Hasegawa-Shizuo

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4...according to our Ant on Thu 28 Jan, 2010.

I'm currently absorbing some fine Japanese improv from Hirotomo Hasegawa (Aburadako) and Shizuo Uchida (Nijiumu). Recording under the name Hasegawa-Shizuo, 'Lift' is a strange and beautiful album that travels into the depths of darkness but also into the heavenly. I find it difficult to grasp how the sounds have actually been created. There are so many unidentifiable sounds, I can hear strange string and percussion instruments and I think also electronics. The unidentifiable adds to the mysterious quality of the unedited recording, which begins, almost from nothing and gradually builds into a mesmerizing listen. Out on Utech in the usual lavish packaging.

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It was on a night when sleep simply would not come, not matter how long
I sprawled on the grass or how many pages of my book I leafed through.
The black shaggy 'thing' expelled all the breath in its body.
Phu phu phuu.
And as it did so, something glowed softly at the crown of its head.
"Ahh, what a beautiful light! I should put a hat over it to stop it flying
away."
The black shaggy thing took his favourite hat, the one he had hung from
a tree branch, and popped it onto his head.
"Perfect."
Hirotomo Hasegawa and Shizuo Uchida. Hasegawa was the lead singer of seminal
early eighties Japanese punk/hardcore group Aburadako (Greasy Octopus),
while Uchida was a long-term member of Haino's Nijiumu medieval dream-drone
unit. The recording is the result of unedited improvisation. A beatific
recording filled with light and avidity.
Edition of 500.