Summary.
Lost Aaraaff's Lost Aaraaff (1971) was devoted to three improvised acid jams.
Their young guitarist, Keiji Haino penned the 48-minute noise-jam
Ama No Gawa - Milky Way (Mom'n'Dad Productions, 1993).
Then in 1978, inspired by free-jazz master Takayanagi Masayuki, Haino formed Fushitsusha to play improvised psychedelic jams.
Their beginnings are documented on 1978 (PSF, 2003), which collects two 1978 live tracks.
Starting with Live I (1989), 100 minutes of noise that ranked among the masterpieces of the psychedelic jam of all times, a bacchanal that vomited debris of Blue Cheer, MC5, Iron Butterfly, free-jazz, Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix, this prolific trio (originally a quartet) released monumental and dissolute works that seemed to know no limits. Fushitsusha (1991) and Hisou - Pathetique (1994) were among the follow-ups, but later releases such as The Wisdom Prepared (1998) and I Saw It (2000) were equally torrential.
In the meantime, Haino was also busy with Nijiumu and Vajra.
His solo albums included the galactic suites Affection (1992) and Execration (1993), and his boldest experiment, I Said This Is The Son Of Nihilism (1995).
As the influences of LaMonte Young and Brian Eno increased, Haino arrived at
Abandon All Words At A Stroke So That Prayer Can Come Spilling Out (2001), which contains a hypnotic piece for hurdy-gurdy and treated voice, and an industrial collage of metallic noises, distortions and ghostly vocals.
Full bio
Japanese guitarist Keiji Haino, inspired by the great and misunderstood Takayanagi Masayuki of the 1970s,
delivered outstanding wroks in the field of avant-garde rock music.
Some of his albums were inspired by the great psychedelic tradition, others by the jazz improvisers, others by German cosmic music, and still others by the minimalism of LaMonte Young.
Unfortunately, Haino had the vice of recording whatever was on his mind, and without thinking it through. The result was an avalanche of largely unlistenable or simply poorly recorded music. Had he condensed his insights into a double disc, the result would have been one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century music. As it is, however, his discography is almost all disposable.
Haino had been active since the early 1970s in the world of psychedelic rock with the group Lost Aaraaff. The album Lost Aaraaff (PSF, 1971) contains three improvised tracks totaling over an hour of music. A 1971 concert, Concert From The Genyasai Festival (Purple Trap, 1995), two tracks for an hour of music, would not see the light of day until a quarter century later.
Haino penned the 48-minute noise-jam Ama No Gawa - Milky Way (Mom'n'Dad Productions, 1993), recorded live in 1973 using electronics and home-made instruments, somewhere between Musica Elettronica Viva, Throbbing Gristle and Taj Mahal Travellers; almost a preview of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music (which came out two years later).
The piece begins with an eruption of shrieking drones that implode in a tornado of faceless distortion that descends into an ambience of hissing horror pierced
by industrial honking and sirens that flares up into a hellish maelstrom
of scorching distortions like the screaming of a multitude being burned alive.
This recording, hidden for 20 years, would remain one of Haino's artistic peaks.
Haino's solo career officially started with
Watashi Dake/ Only Me (Pinakotheca, 1981) (PSF, 1983),
a simple work for vocals and guitar, but already revelatory of his passion
for
Jimi Hendrix-ian guitar noise (Even if I break through) and for
psychotic litanies
(Though I want to laugh).
Blueprint For The Shimmering Quivers Of The Deep Purple Ultraviolet Tuning Fork, off Free Rock (PSF, 2002), is a 1982 live improvisation with Los Angeles' noise trio Doo-Dooettes and guitarist Rick Potts.
Fushitsusha is Haino's "psychedelic" project.
It's Haino's way to transpose his noise experiments into the rock format.
The band consists of
Yasushi Ozawa (bass),
Maki Miura (guitar), and Jun "Akui" Kosugi (drums).
Their first album was a
monumental double album, Live I (PSF, 1989),
eight tracks for one hundred minutes of music,
which ranks among the masterpieces of psychedelic jamming, a
work that alternatively sounds like
Blue Cheer, MC5, Iron Butterfly, free jazz and Jimi Hendrix
(in particular Fuwafuwa and the lengthy Koko/ Lost Child a` la Dark Star of the Grateful
Dead or
Jimi Hendrix's
1983).
Haino's monster guitar towers over the Wagnerian intensity of these pieces
The live double album
Fushitsusha (PSF 15/16, 1991) is no less gargantuan: 13 tracks for 150
minutes of music. The line-up has been pared down to a trio (Haino, Ozawa and drummer Jun Kosugi).
