#core anode

[cdlistening]

Otomo Yoshihide, 'Core Anode' CD (Meenna)

Sunday, May 2, 2022, 7:39pm (partial listen to tracks 2 and 3 of 3)

So these two tracks are largely identical to the first one, which is a multiple-drumset and guitar-based wall of noise. The first track was a quartet and the group gets bigger and bigger as the tracks - all live recordings - progress, and I suspect that this album is a collection of recordings of the same "piece" played at different times and places. Upon closer inspection of the packaging, there are diagrams of the layout of the musicians for each track on the stage that was performed upon, leading me to think that maybe this was meant to be witnessed in concert rather than just heard, with the spatialization of the musicians perhaps allowing it to attain some sort of installation-y kind of vibe (this would also potentially explain/excuse the rather monotonous auditory content herein).

[cdlistening]

Otomo Yoshihide, 'Core Anode' CD (Meenna)

Saturday, May 1, 2021, 7:37pm (track 1 of 3 only)

Well, for whatever reason, this is certainly not what I was expecting, but I do suspect - largely due to the wildly divergent credits from track to track - that this disc is largely a roundup of various OY offerings. And that's also not to say that I am not familiar with the more extreme ends of OY's output, into which this track slots very cleanly. It's a nearly unmoving block of very dense, chaotic, double-drumset/guitar/optron(?) insanity that is somewhat too muddy to illuminate its charms very well; left me pretty unmoved, but curious to see what the rest of the disc offers.