i think its Kay Jee High No...

Did you know he uses like every Boss Effect unit?







wow lets give this a shot:
from the photo

top row (from left ot right):
Boss LS-2 Line Selector/Power Supply
Boss MT-2 Metal Zone
Boss BD-2 Blues Driver
Boss Equalizer

bottom row (left to right)
Boss OC-2 Octave
Boss PS-3 Digital Pitch Shifter/Delay ???
Boss Digital Reverb
Boss Digital Reverb (another?!)

if we wanted to be super correct about it we'd call him haino keiji

Thought some of you might be interested to know about the existence of this film: AA

Apparently it features pretty extensive Haino interviews and performances (among others (Otomo Yoshihide!)). With a 7.5 hour length I doubt if it will ever be translated / available on DVD, but oh well! Such is the life of a Haino fan.

Very quick (bad) translation of the synopsis:
Music critic Aida Akira (Aida Aquirax), who died at just 32 after leaving an indelible mark on the world of music, enthusistically introduced free jazz and progressive rock to Japan. Collaborating with other musicians Aida helped forge a new kind of Japanese music.
What movement was Aida's work of? What were the 1970s which Aida burst through? In this work director Aoyama Shinji, who is also known for his works as a producer and writer, created a six part long-running documentary spanning over 5 years. What will come of this seven and a half hour film by the director who rocked the world with his three & a half hour movie "Yuriika (Eureka)"? Deeply enthused by the time he was in middle school with the literary and philosophical music criticism he lived in the tracks of, this ambitious work brings Aida back to life through the words of musicians and critics who knew him.


Performers: Otomo Yoshihide, Kameda Yukinori, Kondo Toshinori, Sasaki Atsushi, Shimizu Toshihiko, Soejima Teruto, Takahashi Iwao, Takeda Kenichi, Haino Keiji, Hirai Gen, Honma Akira, Yuasa Manabu.

Annnnnyhow, there's a trailer on the website featuring a short clip of Keiji Haino singing the most soul crushingly beautiful song I've ever heard him sing. http://www.aa-movie.com/trailer_mp4.html
Hurrah.

god bless haino.

i'm going to write a comic book about old daddy haino

Loudest solo performance I have ever seen.

i was going to ask if anyone knew haino's complete rig.

scott v: look at the last one, it's not the same reverb box, the second one doesn'r have a second jack on the right, whether the first one does (or at least that's what it says); perhaps it's an older version?


hahahaha, awesome.


i once tried to do a comic strip about him "keiji haino goes to the mall" but i suck at drawing things that actually look like the things i intend them to be.

Track 01Bad To The Bone

indeed.

The only thing I've heard of his is this track in which he sporadically screams. But he has the best male bangs in bangs history, so I'll let it go. You guys must upload an album for me to hear.


Following Japanese phonetics, his name would be pronounced "Keehh-jee High-no".

any news on new releases?

That depends on how rich you're feeling:

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / KEIJI HAINO - "Cosmic Debris, Vol.III"
2007 - split ART-LP (Opax Records)(private edition of 100)
OPX LP10

 

Third installment in the "Cosmic Debris" split ART-LP series set up by Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, aka My Cat Is An Alien, on their own Opax Records. The Vol.III sees the two space brothers from Torino, Italy, alongside Japanese cult musician and dark shaman Keiji Haino. Imagine a cosmic bomb exploding in your brain, and you'll have an approximate idea of this collaborative release. So, dear new-weird-america's hippy, you'd better keep your ass away from this total blast!.. no freak-folk here. Instead, with these two long tracks recorded during live performances in their hometowns, respectively Torino and Tokyo, MCIAA and Haino conspired to offer you the two most totally-uncompromising sides of vinyl, the best way to refresh your hot summer: what do you want more?

Haino's track, entitled "Whither goes it?/ That which canst not but be described/ As my prayer,/ Nowhere held in common,/ Lunatic, unknowable..." (yes, it's a poem!), is one of the highlights of his so long career, and MCIAA's track "Everything crashes like cosmic debris" is one of the brothers' most ass-kicking for sure... Still ask for more? Ok, read the note and play this record at loudest volume, 'till your stereo calls for mercy. Are you satisfied, now? Oh yes, we think so... 'dark' + 'alien' are so cool together!

The five-volumes series "Cosmic Debris" features My Cat Is An Alien alongside Text Of Light, Steve Roden, Keiji Haino, Mats Gustafsson, Loren Connors & his Haunted House band.