However, they became famous with an album which was relatively minor,
Allegorical Misunderstanding (Avant, 1993), produced by John Zorn
and contaminated by jazz.
Pathetique (PSF, 1994), aka Hisou, contains four live improvised
jams.
The pieces of the all-instrumental
The Caution Appears (Les Disques du Soleil, 1995)
are unusually brief.
Another live double album,
Purple Trap (Blast First, 1995), aka
The Wound (Blast First, 1996), contains eight pieces for almost one hundred minutes.
The saga continued fearlessly on
A Death Never To Be Complete (Tokuma, 1997), six tracks for 70 minutes,
and
The Time Is Nigh (Tokuma, 1997), four tracks for 75 minutes.
Two more albums document their spectacular live performances:
Haino sounds like a more violent and cacophonous Helios Creed on
Gold Blood (Charnel Music, 1998), four tracks for 72 minutes,
recorded in San Francisco.
Haino extracts from
The Halation a gloomy hyper-distorted guitar theme from
frenzied drumming chaos.
His guitar dilates and smashes colossal riffs in the 24-minute
Cipher until only a feeble hissing is left.
The 16-minute
Hazama is a concentrate of suspense and anxiety.
There is order in this extreme disorder.
Withdrawe (Les Disques Victo, 1998), eight tracks for 65 minutes,
was recorded in Canada.
With new drummer
Ikuro Takahashi they recorded
A Little Longer Thus (Tokuma, 1998), nine tracks for "only" 61 minutes.
The trio gave its best on
The Wisdom Prepared (Tokuma, 1998), which contains only one
75-minute jam.
Meanwhile, several collaborations saw the light:
two volumes of
Live In The First Year Of Heisei (PSF, 1990), which constitutes one
of his most romantic works,
Gerry Miles With Alan Licht And Haino Keiji (Atavistic, 1997) with
Alan Licht,
etc.
Haino also recorded with Derek
Bailey, Barre Phillips, Loren Maccacane Connors and Peter Brotzman.
Nijiumu is Haino's gothic project (technically his second solo album after
Watashi Dake).
Nijiumu (PSF, 1990) contains a 54-minute composition.
It opens with
eight minutes of madhouse screaming with ghostly strumming in the background.
It then opens up to a soundscape of musique concrete, mainly amplified metallic noises.
After sixteen minutes Haino intones an operatic lied for cello and vocals
that ends with a sitar-like drone. After a few minutes of
conventional singing almost a cappella,
it becomes a solo sonata for amplified metallic objects, and it ends with a
shrieking saxophone solo and a mournful vocal drone.
Era Of Sad Wings (PSF, 1993) is another atmospheric work credited to Nijiumu, this time structured in ten untitled pieces. The first half is
a slow-moving nebula of lugubrious cosmic drones, whereas the second half
vocals has otherworldly vocals floating and screaming over a miasma of viscuous sounds.
Vajra is another side-project. The trio this time consists of
Haino, Toshiaki Ishizuka (drums) and veteran folksinger Kan Mikami (chitarra e canto), and the music is a
noise/folk/punk-rock.
Tusgaru (PSF, 1995) and
Ring (PSF, 1996)
contain each only one lengthy composition.
Sichisiki (PSF, 1997) instead is a set of nine untitled tracks for a total of just 35 minutes.
Sravaka (PSF, 1998) contains seven songs
(including an eight-minute To Elvin Jones) and again for a total of just
35 minutes.
Mandala Cat Last (PSF, 2002) features some of their most cohesive and accessible improvisations (The Sky Looks Green To Me, Monkeys Don't Pray).
Vajra's dummer Toshiaki Ishizuka released solo ambient albums for an "orchestra" of tonal percussion instruments such as In The Night (1999) and Drum Drama (2006),
besides collaborations with Kan Mikami such as
Shinshi No Yuutsu (2001) and Daikanjyo (2002).
Meanwhile,
Haino released works that were increasingly more provocative.
Itsukushimi/ Affection (PSF, 1992), recorded live in december 1991,
is another solo, a 58-minute spiritual journey for voice and guitar.
The first 14 minutes are just one anguished lament over spectral notes.
After five minutes of relatively conventional singing,
Haino unleashes a hyper-distorted Hendrix-ian solo and then howls his desperation in a sinister quasi-silence. A colossal riff erupts at the 29-minute mark and breaks the piece in two. Haino seems to have exhausted his energies and resigns to
languid and sparse notes. The distortion, however, acquires a life of its own
and the piece ends with the noise of a galactic take-off.
