Great review.
I'm totally on board with everything you said.
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Feel this is one of the most legitimately emotional albums I've ever heard. I really like the simple direction of just a man, his guitar, and the expression of his words. A very fluid combination of shrill weak gasps, and effect heavy guitar that plays off mood perfectly. Albeit musically this is very very detached from blues, it's seeming a lot of the same spirit of alpha blues, only amazingly abstracted, and expertly distilled into a wordless form form
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Yes, it struck me as very sincere and a very painful expression. It felt like a catharsis expelling the lingering demons from an abusive childhood. This is my favorite take on the avant-garde. Something that is at the same time unnerving and necessary. This is definitely the type of sound I was drawn to during my last years of adolescence and if there's one lesson you're bound to learn again and again it's that life is hard.
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Very interesting to hear this type of hyper-experimental work with the raw amount of emotion presented. In most cases Avant Garde aims to be satirical, or literary but usually in a very impersonal way. Not always, but typically this is a very raw deviation from the natural form
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Yes. One of the great things about really good experimental music is the ambiguity. Something profound is being expressed and you sense that but you can't put your finger on it. The live tracks or the extra EP or whatever it is seems more in that vein and he nails it with each effort. I do think one would be better served taking each section as a single serving instead of tackling this whole thing in one sitting. I used to always wade through bonus tracks but now I usually pass them over or listen to them only. I think that's the best way to approach this record as well.
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Best of the three albums listened to so far by a country mile.
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Absolutely yes.
Now, if I can extend this post a bit I would like to mention a few things that may already be known but hopefully of some interest to some of you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu****susha (oh good grief the censorship kills the link Google Fush
itsusha)
Fu****susha is Keiji Haino's band. I have a lot of their music spread out through my cdr's but I have a tendency to make everything a compilation and I'm terrible about labeling my music so I'm not sure exactly what all I have.
Now, a lot of people dislike this dude, Scaruffi, but I've learned a lot through his lists and critiques.
The History of Rock Music. Keiji Haino: biography, discography, reviews, links
Now, this seems really interesting to me:
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Fu****susha drummer Hiroyuki Usui released a pioneering work of acid folk and blues, Holy Letters (Holy Castle, 1992 - VHF, 2004), credited to L, replete with Tibetan monks.
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I don't have this in my collection but it seems like it would be a great add.
Ten buck for the MP3's off amazon, here.
Amazon.com: Holy Letters: L: MP3 Downloads
and here's a great review of it:
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This album was recorded in the late 80s by Japanese musician Hiroyuki Usui and had a limited release in the early 90s. The album is broadly in the genre of experimental/acid folk, having similarities with artists like Loren Conners, Six Organs of Admittance and Spires That In The Sunset Rise. Usui uses a wide range of instrumentation (guitars, vibes, digeridoo, drums, strings) and scattered vocals/spoken word to create an ambient feel. Most songs lack a clear groove or traditional song structure but substitute rhythmic drive with acoustic complexity. For those looking to branch out, this is really a great disc and a worthwhile foray into experimental folk music.
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I hope I haven't taken this too far off the mark. Again about the record at hand, it's a great selection and I'm really glad to have this early work in my music collection now. Brilliant.
