PURPLE TRAP - The Stone

If you know you know, I guess.

PURPLE TRAP - The Stone (LP) (2023/2025)

I at least knew the label Karlrecords. I also knew Japanese Noise improvisation legend Keiji Haino. And of course i also knew bass player Bill Laswell, who I recently reviewed several times with the return of his trio with John Zorn and Mick Harris, PainKiller.

Rashied Ali, who had played drums with Jazz greats like Sonny Rollins, Pharoah Sanders and both Alice and John Coltrane only seemed familiar via name recognition to me, and if he had already been present somewhere in my music collection, I'm not actively aware of that.

However this was still enough to imagine how this live recording of their trio Purple Trap from December 2005, which Bill Laswell first released digitally for his Bandcamp channel subscribers in 2023, would roughly sound like: Intricate Free Jazz, brute Noise, a masterful balance of chaos which finds and dissolves structure - and musicality too seasoned to bother with seeking validation.

Ali as one of the originators stays closest to the traditional image of Free Jazz, while Laswell fluidly moves between smooth stabilizing lines and more experimental or sick distorted sounds.
Haino, who also delivers some manic vocals, is all over the place between surprisingly sweet and listenable and - much more frequent - parallel dimension rock star mannerism and other delightful Avantgarde dada.

Or in other words: legends at work. It's good. Friends of Free Noise Jazz can't do wrong with this record.

If you purchase the vinyl release don't throw away your download code, because one of the seven tracks is only available digitally!

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.

KEIJI HAINO + SUMAC - Even For Just The Briefest Moment / Keep Charging This "Expiation" / Plug In To Making It Slightly Better

Ja, "Even For Just The Briefest Moment / Keep Charging This "Expiation" / Plug In To Making It Slightly Better".

Die Lektion habe ich ja schon aus seinen Kooperationen mit den türkischen Freejazzern Konstrukt gelernt: Wenn Du das japanische Experimentalmonster Keiji Haino in seiner Kreativküche besuchst, dann hast Du nachher die komplizierte lange Album- und Songtitelscheiße am Schuh.

Und natürlich enorm fahrstuhluntaugliche, extremavantgardistische Musik.

KEIJI HAINO + SUMAC - Even For Just The Briefest Moment / Keep Charging This "Expiation" / Plug In To Making It Slightly Better (CD) (2019)

Nun sind Sumac, die hier bereits zum zweiten Mal mit Haino gemeinsame Sache machen, an sich ja schon ein äußerst sperriges und unkonventionelles Biest.
Das Trio aus Aaron Turner (der neben der Gitarre auch das Artwork zu verantworten hat), Bassist Brian Cook (der nebenbei auch noch bei Russian Circles spielt) und dem absolut eigensinnigen Ausnahmedrummer Nick Yacyshyn wird zumeist ja am ehesten dem Post- und Sludge-Metal zugeordnet, aber so ganz genau weiß natürlich niemand, was dieses fiese ultraschwere, grobe und gleichzeit instrumental so anspruchsvolle Zeug eigentlich ist.

Eines ist jedoch klar: Je freier sie aufspielen, desto eher merkt man, dass diese Typen sich ganz natürlich durch einem Raum bewegen, in dem Extremkrach, Metal und Freejazz ohne Berührungsängste zusammen abhängen und chillen stressen.

Auf diesem Album erleben wir nun Sumac in experimentellster Laune, durch den Ring gezogen von Keiji Hainos Noise-Gitarre und Herumgekeife. Außerdem spielt der Mann hier noch Flöte und Taepyeongso, was - wie wir alle selbstverständlich wissen - eine kurze Kegeloboe aus der koreanischen Musiktradition ist.

Relativ harmlos mit Haino am Blasinstrument fängt "Even For Just The Briefest Moment / Keep Charging This "Expiation" / Plug In To Making It Slightly Better" auch an.
Beim nur etwas über fünf Minuten langen Opener "Interior Interior Interior Interior - Space - Disgusting Disgusting Disgusting" könnte es sich glatt um eine lose Neuinterpretation eines Stücks aus dem Fundus von Alice Coltrane oder Miles Davis handeln.

Der zweite Track, fünfzehn Minuten lang und betitelt "Now I've Gone And Done It I Spilled Holy Water (Just Water) Over That Thing Called Healing Music……………………………. / There Was A Faint "Tsk" Noise", ist dann aber schon sehr viel mühsamer verortbarer, stärkerer Tobak, der bei mir seltsamste, diffuse Assoziationen weckt. Saw Throat meets Einstürzende Neubauten trifft Bill Frisell auf Kokain stolpert über Verstärker ist kaputt. Geht das?