Execration That Accept To Acknowledge (Forced Exposure, 1993)
is another suite, this time in four movements for a total of 42 minutes.
It opens immediately with stuttering harsh distortion and vomiting vocals,
and then it gets worse: a torrent of dense and black guitar noise that goes on for half an hour with only brief pauses.
There was also a tiny experiment: the
Derek Bailey-esque five-minute EP Guitar Works I-VIII (Table of the Elements, 1994).
Beginning An End Interwoven (Streamline, 1994) is less extreme.
Beginning and End, Interwoven is a spectral threnody that further degrades Suicide's threnodies.
The corrosive blues agony Surrounded by You and
the atonal guitar jam My Friend are what Haino thinks of the song format.
and several grandiloquent screamed recitations over Hendrix-ian workouts culminating with the 14-minute In Between
He is at his most "romantic", in As It Is Now, whose violent and relentless vibrato materializes an odd religious-psychedelic hybrid.
The 59-minute piece of I Said This Is The Son Of Nihilism (Table of the Elements, 1995) pushed the concept of Affection and Execration to
both its noisy and theatrical extremes. It begins with what sounds like a remix of
Cramps-ian cascading riffs and
Helios Creed's visionary fire,
but ground into the most vicious black hole, and then the singer's howls
and the shrieking instrumental noise evoke
Diamanda Galas' psycho-electronic nightmares.
What is left after 12 minutes is a flow of mind-bending guitar glissandoes.
At the 19-minute mark the music stops. Haino begins singing, slowly, painfully,
in expressionist kammerspiel mode,
interrupted a few times by occasional bursts of distortions.
Nothing in his career matches the first 19 minutes of this piece.
Tenshi No Gijinka/ Imitator Of Angels (Tzadik, 1995) instead
feels largely like an unfinished work.
The four-disc box-set Soul's True Love (1995) contains rare recordings by Lost Aaraaff (1971), Haino solo (1969-73) and Fushitsusha.
21st Century Hard-y Guide-y Man (PSF, 1995), four tracks for
73 minutes, collects his first LaMonte Young-esque experiments with the hurdy-gurdy organ.
The Third Heart (Purple Trap, 1995) torna al formato della composizione
breve.
Suite Reverberation (Purple Trap, 1995) contiene quattro lunghe
suite-collage che sembrano datare dai primordi della carriera di Haino.
So Black Is Myself (Alien8 Recordings, 1997) e` un lungo
drone di 67 minuti.
Haino released many albums in 1995:
Forest Of Spirits (Purple Trap, 1995), containing archival material
of the 1970s,
Saying I Love You (Blast First, 1995),
The Book Of Eternity Set Aflame (Forced Exposure, 1995), which contains a piece for solo guitar and a LaMonte Young-esque piece for drones and vocals,
and
A Challenge To Fate (Disques Du Soleil, 1995), which includes three
a-cappella songs and a closing psalm in
Popol Vuh style (Affection).
Keeping On Breathing (Tokuma, 1997) is a collection of depressed
psychedelic songs, as
Tim Buckley fronted the Red Crayola
(My Shadow, Waiting, Here).
Then came
Sruthi Box (Tokuma, 1997),
Even Now Still I Think (Tokuma, 1998), a 72-minute composition for
hurdy-gurdy,
An Unclear Trial (Avant, 1998), formally his first jazz album, containing the 30-minute Did I Imagine That.
and
Purple Trap (Tzadik, 1999), a supergroup formed with
Bill Laswell and Rashid Ali.
Fushitsusha's drummer
Hiroyuki Usui
released a pioneering work of acid folk and blues, Holy Letters (Holy Castle, 1992 - VHF, 2004), credited to L, replete with Tibetan monks.
Fushitsusha's I Saw It (Paratactile, 2000) is
a double-CD, their last as a trio, containing the monumental
I Saw It and Staring At a Point in Time.
Aihiyo's is Haino's cover project, although the tracks on
Aihiyo (1998) and Live (PSF, 2000) are wildly improvised.
With drummer Shoji Hano, Haino has recorded
Taihei Nippon (1991) and
The Strange Face (Ultra Hard Gel, 2000).
Reduced to a duo of Haino and bassist Ozawa, Fushitsusha released
Origin's Hesitation (PSF, 2001). Haino drums and screams rather
than playing guitar, and this is not good news.
Keiji Haino's two-disc Abandon All Words At A Stroke So That Prayer Can Come Spilling Out (Alien 8, 2001)
is one of Haino's masterpieces, at least in the more
ambient and less psychedelic mode of his art.
