NIJIUMU - WHEN I SING, I SLIP INTO THE MICROPHONE. INTO THAT VOID, I BRING COMRADE "PRAYERS", THEN, TURNING TO FACE THE OUTSIDE, TOGETHER WE EXPLODE. (2LP)

Release Date 10.10.2025 "Like on the early solo Haino album that shares the group's name (released on P.S.F. in 1993), the instrumentation swims in reverb (the use of which Akiyama recalls as 'a kind of point of the band'), often obscuring the instrumental sources. On the short opening piece, a distant reed instrument arcs long buzzing melodies over a bed of cymbals and gongs, like a psychedelic take on Tibetan music. The epic second part, occupying almost 50 minutes, begins as a splayed, near-formless cloud of electric guitar and bass, shadowed by bowed and plucked strings, the three elements working through twisting atonal shapes. At various points in the recording, we hear what seems to be the sounds of musicians moving between instruments, their shuffling and bumps fitting seamlessly into this radically open music. Eventually, what sounds like electric guitar moves closer to the foreground, fixing on a repeated melodic cell around which hover mysterious clouds of long tones and a sporadic shaker. At the half-hour mark, the music begins to build to a violently emotive climax, Haino's impassioned vocal cries punctuating a lumbering, bass-heavy murk, contrasted at points by what sounds like a tin whistle. Suddenly, the volume drops to a near-whisper, opening the way for the stunning final moments, which touch on the slow-motion balladry of Haino's classic Affection, here given an eccentric twist by an occasional woodblock hit." (label info)