Each record comes with an original acrylic painting by Roberto Opalio on 30x30cm proper canvas, with a unique Polaroid instant film installed on each piece, representing 100 different perspectives of a same subject related to My Cat Is An Alien's own cosmic imaginary.

http://www.mycatisanalien.com/opax.htm

CD edition will follow in a few months.

i saw that on the site, but thanks man.

it's always hard to trace what he's been up to. there's certainly more, i will do a deeper research and show up some results if got them.

He plays in Prague on October 13: www.stimul-festival.cz

I had a Haino afternoon the other day. Which was great for two reasons: first, I'm unemployed and can listen to records lots. Second, Haino's really, really good.

Also, I listened to Haino as I slept last night and my housemate complained that he couldn't sleep because he thought someone was being murdered. It was that one with the Steven O'Malley cover, odd-shaped black cardboard jobby. I'm sure it has a name, but I don't know what it is.

A temporary freezing of the time axis that turns at the end of this profound now

That, which while enfolding this now and present perfume, speaks, "I will use to the fullest this form bestowed upon me" and blurs the firmement - ah, where and in what form will it next be devised


Duuuh.

Not new, per se, but the most recent Haino release on PSF (Yaranai ga dekinai ni natte yuku) is exquisite. Seems to me not many people noticed its release, which is a shame cause I think its one of Haino's very best solo discs. It has a pretty similar vibe and sound to 'Next lets try changing the shape' and 'First lets remove the colour', but oodles better.

No, not oodles. Just a little better - which makes it perfect.

On a related note, while Haino is easily one of my favourite artists, is there anyone with more ridiculous (and I mean that in the most positive sense possible) song titles?

agreed, best thing he put out in the last years. i was counting with your help, i know he's been busy playing everywhere, he was here alst december, so you too are not aware of any 2007 releases? there most be none then or not much.

ha yes, someone the translation from japanese to english dont make much sense

old but very good




keiji haino
[an interview by alan cummings]

The main body of this interview was conducted on 29th July 1996, in a cafe near Haino's home in a suburb of Tokyo. Iced tea and cakes were the refreshments of choice. Also present was artist and "Taji" zine contributor Naomi "MU" Murakami. This was supplemented with segments from another interview, conducted on the 25th October 1994 at the Columbia Hotel in London, on Haino's first trip to the UK. His appearance there at the Disobey club was later documented on the "Saying I love you, I continue to curse myself" CD on Blast First.

Alan Cummings : I’d like to ask you a bit about your childhood first. What were you like as a child?

Keiji Haino(1) : I was definitely different from everyone else. Looking back now it sort of seems to have been inevitable, but I was different from everyone else. My first memories are from around the time I went to kindergarten. It seems very symbolic now, but I remember that when all the other kids were playing in the sand pit, I’d be playing with building bricks. And when they were all playing with the building bricks, I’d be in the sand pit.

AC : So you always played by yourself?

KH : Yeah. But the thing was, the kindergarten I went to allowed me to do that(2). I don’t know whether it had a positive or a negative effect on me, but thinking back now, that kindergarten gave me preferential treatment. They let me do what I wanted. That system really suited me and I really liked kindergarten. I could do whatever I wanted. But when I went to elementary school I had a really hard time. Japanese schools are totally regimented–they’re always telling you to do this or do that. So coming straight from a kindergarten where they let me do whatever I wanted, looking back now and using modern terms, it was like experiencing culture shock. I probably never recovered from that. (laughs) I really hated school.

AC : When you were a child were you conscious of being different from everyone else?

KH : It wasn’t so much that I felt I was different from everyone else–just that what I liked to do always seemed to be different from what everyone else wanted to do.

AC : Did that make you feel lonely?

KH : I didn’t feel at all lonely at the start. I was doing what I wanted to. This doesn’t just apply to childhood, but you only begin to compare things when there is some restriction imposed upon you, don’t you? You should just do whatever you want, whatever feels good to you–and if you’re doing something that doesn’t feel right then you should be able to change direction. When restrictions exist, you’ve got to try and get past them. You’re being limited so you should change. And by doing that you begin to learn what doesn’t suit you, what isn’t natural.

AC : What are your earliest memories of music?

KH : I liked singing. I remember singing with my mother. I liked songs, rather than just some abstract idea of music.

AC : Did you hear a lot of music at home?

KH : Both my mother and father loved songs so . . . .

