Hasegawa-Shizuo – Gene Packs [CD]

"Debut album by a new improvisation group consisting of Hirotomo Hasegawa and Shizuo Uchida. Both have a leather-bound folder full of underground back-story -- Hasegawa was the lead singer of seminal early eighties Japanese punk/hardcore group Aburadako (Greasy Octopus), while Uchida was a long-term member of Haino's Nijiumu medieval dream-drone unit. The group's instrumentation is highly unorthodox, placing Uchida's mysterious bass textures against the wet skirl of Hasegawa's hichiriki, an ancient double-reed wind instrument whose haunting upper register tones are an unmistakable feature of gagaku court music. Hasegawa brings a bucketful of phlegm to his approach to the instrument, out-honking Zorn's duckcall work by a marshy mile. Uchida also contributes some striking ichigen (single-string) koto. Deliriously psychedelic, fully immersive drone and oriental wind works in the grand tradition of Taj Mahal Travellers, Nijiumu, Marginal Consort and too few others. -- Alan Cummings."

PSF, 2005