Ich weiß es doch auch nicht. "Even For Just The Briefest Moment / Keep Charging This "Expiation" / Plug In To Making It Slightly Better", der Titelsong also, nimmt gleich eine halbe Stunde Platz ein und schlägt in eine ähnliche Kerbe. Nur noch etwas irrsinnig brutaler. DasistkeineMusikmehr (sprich: sehr musikalisch und inspiriert, aber so gar nicht auf die Weise, die ein Fan der Greatest Hits von AC/DC und der kommerziellen Mittelphase von Marius Müller Westernhagen ohne bewusstseinserweiternden Brunch nachvollziehen könnte.
Wobei, wäre der elegische Postrockausklang des Stücks fünf Ecken geradliniger gespielt... mit diesem unberechenbarem Übereinandergestolpere allerdings... Nope.

John Zorn und Mike Patton gefällt das auf jeden Fall.

Radiotauglicher wird das Krachlärmgedresche natürlich auch im abschließenden Neunzehnminüter "(First Half) / Once, Twice, Thrice / When You Press The Third Time / Carve Esteem And Despoliation Into Your Heart (Second Half) / Every Historical Scar / Has Been Lined Up At Regular Intervals But / Their Permeation Is Different / Beautified With A Loss Spray" nicht, auch wenn man als Swans-Fan hier eine gewisse Spur von vertrautem Halt finden kann.

Mann, was ist das fordernder Scheiß. Aber so irre gut.

Das hätte ich eigentlich schon vor einem halben Jahr ahnen können, als ich mehrfach in "Even For Just The Briefest Moment / Keep Charging This "Expiation" / Plug In To Making It Slightly Better" reingehört hatte und schon wusste, dass ich das Ding irgendwann haben wollte.
Auf Vinyl war mir das mit Importversandkosten dann aber zu teuer und ich habe es zunächst auf die Merkliste, später dann als CD auf die Weihnachtswunschliste verschoben.

Und erst jetzt, da ich es Santa sei Dank mehrfach komplett gehört habe, ist mir die ganze Wucht und Kongenialität dieses Antikommerzialistenklassentreffens bewusst.  

Ist das hier eventuell die geilste Musik, die mir das ganze Jahr untergekommen ist?

Und warum beuge ich mich dem Schneller-fertig-ist-besser-Trend des Internets und veröffentliche meine Best-of-Jahresendlisten nicht erst im Januar oder Februar?

Das hier ist ja nicht das erste Album, bei dem ich mich nach Vollendung meiner Top 22 frage, ob es nicht auch dort hineingehört. In diesem Fall geht es aber wirklich um eine mögliche Sprengung der Spitzenpositionen. Oder mir ist das Ding in einigen Wochen über und ich fasse es nur noch zur jährlichen Materialverfallskontrolle an. Was weiß ich denn?

Diese Carlos SATANAS-Jazzfusion des Bösen ist doch mit normalen zerebral zu Verfügung stehenden Mitteln nicht zu händeln. Aber ich glaube, ich finde dieses Ungetüm auch übernächstes Neujahr noch fucktastisch.

Mir brennt nur von den Titeln etwa der Bregen. Wie gut, dass es Copy & Paste gibt.

MUSIC 2018: top EP, live recordings, reissue

It's end-of-the-year list season. The "big one" with my favorite albums and concerts of 2018 is already done, so here comes the appendix with the best of other musical stuff.

While compiling it I realized that it really was an album-centric year for me. I obtained so few 7" or 10" records, split releases or download-only stuff, that it would be silly to make lists of any of those categories. So the whole thing is a rather short one this time.

To compensate I've thought about reviving the cheerful disappointments section, but despite being the longest text here that actually didn't generate too much solid content either.

The final part of this post is just a look back on what little my own experimental duo was doing this year.

TOP EP:

 

 

DARK BUDDHA RISING - II

   
Droning. Mystical. Colossal. Judging from the playing time this work may count as an EP, but the sonic reality is that Dark Buddha Rising rolls over your senses like a cosmic giant.

TOP 3 live recordings:

 

1. BELL WITCH - Live At Roadburn 2015
   
   

   
   Watching Bell Witch open Roadburn 2015 with their genius duet take on funeral doom still counts as one my most imprinting concert experiences in recent years. So to finally get this show as a crushing record is the best addition to the two special 2018 Roadburn shows I could ever imagine - and another worthy tribute to the late Adrian Guerra. Worship the shit out of this!
     
   
   
2. KONSTRUKT & KEIJI HAINO - A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies A Quagmire (Live)
   
   

   
   Yes, the music is as insane as the title. This Turkish / Japanese free jazz / noise rock cooperation is definitely among this year's most borderline crazy advantgarde shit releases. Also - to make things even weirder -, don't confuse this with previous year's studio album of the same name, which is comprised of totally different compositions!
     