AC : What kind of songs?

KH : Just normal Japanese contemporary songs.

AC : Did they play any musical instruments? Or did that come later, at school?

KH : No, no, not at all. At primary school I loved music, but I absolutely loathed the music lessons we would be given. This is one of my really strong memories of school–when I’d just started primary school, you know how there’s a platform in front of the blackboard so the kids can reach the board? I remember that the teacher would always make me lie under that as a punishment, because I was always kicking up a fuss.

Naomi Murakami : That’s pretty extreme.

KH : Maybe it was only once or twice, but the memory of it is still really powerful. Because I had been so free in kindergarten, I’ve always hated being forced to do anything. I think I was probably born with that side to my character. I’m sure of that.

AC : What was the first instrument you learnt how to play?

KH : The harmonica(3)–I could really play it. I’m very confident on the harmonica–no matter what melody or rhythm, if I hear it just once, I can play it on the harmonica.

AC : Do you still use it in performance?

KH : Occasionally. Play me any folk song or symphony or whatever just once, and I’ll be able to blow it right back to you on harmonica.

AC : You play some harmonica on "Live in the First Year of Heisei," don’t you? When did you start learning it–did someone teach you?

KH : I learnt at school. I think it was in the fifth grade at elementary school. We started on harmonica and then moved up to the recorder. Later on, I had absolutely no interest in the guitar. All I ever imagined myself doing was singing.

AC : Did you have any kind of reaction against the type of music that you were being taught in school? Was there some part of you that was thinking, this isn’t really music?

KH : I liked singing, I liked playing instruments, but I hated class. It was that clear to me. This is something that a lot of people have remarked on–you know how you have music appreciation classes at school? The teacher asks how a particular piece of music sounds, what kinds of feelings it arouses, what the composer was thinking about–I always knew the answer before anyone else in the class.

AC : What age were you then?

KH : I was in the first grade.

AC : I think most people, for whatever reason, start taking a more active interest in music around puberty–you start investigating stuff for yourself, listening to new music. Did your attitude to music change around that time?

KH : I’ve talked about this a lot before. The Doors were the first big turning point for me. For some reason I had always wanted to do drama (4). So there I was in the second or third year of junior high school and I was very interested in theatre. Just around then rock, or "new rock" as they called it back then, became popular and I heard The Doors for the first time. It was like I had experienced something that had elements of both music and theatre, the two things that I was most interested in at that time.

AC : Were you attracted by that fusion of music and theatre?

KH : I suddenly realized that this was far cooler than straight theatre.

AC : Was that what made you want to become a musician? Rather than an actor?

KH : I liked The Doors and I liked what Jim Morrison was doing, so... I didn’t lose all interest in the theatre, but I just no longer felt like going that way.

AC : Did you hear any sense of musical progression from The Beatles to The Stones to The Doors, and then stuff after that like The Velvet Underground? Or did you just hear everything as pure music?

KH : That’s where I think I’m different from a lot of other people. I totally ignored all musical criticism–The Doors just gave me a real rush. Everyone is too aware of history and criticism when they listen to music and that’s why they don’t understand it properly. They read that someone is amazing, then they go out and buy that record–it turns into an academic exercise. I just liked The Doors without any outside influence. I had listened to a lot of stuff and they just really grabbed me. Stuff like Cream was totally tedious. I listened to Jimi Hendrix but I was more interested in the drums than his guitar. (laughs) Probably because I didn’t play guitar then I didn’t understand fully what he was doing. Music criticism gets in the way of feeling and understanding the music.

AC : Do you think then that it’s totally unnecessary?

KH : It’s OK to think about music after you’ve heard it. But first you’ve got to experience it. There’s no one who truly understands what Jimi Hendrix was doing. Most kids who get into Hendrix hear him as a progression from the blues. They don’t try to understand why he wrote those kinds of songs. So after they’ve listened to Hendrix for about ten years, they move on to better guitarists–people like Django (Rheinhardt) or Charlie Christian. But I think they’re entirely different. I’m not especially a fan of Hendrix though. I like Django and Charlie Christian–they did some amazing stuff.

AC : Did you hear any Velvet Underground stuff back then?

KH : The records were impossible to get hold of here at the time. If you weren’t living in the centre of Tokyo and involved in the art scene, then there was no way to get them. So I didn’t know anything about The Velvet Underground–none of the magazines did anything on them at the time. At least if any of them did, I never saw it. Just one more example of how idiotic Japanese rock critics and magazines are. (laughs)

AC : Were any Western groups playing in Japan back then?