The first disc contains a 47-minute soothing piece
for hurdy-gurdy and treated voice titled
Whereto Can I Cast Away This Fragrant Echo Called The End
(reminiscent of Tony Conrad's pieces for violin).
On the other hand,
the 44-minute I Have Decided To Tear You To Pieces for
wave drum is an
industrial collage of metallic noises, distortions and ghostly voices
Haino is a little wasted on
Black Implication Flooding (Inoxia, 2001), a 1998
collaboration with the ensemble Boris
(Haino on wave drum, electronic sruthibox, ethnic oboe, guitar, vocals)
The album meanders without finding the strength of either participant.
Ruins' drummer Tatsuya Yoshida and Fushitsusha's guitarist Keiji Haino have recorded together Knead (PSF, 2002), eight (untitled) psychedelic jams that also feature Ruins' bassist Hisashi Sasaki, and Until Water Grasps Flame (Noise Asia, 2002).
This Melting Happiness (Fractal, 2003) documents a Knead live performance of 2001.
Another live Knead performance, this time with bassist Mitsuru Natsuno and Japanese turntablist duo Bus Ratch, is documented on Live at Cafe Independants (2004).
Manjoicchi Wa Muko (PSF, 2005)
Sanhedolin was a collaboration between the Ruins and Keiji Haino.
Mazu Wa Iro O Nakuso Ka - First Let's Remove the Color (PSF, 2003) is a humble, bluesy
home recording by Haino solo, mainly taken up by the 30-minute
How Did You Know.
C'est Parfait (Turtles' Dream, 2003)
contains only one 45-minute live track for rhythm box and vocals
Needless to say, the drum machine is not really used for "rhythmic" purposes.
Nor are the vocals used for singing. Sometimes the machine punctuates the
delirios stream of vocals, sometimes it is the vocals that punctuate the
machine's stream of consciousness.
The final crescendo of deafening noise is one of Haino's most imposing
moments, truly Wagnerian in intensity and vigor.
Hikari Yami Uchitokeaishi Kono Hibiki/ Light And Darkness Melting Created This Sound (PSF, 2003) offers all-instrumental live improvisations for acoustic guitar.
Fushitsusha's Eien No Ho Ga, Saki Ni Te O Dashita No Sa/ It was Eternity that Reached out First (2003) was originally recorded in 1978.
Next Let's Try Changing The Shape (Swordfish, 2004) returns Haino's
solo project to the fury of Fushitsusha, but the overall inspiration is
lacking, and the lengthy Look Darkness sounds overstretched.
Tayutayuto Tadayoitamae Kono Furue (PSF, 2004) is an acoustic collaboration with Michihiro Sato on "tsugaru jamisen", possibly the most "Japanese" album of Haino's career. (Haino had already collaborated in 1996 to an album by a master of that instrument, Chisato Yamada, but the album, Fushigi Na Sekai was credited only to Yamada).
The double-disc Black Blues (Disques du Soleil, 2004) was Haino's tribute to the blues. It comes in two versions of Japanese-interpreted Afro-American
desperation. One disc is acoustic, subdued, introverted
The other disc is electric, loud, extroverted.
Both are played and sung by Haino alone. Both contain the same six covers.
The one that stands out is the 15-minute acoustic version of
Blind Lemon Jefferson's See That My Grave Is Kept Clean.
Uchu Ni Karamitsuiteru (PSF, 2005) is Haino's first all-electronic album.
Appropriately, it was followed by Global Ancient Atmosphere (PSF, 2005),
an album of solo drumming.
Reveal'd To None As Yet - An Expedience To Utterly Vanish Consciousness While Still Alive (Important, 2006) is a double-CD that documents live performances with Haino on keyboards, turntables and voice and (disc 2) hurdy gurdy producing all sorts of pagan droning.
New Rap (Tzadik, 2006) was a set of
improvised duets with Ruins drummer's Tatsuya Yoshida, and its title refers
to the fact that Haino was not only playing the guitar but also screaming.
The double-CD
Animamima (Archive, 2006) is a collaboration with
the twenty-piece sitar orchestra Sitaar Tah that delivers 100 minutes of
uber-drones.
Yaranai Ga Dekinai Ni Natte Yuku (PSF, 2006) is finally a tour de force
of solo (overdubbed) guitar (and vocals) that goes overboard in all directions,
weaving textures that are manic nightmares.
Mamono (Blossoming Noise, 2006) is a collaboration with
Zeni Geva's KK Null that yielded demented
industrial soundscapes.
Hauenfiomiume (Magaibutsu, 2008)
and Uhrfasudhasdd (Tzadik, 2009)
collect more improvised duets with Ruins drummer's Tatsuya Yoshida.
