Something Else! sneak peek: Richard Pinhas and Tatsuya Yoshida, “Part One – Intro” (2014)

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In recent years, veteran sonic sculptor Richard Pinhas has found affinity with the king of Japanese noise music, Merzbow. We’ve spotlighted some of their collaborative efforts here and found much to relish in the meshing of Pinhas’ metallic sheen of his modified guitar with the abrupt and random electronic noises of Merbow’s laptop.

The success of their partnership must have gotten Pinhas to start wondering who else from Japan’s notorious noise scene might also be compatible enough to complement and expand Pinhas’ own vision for electronic experimentalism. So far, we know that he’s found at least one in drummer Tatsuya Yoshida.

On May 27, Pinhas and Yoshida will jointly release Welcome In The Void on the Cuneiform label. The stream above is a snippet of the hour-long plus track that makes up the entirety of the album. One thing that is readily apparent from this segment is that Yoshida is a muscular drummer and leaves a large footprint. It’s a suitable contrast to Pinhas’ atmospheric cascades of sound, giving the proceedings a hard kick in the pants.

Welcome In The Void will be the second of Pinhas’ “Devolution Trilogy” set of releases, (the first being last year’s Desolation Row), a series of instrumental statements against the rise of neoliberalism; Dr. Pinhas holds a PhD. in Philosophy, by the way.

If they handed out advanced degrees for electronic music that’s been pushing outward the frontier for the last four decades, Richard Pinhas would be first in line to qualify for one of those, too. Welcome In The Void looks to be another thesis in this field of study.

S. Victor Aaron