Here's another in a long line of full-length affairs from longstanding Japanese noise artist Kazuyuki Kishino. Some of this material contains manipulations of live recordings made in Switzerland, France, and Japan in 2003/2004, but you'd never know were it not mentioned on the back of the package, as the result is barely under an hour of chaotic noise that shifts quickly between ethereal ambience, stuttered loops, grating distortion, glitchy electronics, percussive banging, subtly rumbling low-end or windy midrange, and plenty of frantic cutup structures in tracks that range from one or two minutes to nearly 10 minutes. Admittedly I've never been a huge KK.Null fan, and the longer I listen to noise the more I'm realizing that I prefer material that has some sense of cohesive atmosphere or feeling rather than music that's simply abstract and experimental almost for the sake of it, so while I can listen to this and do respect KK's status as a veteran in the scene, I'm honestly not very taken by most of this work. The sound quality is very nice, there's a digital crispness to it that doesn't lack a little bit of warmth or organic undercurrents, and the material does constantly shift and move to prevent sitting in one place for too long, but it still feels somewhat stagnant to me as a whole. In fact, I almost wish that some of these compositions would sit still a little longer to create some sort of consistent aesthetic for at least a few minutes here or there. "5:06" comes pretty close to such an approach and is a little softer and more spacious than some of the other selections, and "5:31" is similar but also adds in some tangible percussive beats underneath, while longer tracks like "7:32" and "9:30" definitely get a little more abrasive at times and with brighter high-end elements. And actually, "9:30", which is the last song, is my favorite piece, and it uses its time to slowly rise and fall with a very efficient dark ambient sort of crawl that has an eerie atmosphere going on throughout. I certainly wish more of this material was along those lines. The disc comes in a slim cardboard slipcase with black and white abstract photography and red lettering. Simple enough. A little plain, but not bad. The tracks are simply titled after their total running times, so there's not a lot of information to delve into with this one. I really enjoy "9:30" quite a lot, but even the other songs that I do like don't compare to its strengths, and at damn near an hour long I find myself pretty bored by the time the best song finally rolls around 49 minutes into the disc. Fans of this particular style of noise will likely have much more of a marked interest in this than I do, but coming from my personal tastes this is simply not something that I'm too into. I don't dislike it, and again, I do respect KK.Null's history, but it would require something more for me to truly appreciate this particular offering.
[Blossoming Noise]
Running time - 58:31, Tracks: 11
[Notable tracks: 5:06, 5:31, 9:30]
Blossoming Noise - http://www.blossomingnoise.com