KH : None at all. All there was was "group sounds" stuff. You know, Japanese versions of ‘60s pop–"I love you" and that kind of thing. Once I’d heard The Doors I lost all interest in that kind of pop–especially in the way it was presented. All these people flopping their fringes around–like, give me a break. (laughs) I’ve changed a bit now, but twenty years ago I never had any intention of playing music and making money that way. I just loved music and wanted to play live. Now there are a lot of young musicians who want to become stars from even before they start making music. That’s ridiculous. There’s no way you can make interesting music if that’s all you’re concerned about. Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison never started out with that intention, it was something that happened along the way. At the start I wanted to be an actor rather than a musician anyway.





AC : What was the first time you performed as a musician?


KH : At my high-school festival(5) maybe. I was in a cover band. We played stuff by The Stones, The Beatles, umm what else? By the time I was in high-school I was already listening to psychedelic music–in Japan, it was known as "art rock" though. I was aware of Cream, Jimi Hendrix and all of that scene, but the other people in the band weren't maniac record collectors and all they knew were The Stones and The Beatles. So I just went along with what they knew... Then I dropped out of high-school half way through my sophomore year.(6)

AC : What was it about music specifically, as opposed to theatre or art, say, that attracted you so much?

KH : I think it must have been the idea of singing songs. I'd loved singing from when I was very young, so it was like I could do that, and I could do something theatrical, and on top of that there was some sort of a message in it too. The difference between me and everyone else back then in the sixties–it wasn't like this when I was in junior high, but by the time I was around seventeen and was in high school I hated communication with a vengeance. Especially because at that time everyone was flashing peace signs and all of that. There wasn't so much of it in Japan, but in the rest of the world everyone was singing songs about peace–I loathed it all. So I wanted to make music that was different from that. This all came together around the time I left high school, and The Doors just fit my ideas exactly. What I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it was totally different from The Beatles and their ilk. All this stuff links up if you think about it. Like what people always say about Jim Morrison and the stuff that happened in Miami: how he'd seen a theatre group who'd been directly influenced by Artaud and it had blown his mind. Of course, I wasn't reading Artaud back in junior high. I got into him later and then I found out that Jim Morrison liked his ideas, too. We were both inspired by the same sort of people. I don't like to use the word "influenced," but if I think back now, Jim Morrison possibly had an effect on me far beyond any ideas of influence. Maybe it's like that scene in the movie where Jim Morrison sees the Indian and absorbs him–maybe Jim Morrison entered into me.

AC : Like a spirit-guide, or whatever.

KH : Yeah, possibly. But still there are certain pitiful aspects of what he did that I want to stay away from, drugs, etc.

AC : Were you aware of Albert Ayler when you were playing with Lost Aaraaff?

KH : He exists in my memory, but I'm never conscious of him. I mean, I don't compare what I do with what he did. All I'm aware of is that he took the music to a certain point, but no further. I was thinking about this earlier–and I'm old enough now to start making sweeping statements. There are all these people–The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Ayler–people that I like. They've all possessed parts of the essence of expression. If you imagine the essence of expression as a huge object, then Jim Morrison and so on are all just a minuscule part of that. They didn't have enough–all they had was maybe one thousandth of the whole. Albeit that's a lot better than most musicians who don't even have that. I think that I can possibly become the sum of all those bits. Ten or twenty years ago, the power and effectiveness of my performances were very slight, but I have managed to really increase that through training. If the essence of expression actually exists, then I am an amalgamation of all those separate essences. Though I think that probably this essence of expression doesn't actually exist. For example, Artaud dismembered words to take them back to the basic sounds. In that sense, the bits I liked of them all still exist within me. I never feel like I no longer need Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison. I still listen to Blue Cheer once every few years. I still like all the things I once liked. That said, there are many parts of them I hate.

AC : Have you completely absorbed them?

KH : There is no such thing as completely. If the whole is one thousand, then I only want to get as far as nine hundred and ninety-nine. If there is anyone who comes after me, then they can begin from where I left off. I would like there to be more musicians like me–I'd like to meet them. The person I'd most like to play with at the moment is a certain Iranian musician, a guy who plays the tár(7). I'm not interested in the politics or system, not in any discriminatory sense–I'm interested in individuals.
What I want to know is why are there no proper musicians now? Or is it because I've worked so hard that everyone else appears so weak? Whatever–it's very boring for me. The reason why I still listen to so much music is because I want to discover someone who is better than me. I want to find someone who can tell me that what I'm doing isn't that great. Human beings need that kind of competitive stimulus to keep on going further. When I pick up a new instrument I get a real rush of power as I try to work out how to play it.

