Out of all the noise music that I've been listening to lately, most of the records at least have some sort of musical component to them. A melody here, an instrument there, a drum beat... something. Watashi Dake? has none of that... Kaiji Haino has a lot of that... Confused? welcome to the world of early 80's Japanese noise.
Starting out with a desperate man screaming and feedback being laced through the microphone every now and then the album starts off incredibly unsettling. I don't speak Japanese so all I hear is the pure emotion and desperation of the cries. That mixed with the feedback makes this at minimum a challenging listen.
As the album progresses various noises and field recordings are woven together to form soundscapes. Some of them sound like they could be instruments, but never quite have enough musical quality to them for me to be absolutely sure. Like the start of the second track. Is that strumming on a guitar or is that someone hitting a hammer on a metal fence? I can't tell. It's probably a guitar, but again... I'm never quite sure.
Outside of going track by track and describing the details of what is going on I don't think I could possibly describe the entirety of what is going on in this album. Each song has a small concept that it runs with and as the album continues it becomes stranger and stranger.
Even in the deviant world of noise Kaiji Haino is strange. Is this music? Yes and no. Is this noise? Yes and no. What is it? I don't know... it's fucking strange is what it is.
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