Kikuri's Pulverized Purple (Victo, 2008) documented a collaboration
between Merzbow's Masami Akita and Keiji Haino.
Sanhedolin (PSF, 2005) was the title of both an album and a supergroup formed by guitarist Keiji Haino of Fushitsusha, drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins and bassist Mitsuru Nasuno of Altered States. Its follow-up was titled and
credited to a new entity, Sanhedrin (Breathing Bass, 2009).
Electronics (3) (Zeitkratzer, 2009) was a live collaboration with
Zeitkratzer.
Seijaku, a trio with
bassist Nasuno Mitsuru and drummer Ichiraku Yoshimitsu,
released
You Should Prepare To Survive Through Even Anything Happens (2010)
and
Mail From Fushitsusha (2011)
Haino's
Un Autre Chemin Vers L'Ultime (2011) consists of a cappella vocals recorded in a church and a cave.
Tima Formosa (2010), Imikuzushi (2012), Now While It's Still Warm Let Us Pour In All The Mystery (Black Truffle, 2013) and Only Wanting To Melt Beautifully Away Is It A Lack Of Contentment That Stirs Affection For Those Things Said To Be As Of Yet Unseen (Black Truffle, 2014)
and Tea Time For Those Determined To Completely Exhaust Every Bit of This Body They've Been Given (Black Truffle, 2014)
document jams by Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, and Oren Ambarchi.
Pan Sonic and Keiji Haino collaborated on Synergy Between Mercy & Self-Annhiliation Overturned (Blast First Petite, 2010).
Haino formed the improvisational power-trio Seijaku
with bassist Nasuno Mitsuru (Altered States, Korekoyjin) and drummer
Ichiraku Yoshimitsu (Acid Mothers Temple).
Their Mail From Fushitsusha (Doubtmusic, 2010) and
You Should Prepare To Survive Through Even Anything Happens (Doubtmusic, 2010)
were deconstructing tributes to blues music.
Haino, Stephen O'Malley (bass) and Oren Ambarchi (drums) formed Nazoranai documented on the live Nazoranai (Ideologic, 2012)
and on The Most Painful Time Happens Only Once Has it Arrived Already...? (Ideologic Organ Soma, 2014)
Fushitsusha returned with Hikari To Nazukeyo (Heartfast, 2012) and
Mabushii Itazura Na Inori (Heartfast, 2012),
featuring Mitsura Nasuno on bass and Ikuro Takahashi on drums, the first
an unusually restrained set of seven pieces that by their standards are very
brief, the latter a more virulent (and much better) set that includes two lengthy and noisy
jams.
A Document Film Of Keiji Haino (2012) contains three lengthy pieces, including a solo.
Fushitsusha's live triple-disc Nothing Changes No One Can Change Anything, I Am Ever-Changing Only You Can Change Yourself (april 1996) featured saxophonist Peter Brotzmann.
Two City Blues (november 2010 - Trost, 2015) documents sessions by Keigi Haino (guitar, shamisen and vocals), Peter Broetzmann (tenor and alto saxes, clarinet and tarogato), and Jim O'Rourke (guitar).
Seijaku, the trio of guitarist Keiji Haino, bassist Mitsuru Nasuno and drummer Yoshimitsu Ichiraku, released the double-discs
Last Live and After Seijaku (2015).
An Untroublesome Defencelessness (april 2015 - Rare Noise, 2016) documents Merzbow (electronics), Keiji Haino (guitar, electronics) and Balazs Pandi (drums) in two lengthy improvisations
Light Never Bright Enough (july 2016 - Otoroku, 2017) documents a live collaboration between guitarist Keiji Haino and saxophonist John Butcher
Other collaborations include:
The Miracles of Only One Thing (2017) with Jozef Dumoulin and Teun Verbruggen,
A Philosophy Warping, Little by Little That Way Lies a Quagmire (2017) with Konstrukt,
American Dollar Bill - Keep Looking Sideways, You're Too Hideous to Look at Face On (2018) with Sumac,
Become the Discovered, Not the Discoverer
(2019) with •Merzbowand Balazs Pandi,
Drums & Octobass (2023) with Guro Moe,
etc.
Keiji Haino & The Hardy Rocks (2021) and
You're Either Standing Facing Me or Next to Me (2022) are albums
of covers made with the band Hardy Rocks. The first one contains
covers of Satisfaction and My Generation.
With pats on the head, just one too few is evil one too many is good that's all it is (2024) documents a live 2018 performance with Jim O'Rourke and (on two tracks) Oren Ambarchi.