AC : Is what you are trying to communicate through music also communicable through different arts–for example, painting, or theatre, or dance?

KH : At the start I had no interest in other genres, but as I have thoroughly explored music I've found that other genres have possibly begun to be relevant to what I'm doing. As an example, Artaud thoroughly investigated words and in the end it lead him to a relationship with sound. It's close to that, I think. Through doing music, I've come to painting.

AC : Is that a recent thing?

KH : In terms of painting for other people to see, yes. Just since last year.

AC : What about dance?

KH : For me, everything comes back to sound. Everything comes from sound. Sound can be expressed in terms of colour, in terms of the relationship between people, or the relationship between your limbs.

AC : Why are you so interested in singing? You talked about being impressed originally with the power of rock, but to me songs seem to have much less of an immediate impact–less power, more of a sense of beauty in the construction or delivery.

KH : I sing because I want a sense of becoming one with someone outside of myself. I don't like using the word "message," but what I want is that feeling of union. Back when I was doing Lost Aaraaff I had absolutely no interest in that. I didn't want any points of contact with people, to become one with them. It was like I would just explode by myself, and if people wanted to get close to that then that was their problem. That element still exists inside me somewhere. But over the years I have studied different methods of presentation–whether I should explode suddenly, or gently draw people in. I don't like words like "balance" or "control" as they imply that something is contrived–I would prefer to say that I constantly choose the most effective method of presentation while I'm performing. I don't think about what I'm going to do the day before. I respond to the internal vibrations of each sound as it appears, and decide which type of sound will follow it most effectively. I construct the sounds one by one.

AC : Back when you were doing Lost Aaraaff, did you ever use external stimulants like alcohol or drugs?

KH : Never. I had and have absolutely no interest in that. And that's why I am the way I am now. I don't resemble anyone, nor do I have any intention of doing so. I want to avoid the gaze of god. God is always watching, always following and that's why people are able to do things. When I do something, I don't want it to be under the gaze of god. If I do it properly then I can avoid that gaze. That's the true meaning of being an outsider. That's where everyone goes wrong. The reason why people say that they want to be free is because they aren't. They want to be something that they aren't–but once you are conscious of that, the same state will persist forever. That's why I am an outsider in the true sense of the word–I am something else. I don't mean blaspheming and saying fuck you to god. Everyone is born a descendant of god–the true outsider wishes to go somewhere else. That's what I want to do. I believe that I need to do that in order to make my own music. There's no one who can legitimately use the word "myself"–everyone is a "too." That's why I think that I am justified in saying "I myself" so much in my lyrics. And that is far more difficult than taking drugs. What I am doing is the real stimulant. To truly perceive yourself, to realize that you are alone and then see how far you can go on your own.

AC : Have you always been interested in religion, or did you gradually begin to think and connect what you were doing with god later?

KH : It's not thought, it's consciousness. Thinking is something that you do after the event, you analyze it. Consciousness is something that exists before, during and after. I don't like this idea of just thinking... For me, consciousness is the most important thing. When I listen to someone's music, first I try to feel what they are conscious of–melody, rhythm and so on comes later.




AC : What do you want to do with your music?

KH : (collapses in pretend shock) Revolution and miracles. If you're going to ask clichéd questions like that then I'm going to give you clichéd answers. (laughs) Just the same thing as I have always said, I'd be happy if my music has a therapeutic effect on someone.

AC : When did you start to think that you could do that kind of thing with music?

KH : I do it because I don't think it's possible.

AC : So it's more of an attempt, a striving towards the ultimate power of music?

KH : Umm, that's... again, looking back now I can put this interpretation on it. When I was very young there was a Protestant church(8) behind our house. I'd go to church every Sunday and my childlike self absorbed the idea that my aim in life should be to help people, to love people and so on. Possibly I absorbed all those ideas in a simple way, but I believe that they're still inside me. On a very simple, surface level.

AC : Was there music at church too?

KH : I wasn't very aware of any music there. But as an element that sometimes appears within me, I definitely got something from when I would sing at church when I was in elementary school or junior high. Even if it's not specifically Christ, I think that there is something within me. I feel that sometimes.

