KEIJI HAINO + SUMAC - Into This Juvenile Apocalypse Our Golden Blood To Pour Let Us Never

Well, as soon as boa-constrictor song titles like "When Logic Rises Morality Falls Logic And Morality In Japanese Are But One Character Different" or "That Fuzz Pedal You Planted In Your Throat, Its Screw Has Started To Come Loose Your Next Effects Pedal Is Up To You Do You Have It Ready?" come into play, there's little doubt that avantgarde noise guitar madman Keiji Haino must be involved, right?

This album, which along with two outstanding solo works from Patrick Hiroishi and the last regular release of Sumac "May You Be Held" I harvested from the merch table in the Little Devil last month, is already the third collaborative longplayer of the Japanese with the trio around Aaron Turner. And for me "Even For Just The Briefest Moment / Keep Charging This Expiation / Plug In To Making It Slightly Better" belonged to the most sensational, hardly definable heavy music shit of the year 2019.

This behemoth now is just as unfitted for hit radio play and not one millimeter less overwhelming and convincing than the previous sonic armageddon.

KEIJO HAINO + SUMAC - Into This Juvenile Apocalypse Our Golden Blood To Pour Let Us Never (CD) (2022)

To be honest: Even though nothing about this album is easy listening I actually still find this immensly more easy to listen to than to describe. I could pick out a single piece like the fourth track long title beginning with "Because The Evidence Of A Fact"  as a steady build-up of guitar ambience and percussive rumbling, which is factually accurate, but doesn't really free you from the task of listening to this yourself.

But then there's so much other stuff on here which is much harder to grasp. Sumac's off-kilter sludge is amplified to even more devastating extremes by Haino. Drummer Nick Yacyshyn's unconventional rhythmic choices get even more mind-boggling in this free-form context. Turner's instantly recognizable vacuum cleaner vocals from the pits of hell are just as unsettling yet paradoxically satisfying as the painful punk screams and spoken words of Haino. Is this rollercoaster a free jazz version of noise rock or the essence of metal dragged through the unfiltered existential chaos of the human condition?

And are it really the harsh walls of sprawling noise which get stuck the most or are it the sections of quieter swansian transcendency and subtle searching fragility?

As any great recording based on improvised music "This Juvenile Apocalypse" is fueled by the unrepeatable spark of the moment of its creation. It's hardly imaginable that this could have emerged under any different constellation of stars with other minds meeting.
Most of this probably is too intimidating and ear shredding to be called "magic". On close observation though this term applies as much to this creative beast as to any great free jazz or psychedelic rock jam.

Brutally magical. Apocalyptical beautiful.

Hard to determine yet as of now, but this might me in the run for becoming my favorite release of both participating parties! At least until they meet again.