Japanese omni-psych journeyman Masaki Batoh has carved paths through inner and outer space at the helm of a roster of powerful ensembles since the early 1990s. As the frontman of experimental collective Ghost, he lent a human presence to an otherwise otherworldly panorama of traditional percussion and fried/electrified folk. In his contemporary solo explorations, Batoh harnessed a bioelectric instrument he invented called the Brain Pulse Machine to generate randomized electronic music based on brain wave input. With the release of new LP Hark the Silence he continues to expand the catalog of his newer collaborative project The Silence, a wild amalgam of knotty prog shredding and Japanese folk texture that swings the pendulum back towards the “rock” side of his wide spectrum. Raise your lighter and spark one last stick of incense before you toss it into the widening fissure before you. Let Batoh and company provide the fire.
“Ancient Wind Part 3” rumbles with distorted guitar shards and a mantra bassline, as an organ solo fuses with peals of flute in the center of the spiraling spread. While the rock unit embedded within the Silence conjures a strain of structured improvisation that evokes the progressive blast of Koenjihyakkei and the bottomless jams of Acid Mothers Temple (which also features octopus-armed drummer Futoshi Okano), Batoh’s traditional folk-inspired leads elevate their sessions to higher realms of blissed out meditation. Chicago-based multimedia visual artist Nick Ciontea, a.k.a. Brownshoesonly, contributes a widescreen feed of reactive analog video synthesis to match the band’s propulsive forward motion. Twin feeds of morphing geometric abstraction sit side by side on your screen, as if Ciontea conjured one mirror image for each of your eyes. Feel free to press your face right up into the screen to form your own manual 3D glasses and sink into technicolor helixes timed straight to the band’s beat, melting into rorschach blobs beyond association.
More about: The Silence
