Filament 1

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With his Ground Zero project freshly retired, Yoshihide faces a fork in the road. He can hone the improvisational turntablist and sampling mastery which has made him integral to Dragon Blue, Optical*8, Les Sculpteurs de Vinyl, many of John Zorn's non-recorded ad hoc ensembles, Marclays 100 Turntables Orchestra and the demolition duo with Yamatsuka Eye, MC Carhouse and DJ Hellshit. Alternately, he can further his exploration of the painstakingly deconstructed sine electronics with which recent recordings, particularly as ISO on his fledgling Amoebic label, have found him increasingly concerned. Now, with Japanese electronic improviser and label associate Sachiko M, he chooses to pursue the latter path and presents the Australian/Canadian Extreme label with an introductory volume in what will surely be one of the starkest Yoshihide projects yet. Neither he nor Sachiko are absolutely sure what their "filaments" will represent, other than an ongoing mutual concern with the distancing of all superfluous aspects of performance and musicianship from the creative process. But, can there be music without musicianship? While working along lines similar to those well plowed by labels such as Noton, Mego and Säkhö, the unyielding Filament 1 assumes a brusque, intimidatingly antisocial attitude; the work of perfectionists who have shuttered themselves away from society in an antiseptic lab and slaved over minutiae of frequency until each blip satisfied their exacting standards. It's not the flippant cocktease of Pan Sonic's bludgeoning audio-warfare, the defiant arrhythmic abrasiveness of Rehberg & Bauer or the sociocultural infiltration proposed by Carsten Nicolai but something driven by an irrepressible academic need to dissect and disassemble. Without the buffers of ecstatic improvisational abandon and reciprocal musical energies that buoyed Ground Zero's harshest blows, Filament 1 is just a resolutely abstract and difficult record. If discomposed oscilloscopic electronics are the way to your heart, there are many moments of surprising beauty to be found among these eleven "filaments." Yoshihide always brings the utmost level of craft to any project, Filament 1 being no exception. The lovely "1-7" offers a consonant mix of insectile chirping and electroacoustic sonorities. Lulling drone purrs beneath the harsh frequency bursts and rhythmic clicks of "1-4," while "1-6" strobes, sputters and chatters as relentlessly as the finest efforts of such ilk. But why must the rest be so stern and aloof? We know that Yoshihide has a brilliant sense of humor, and the formality of Filament 1 only makes one pine for the gleefully reckless and inventive Yoshihide for whom no feat seemed impossible - be it inexplicably hitching Ground Zero to Cassibers hackneyed prog-wagon or pulling off covers of the tackiest AM "standards" with effortless panache. Admittedly, there is humor here - albeit of a rather stuffy and bookish stripe. We can almost see Yoshihide and Sachiko grinning while perfecting a wow and flutter simulation of a record stuck in an empty run-off groove for the opening track, wrenching and tweaking the shrill modem signal of "1-2" to soar up, up and away and twisting "1-8" into dizzy, detuned curlicues. "1-10s" ten sparse minutes of anti-sound are as barely-there as any of Bernhard Günters agonizingly dry Trente Oiseaux titles, no matter how high you crank the volume. Amusing, in a sense especially for the "musicians" - but is there anyone who wouldn't have preferred the animated cut-up antics of DJ Carhouse?