling.
And we're done. You know what I could have been doing instead of listening this? Softly stroking the head of my penis while watching softcore pornography. It would have been infinitely more stimulating, while providing me with the exact same amount of orgasms. Frownland is a douche.
Final verdict:
/10