   
   
3. CULT OF LUNA and JULIE CHRISTMAS - Mariner: Live At De Kreun - Belgium
       
   
   
   Even though I already own the studio album and have witnessed the very last of those rare shows for it at Roadburn, I still got my fingers on this live album, which once again features the stellar collaboration of Swedish post metal force Cult Of Luna and Julie Christmas. Some vocal arrangements may remain unperformable, but the live setting adds so much energy and so many layers at other places, that it has become my most listened-to version of "Mariner".
    

TOP reissue:

EARTH - The Bees Made Honey In The Lion's Skull

While the first-time vinyl release of Swans' "Die Tür Ist Zu" may be of more exclusive content, I have to go with this 10 year anniversary reissue of Earth's already timeless and legendary masterpiece here. I had this on CD, but not only for the bonus track the vinyl is an upgrade. So much fuller and richer... It's almost like discovering a whole new record for me.

When has western psychedelic desert doom ever sounded cooler?

  

 

 

Disappointments 2018?

 

I don't know about any huge disappointments... Has any band or artist fucked it up big time? Nothing severe comes to mind.

Of course bands are disbanding. Norway's advantgarde metal specialists Virus are a huge loss that comes to mind immediately.

And then there's the never-ending "Laibach Revisited" story. The release has grown into a big, extremely promising box set, which I already have pre-ordered and payed for, but it has been postponed from September to spring 2019. While it is a bit annoying, the reason is that they are still adding additional stuff like a whole extra album. So that's fine with me.
I'm significantly more pissed that my vinyl copy of "The Sound Of Music" still hasn't found its way to me. Fucking Christmas.

Bruce Dickinsson outing himself as a Brexiteer, that was a shame. Well, he's rich. But yeah, that's not really music-related. And if we're going in that direction, the world has become way too absurd to do it justice here.

I guess my major general complaint is that the year goes by so fast, with so many albums which I still haven't bought or listened to yet. I mean, you still need some time to process all of it, right?

Of course I cannot blame Dead Can Dance, Florence + The Machine, Obscura, Sons Of Kemet etc. for me not having purchased their albums yet.

On the other hand just a little pinch of scepticism about the musical direction can hold me back for a long time - as seen with Khemmis, who after two great works are now maybe too traditional metal / hard rock for me? Don't know, I should really take a listen.

Same goes for Janelle Monae, who has finally delivered a successor to 2015's "The Electric Lady", but ditched her Cindi Mayweather persona. "Dirty Computer" has at least some good tracks on it, I know, but I'm having a hard time adjusting to the aesthetics of those modern pop royalty productions... The same thing made me avoid previous year's Kendrick Lamar album.

Damn.

 

 

  

 

DRUTURUM activities:

And finally a brief look back on my personal activities with Druturum.

Due to the concept of exclusive shows itself and occasional difficulties to find rehearsal time, our tour schedule will always be easy to oversee, that's for sure. At the moment we're patiently working on "Druturum V: Wayfarer", but it will still take a while until we can confirm a date and location.

This year in May we've played two very different shows. For more background information follow the links to the respective bandcamp pages (english) or posts in this blog (german)!

(stream/download/liner notes on bandcamp /blog post HERE!)

(stream/download/liner notes on bandcamp / blog post HERE!)

KONSTRUKT & KEIJI HAINO - A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies A Quagmire / A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies A Quagmire (Live)

We all know those people who are stuck in some musical past (mostly the soundtrack of their own teenage years) and persistently claim that there is no more good music today. Every after Pink Floyd / Rolling Stones / Nirvana / Frank Sinatra etc. sucks.
And I always tell those guys the same thing: There has never been so much great music of all kinds out there - and it has never been so easy to discover it. If you are a too lazy creature of habit to look beyond what the music industry pushes into some charts - it's your fault alone.

I constantly find myself discovering more rabbit holes leading to all kinds of musical worlds than I can ever process in this one lifetime.

The following pair of album reviews is a good example of finding shit by following one of the million paths the internet provides. Just read Bandcamp Daily from time to time and you'll detect the weirdest, most obscure and exciting stuff.

Back in June they had this article "Devil Horns: Metal Bands Who Use Brass And Woodwinds". I mainly wanted to read the text about the Kayo Dot classic "Choirs Of The Eye", but then I saw that my beloved old John Zorn project Painkiller from the early 1990s was also featured there, but with their third album "Execution Ground", which I had never heard. It really is the band's masterpiece - and it was re-released on vinyl in 2016, by a german advantgarde label called Karlrecords (named after Karl Marx).

I got the double record, I love it. And I had Karlrecords in the back of my head now.

So when two weeks ago I received an email informing me about the label being featured on Bandcamp Daily again, that led me to Konstrukt and Keiji Haino - both names which didn't ring any bell for me before - and their two collaborative records.

