Otomo Yoshihide is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist. He mainly plays guitar, turntables, and electronics. He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in a variety of contexts, ranging from free improvisation to noise, jazz, avant-garde and contemporary classical. He is also a pioneering figure in the EAI-scene, and is featured on important records on labels like Erstwhile Records. He has composed music for many films, television dramas, and commercials. In 2017, Otomo became the 2nd Guest Artistic Director of The Sapporo International Art Festival 2017.
With the exception of 2 tracks, this is an entirely solo album that sees Otomo experimenting with various odd instrumentation. The behemoth opening track, "Religion-4", is the first. Otomo plays the turntables, tapes, and radio on this piece. It's pretty much straight up noise music, you can hear wailing, beeping and harsh turntable scratches for the first few minutes and not many other discernable sounds, as it crashes and screeches its way throughout its early duration. Despite of the sound sources being use here you can only barely at moments make out what the hell you're hearing. A voice, a drum beat, junk noises, occasionally peek through the chaos only to disappear as fast as they entered. About 11 and a half minutes in is the most recognizable sample with loops of a monologue, which also marks things getting a bit less harsh, but still very noisy and nonsensical. Things come down in the last couple minutes of the track with the sampling becoming much more noticeable and less overwhelming, more sparse, before one final WOOOSH finishes off the track. This takes up the entire A-Side of the cassette and is an absolute trip to listen to, apocalyptic and destructive, but oddly meditative, also proving Otomo's mastership at the art of Turntable Music. A great jam that will surely please those who enjoyed Otomo's more noisy works.
Kicking off the B-Side, the "Guitar Solo Improvisation" is exactly what the name suggests. Otomo had a different technique compared to the custom made noise guitars of his work with Ground Zero or the noisy, pedal soaked arpeggios that mark his New Jazz records. Indeed, Otomo doesn't play with seemingly any effects whatsoever. Just a tight jam that emphasizes dissonance, atonality and seemingly random plucking above the noise and feedback of his latter day output. So demented in it's chaos that it would make even Derek Bailey blush. Definitely an extremely cool solo.
"Religion-3" returns with all the instruments featured on "Religion-4" but with the addition of a violin and vocals. It opens with radio tuning sounds that sound kinda like a geiger counter before the violin just gets absolutely destroyed, being abused so badly, it sounds like high pitched static. Otomo also does these weird gurgling vocals over it and there's random samples going on in the background while he breaks the poor thing. Very amusing in it's absolute cacophony and impressive that Otomo can juggle all these instruments at once.
"Sax Of A Kind + PB Radio '84", despite the name, actually does not contain any kind of saxophone. Weird name but alright. The shortest track by far, there's three credited guitarists (including Otomo) as well as a bassist, a drummer, and Otomo on "tape recordings". Also according to the liner notes, the tape recordings are sampled from a radio. Otomo sure loves his radios even when he is not playing them. This is basically just a recording of a (sadly normal) jazz cover intertwined with japanese spoken word radio. It is a cool cover and the radio does add a bit of Otomo wackiness to the otherwise normal sounding jazz.
"Religion-1" has the same instrumental lineup as "Religion-4", with the addition of a synthesizer. It's very noisy and high pitched all the way, with the radio providing an ear piercing backing for the aforementioned sci-fi noises. A curious little noise piece.
The most confusing track is probably "Religion-2", for which the only credited instruments are the tapes and "electric springs". There's basic tape loops in the background while the springs provide a metal scraping sound, kind of like the violin on "Religion-3" but with a lot more tremolo. If a violin and spring sound similar on an album then you know you have a master noise maker at hand.
The final track, "NS-500", is a full on free jazz jam that clocks in at 8 minutes, the longest on the B-side. The standard lineup of bass, drums, guitar and tenor saxophone are on display here, with the addition of Otomo playing with toys. The bass is easily the loudest thing in the mix, and it is some very solid playing indeed. The drumming is very energetic, constant rolls and fills throughout the whole thing, the guitar is for the most part random plucking similar to the earlier "Guitar Solo", and the saxophone is very Zorn-esque indeed, piercing highs and squeals that sound like a dying pig. The toys can occasionally be heard but for the most part are drowned out by the drums and noise. The closest comparison is the Ground Zero debut, but a lot noisier and with fewer instrumentation, and without the vocals of our beloved Yamatsuka Eye. Still, a great free jazz jam. For those that looked for more stuff akin to live Ground Zero however, this will definitely please your ears.
A very grainy album that shows us what the 80s sounded like with Otomo, combining a few jazz jams with straight up noise, this is probably the best we are going to get of that for a while. Until his early tapes get rereleased, this will stand as the finest document of a young and crazy Otomo who has yet to fully develop his techniques, but there is an undeniable charm to this whole tape that makes it more than a novelty and rather a very enjoyable listen. If you heard 'We Insist?', and wanted to hear what Otomo was doing years before any of that was recorded, give this album a go. It will not disappoint. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Maboroshi No Sekai – P…0010
Format:
Cassette
Country: Japan
Released: 1994
Style: Avantgarde, Free Improvisation, Turntable Music, Free Jazz, Noise
Tracklist:
A1 Religion-4
B1 Guitar Solo Improvisation
B2 Religion-3
B3 Sax Of A Kind + PB Radio '84
B4 Religion-1
B5 Religion-2
B6 NS-500
Notes:
A1: Live at Otomo's Apt, Tokyo, 1985.
B1: Live at Goodman, Tokyo, 1981.
B2: Live at Otomo's Apt, Tokyo, 1985.
B3: Live at Kogakuin-Univ, Tokyo + tape sampling from radio, 1984.
B4: Live at Otomo's Apt, Tokyo, 1983.
B5: Live at Doin' Studio, Tokyo, 1984.
B6: Live at Meiji Univ, Tokyo, 1982.
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