AC : You mean that you unconsciously absorbed some connection between religion and music?

KH : Rather than using the word "religion," I often say "prayer." To me prayer is stronger. I have never been baptized, nor do I have any intention of doing so.

AC : What does prayer mean to you?

KH : The desire that things become even slightly better than they are now. An appeal to something outside myself.

AC : You often use the word "curse," as opposed to prayer...

KH : It's impossible to explain curses to someone who doesn't understand the meaning of prayer. I use the word "curse" in the same way that I use the word "Fushitsusha." When you have completely rejected everything, there comes a time when, in order to keep on living, affirmation is the only thing left open to you. When I say "a time" I don't mean the flow of time, I mean a place. Especially in English, "curse" is liable to be a very weighted word. What I mean when I use it is, a curse that it is impossible not to affirm, a curse that has been accepted. Prayer is not a word that I use to confuse people. For me prayer has only one meaning. By way of example, I was really surprised once when someone told me that the word "Fushitsusha" appears in a Buddhist sutra(9). On one level, if you are able to explain what "Fushitsusha" means then that means that you can also define what Buddhism means. I heard that from an actual priest, someone who has read a lot of obscure texts. That's the sense in which I use "Fushitsusha." We talked about this before–how in Buddhism nothing is the same as everything, so nothingness is not something that you should aim for. And that's what a curse is, something that seems to appear on the surface if you keep on praying properly and continuously. I don't curse people, or do anything negative like that.

AC : In your lyrics the idea of the relationship between the individual and the universe comes up a lot. Could you say something about that?

KH : Could you make the question more specific? It's too wide a subject just to ask me to talk about it.

AC : It's something that you've talked about a lot in interviews, but hasn't really been touched upon in anything published in English. I suppose what I'm most interested in is this idea about a separation between the self and the universe, and what rôle music can play in bringing the two together.

KH : As far as I am concerned, everything outside of me is the universe. To put it another way, there is just me, the first person, and then everything else which is other. I don't make any distinction between the second person "you" and third person "he/she." The other, which is not me, is the universe. When I use the word "omae"(10) (you) when I'm singing, most of the time I'm not referring to one person but to everything. On a personal level I think there are times when people I know in the audience think that I'm singing just to them, even though I wasn't using the word "you" in that sense. In general when I use the word "you," I'm not using it on a personal level, because for me everything outside of me is the universe. It's very simple. It's not one on one, it's one on everything, one on the universe if you like. It's not a confrontational relationship though. Sometimes I want to melt into the universe. Because I'm here now, there are also times when I want to call up as much as possible of the universe within me. To drag it into me, breathe it all in, and then reveal it to people. But this is all stuff that I've talked about again and again, regardless of whether it has appeared in English or not.

NM : You didn't say anything about what part music plays in your conception of the self and the universe.

KH : Briefly, it's possible to be conscious of very many things, but I believe that it's impossible to be aware of the whole of the universe. So what I was saying earlier about the desire to melt into the universe, that's a prayer–and for me, making sound is also a type of prayer. Sometimes that prayer is expressed through my voice, sometimes through percussion. It's a prayer, but not the kind of weak prayer that is just pleading for something. I don't think that those kinds of prayer are capable of accomplishing anything. It's very hard to sum this up, but I think that things will gradually become clearer as the interview continues. It's probably better to ask more precise questions. It's almost like asking someone why they are alive. You can only really reply that you were born and didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, or that you enjoy living–ask more detailed questions.

AC : To what extent do you believe that isolation and /or alienation is necessary to create meaningful music?

