Vacant Land

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Displaying tenacity, force of will, and brute, hands-on physicality that seem more appropriate to the arena of professional weightlifting, Tokyo-born (and recent Barcelona transplant) Asano muscles his way towards an understanding of a chosen sound. 1998's Vacant Lands rejects the passive scientific methodologies of dissection and examination favored by other sonicists. Asano instead effects total corporeal engagement with the raw matter of his source sound. On "Accumulated Chairs," a determined Asano wrestles a thrashing feedback cable to the ground, choking it into sobs of limp, whimpering resignation during a grueling 20-minute death-match. Their hard-won electroacoustic tussle only ends after the shedding of much sweat and spluttered voltage. "Lumberyard" gives the impression of Asano stomping through the crackling carpet of a leaf-bare, owl-infested churchyard forest - or an endless Caligarian hallway of a thousand clocks and locked doors - in fits of fist-against-wood fury. Combining this real-time show of strength with eerie computer-music sound effects and the controlled mannerisms of concrète composition, Asano crafts a complex toppling-timberscape by turns empathetic and abrupt in its violence. The less savage, more curious "Bean Sprouts" finds Asano eviscerating a film noir theme to more closely inspect its quivering orchestral anatomy of harried strings. It's the messiest sort of vivisection, with a rowdy splatter of gore and gristle flung against the walls in the process. Masonna, Incapacitants, Merzbow, and other disciples of din may have earned Japan the sobriquet of "The Land of the Rising Noise," but their visceral games pale beside Asano's struggle for the knowledge of the essential substance of sound. Bracing, exhilarating stuff.