Otomo Yoshihide is one of the giants of Japan’s noise music scene for over thirty years, using guitars, turntables and electronics to create improvisations that visit nearly all the fringes of music, from free jazz to minimalism. He’s like Merbow with an axe added to his arsenal.
Since the 80s, Yoshihide has invariably made music from all by himself to with a full-scale orchestra. For this live set performed at a festival in Italy, he and his guitar and his turntables match wits with Chris Pitsiokos with his alto saxophone and his electronics.
We last encountered Pitsiokos as a member of Kikanju Baku’s London-based Citizens of Nowhere, so it’s already evident the saxophonist thrives in the furthest outreaches of improvised music. Yeah, he’s well within Yoshihide’s ballpark.
Live in Florence is set of seven improvs highlighting the give-and-take between Yoshihide and Pitsiokos, where the only rule is to not adhere to rules about music. It’s not harmony or rhythm, it’s primal pulse and vibrations.
“One” is a barrage of samples. loops, buzzes and drones that blurs the line between played and programmed. But that’s hardly the end of it: Pitsiokos later gets on his sax unaltered by effects to build up to a frenzy that Yoshihide matches on his turntables and after a short respite, they tangle again. Yoshihide manages to sound like an electronic version of Pitsiokos on “Two,” decoding Pitsiokos’ inscrutable language and mimicking it so closely, it’s not easy to tell the two apart.
Pitsiokos gets alternately honky and buttery on “Three.” There’s a moment that stands out as the moment of the entire album where Yoshihide finds a piercing note sounding not too dissimilar to those sine waves he loves to cut loose, and Pitsiokos decides first to harmonize to it and then match it. It’s not for the faint of ear. They then take it low and it sounds no less caustic, especially when Yoshihide metes out nasty feedback from his guitar.
On “Four,” Yoshihide squeaks and squeals while Pitsiokos squawks and even chirps melodiously for a while before the two careen off the road entirely with machine gun ferocity. Pitsiokos’ uses a series of trills and note runs during “Five” to instigate Yoshihide’s acerbic responses.
“Six” is an outlier with in this set of outlier music in that it makes use of silence , also featuring Yoshihide’s guitar, which sounds like low timbre chimes. Eager to break out of the dirge feel, the saxophonist eventually gets louder and rowdier as Yoshihide sticks with his solemn stance. “Seven” ends the program in a feisty mood iwth densely packed buzzes and screeches culminating in a rapid run of noises closely melded together. In the middle of that, Yoshihide discreetly reveals he’s turntabling a big band jazz record.
Live in Florence comes to us from Astral Spirits. Purchase it from Bandcamp.
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