Bleep

Born from the same yoke as frequent collaborators Jim O’Rourke, Eiko Ishibashi and Akira Sakata, drummer-percussionist-composer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto delivers a hulking, droning, work of avant-garde brilliance with Ashioto. Split into two side-long parts, the LP sees Yamamoto stretch the potential of the studio-as-instrument with a world-enveloping work which incorporates field recordings, jazz impasses, wandering pianos and synths and propulsive yet slyly changeable rhythms. ‘Ashioto I’ mulls on a clanging chime, discordant yet magnetic, before breaking down into a free jazz odyssey, while the wind-tunnel drone of ‘Ashioto II’ weaves around the mix, later snaking alongside Daisuke Fujiawara’s lugubrious saxophone.