KONSTRUKT & KEIJI HAINO - A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies A Quagmire (LP) (2017)

Yes, that album title is quite a mouthful, and even more so are the song titles on this thing. Luckily there are just two of those monstrous brainfuckers, even though there are six tracks on the records. But well, in the end that stuff is just a quirky sidenote anyway.

What do we have here musically? If I had to describe it only using the content of my blog as a source of reference, I would that the closest I could get would be a mixture of Black Cube Marriage's "Astral Cube" and the whole body of work of the Dead Neanderthals. And that would cover about sixty percent of what this album has to offer - max.

So let's take a look at the parties at play here:

Konstrukt are a quartet, as much routed in the traditional Coleman / Coltrane free jazz approach and its advantgardistic offsprings, as in their turkish heritage, which is unmistakenly represented by the heavy use of folk percussions and mediterranian wind instruments. Imagine the Sun Ra Arkestra with oriental folk instead of afrofuturism. (And they have even played together with Sun Ra bandleader Marshall Allen in the past!)
On top of that they are also using analog synthesizers, tape echo looping effects and other electronic stuff. So maybe I could have also cited the Köhnen Pandi Duo above.
But what Konstrukt are bringing to the table is its very own beast. And it goes fucking berserk in all the best ways. With the broad range of instrumentation it's impossible to pinpoint every ingredient which gives this over the top inferno its special flavour. But even as the saxophone afficionado I am, there is no doubt that one instrument which particularly stands out in an almost unnerving, but absolutely brilliant way is the zurna. There hasn't been such a zurna overload in my record collection since King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard's "Flying Microtonal Banana".

Konstrukt have teamed up with Keiji Haino, who happens to be a japanese noise rock legend. And since his main contributions are wild guitars and the occasional insane shit screaming, there is no way I can keep my advantgarde free jazz noise rock grindcore whatever go-to-reference Naked City out of this. He also provides additional percussion and air synthesizers. If you haven't heard of those yet - you should definitely do a search on Youtube. Sick stuff.

If you are now assuming that all this can only add up to an unlistenable mess, you are probably right concerning your personal perception. If you hate free jazz and experimental improvisatory excess, this album surely won't turn you around.

But if you are receptive to the styles combined on "A Philosophy Warping", this record truly is a goldmine which bleeds instrumental skill and atmospheric instinct to a rich listening experience, which unlocks new details every time you spin it.

Highlights: All Things Will Be Reduced To Equal D お Tっっ3 BBRc MMM あ元 Part 1 - 3, The Darkness Of +​(​plus) And The Paleness Of –​(​minus) Drag Each To An Identical Distance And Reanalyse Blending In Some Pain Part 1- 3 - which is the whole album, because seriously: you either hate every bit of this or you love it all. There is no middleground here.

When your first record has such a catchy title, why not just use it again?

There you go...

KONSTRUKT & KEIJI HAINO - A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies A Quagmire (Live) (LP) (2018)

At least the colour scheme of the cover artwork is different. Those paintings look really great as the real physical thing by the way.

Ok, there are other differences as well:
This time it's a live album, recorded with an audience. And it's not a performance of the older album, but completely new material.

The song titles are... something... again, but this time there is no bothering dividing the record sides into parts, even though there technically are some breaks, where the band starts fresh. But it's all presented as two twenty minutes+ tracks.

Stylistically it doesn't fall too far from the first record, but there is a distinct emphasis on some elements. The first side finds the band more guitar-driven than before, while the B-side focusses more on the saxophony jazz sound. And on both sides the traditional turkish influences are dialed back.
Those statements don't go for every minute of each respective side, but at at least you can say that there is a tendency you can feel.

It surely pruduces a vibe which overall is a little different than on the 2017 album. Maybe it's just the musicians knowing each other better by now, but this records feels closer to live albums like "Dark Magus" or "Agharta" from Miles Davis (maybe with temporary Herbie Hancock sidekick and synth pioneer Patrick Gleeson in the mix) than its predecessor.

Plus the japanese vocal madness of course. Let's not forget that.

Highlights: Into A Trap Surely So Elaborately Laid Air Has Entered And A Splendid Beautiful Monster Now Swims, Excess + Analysis / Courage = (Yes, that's the album again.)

I really can't settle for a favorite between these two albums. Because just as they are equally named, they are both equally as impressive, rewarding  and out there. So it really makes sense to listen to these both albums as different sides of the same coin.

As of now there are not too many LPs left. And the high quality pressing undoubtly does the music justice. So if you think you might be interested in more than a digital download, you'd better act fast.

It might be too early to say something like that, but in the world of extreme experimental jazz "A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies A Quagmire" and "A Philosophy Warping, Little By Little That Way Lies A Quagmire (Live)" have pretty good chances to reside among my all-time favorites.