KH : That's a difficult question. In one sense, being by yourself is lonely. That is equally true for other things as well, but because of this feeling of loneliness you begin to look for friends. I mean friends in a different sense from the universe that we were talking about earlier. If you imagine that I am here and I feel the universe in a certain way, then by friends I mean other people who are in a different place but who experience the universe in a similar way. So I've begun looking for those kinds of people. When we were talking earlier about my childhood and how I was, for want of a better word, "different," we didn't get into the negative aspects. I didn't feel lonely at kindergarten, but when I got to elementary school there was no way I could avoid it. I hadn't been scolded at kindergarten, but I was at elementary school and that gave rise to awareness and prejudice–so there was no way I couldn't feel lonely. So I started to wonder why I had begun to feel lonely, but I couldn't really get out of it. Maybe I could have forced myself to be like other people. It's the same as the way people ask me why I choose to make the kind of music that I do–but this is the only kind of music that I can make. This is the only way that feels right to me, the only thing that I can possibly do. As to whether I ever wanted to be alone, of course there are times when I want to be by myself for a time, but I have never felt like I want to cut myself off from everyone else. Cutting yourself off is very lonely. This is interesting, something that links how I was then with how I am now–I'm lonely so I make music, and the more I make it, the lonelier I get. Within my consciousness I keep on moving towards a primitive state, because I keep testing myself to find out just how different I am from everyone else. And the closer you move towards that primitive state the lonelier you become, but because you are lonely, in one sense, you want to make more friends. This is a hypocritical way of putting it, but as you do that you become kinder to other people, you begin to value them more. By valuing people I mean a desire to be of some service to the world. To pray and to make something better for people. That something is impossible to define in words. I believe that you've first got to have experienced loneliness for that feeling to emerge. This is something I've talked about before, but to expand the analogy, if you take it that loneliness also means feelings of isolation and solitude, then I want to experience the same feelings as Jesus or Buddha must have had.

AC : In my experience, whenever I see a truly beautiful or powerful piece of art, music, or whatever, there is always a feeling of loneliness that goes along with the appreciation of it.

KH : I feel the same thing. This is something that I've come to realize over the last few years. I hardly ever go to art museums, but one day when I was in Europe I happened to go into one. I can't remember the name of the artist, but there was a picture of Christ on the cross and there were red drops of blood dripping from his wounds. But while they were falling, when they reached a certain point they changed from red to yellow. It's obviously very symbolic but I felt that I had totally understood it. Blood is very vivid, very real, but it can become something glorious.

AC : Like the way something initially negative can be transformed into something positive?

KH : I think it's a bit different from positive and negative.

AC : Something born out of pain can...

KH : More like that. This is a harsh way of putting it, but I believe that people who aren't doing things properly, who aren't serious about what they are doing as I always put it, it's very convenient for those kind of people to see the yellow drops of blood as gold. Because they don't want to taste the pain of real blood. That's the way religion is–they say that it was enough for Christ alone to die, because they don't want to spill their own blood. So they put Christ up on a pedestal and call him a god, because if they do that then they can get by without having to spill their own blood. I think that those medieval painters were probably told by the church to paint the blood yellow like that. Something that was originally red. It's hard to pin it down historically–no one really knows the exact change from medieval to Renaissance, but I feel that blood was just painted red up until the end of the fourteenth century. It's the fault of religion.





AC : Do you have an interest in religion?

KH : Not in religion, though it depends on how you define "interest." It's something that gives me a greater understanding of myself. I've said this again and again–I like Christ, but I hate Christianity. I see a painting like that and it gives me various sudden insights. But it's not like I'm ever going to get involved with any particular sect. Everything begins from the individual, doesn't it? Some individual did something, and then people who came after needed to make a living for themselves so they turned that individual into an organization. What I'm interested in is the individual. To use the example that I always use, I like Thelonious Monk but I don't like jazz. I like Syd Barrett, but that doesn't mean that I like all rock 'n' roll. That's always the way with me.

AC : The first time I saw you play was with Fushitsusha, and what impressed me most then was the total physical energy that you put into producing each sound. It's especially apparent in your percussion performances. It's something that you see very rarely when other musicians play–the sound seems to be coming just from their brains or from their fingers, whereas with you it's very obviously the whole body. Could you say something about the relationship between the body and the production of sound?

KH : When I first started thinking about sound, I wanted to make music that would be totally unique to me. Not something that would fit into any genre. I wanted to do something new, but because I'm a musician I have to use instruments, right? I would like to make a distinction with the Dadaists though, people who make no sounds and call it music. As far as I'm concerned that's just a concept that never gets beyond the brain, and they aren't musicians. They may be expressing themselves, though. It's like what Webern said about music only being born from the tree of music, that's close to what I believe. To repeat, the Dadaists would just meaninglessly hit a typewriter, just because it was interesting as an act, and they would call that a composition. Instead of using it to produce a rhythm or as a musical instrument, they were just treating it as an object, in one sense. I have no interest whatsoever in that kind of "music." I wanted to come up with a concept that would be as original as possible. So going back again, musicians must produce sounds–the whole problem of why and how sounds appear is something that you can think about for yourself. And it is something that you should think about–in one sense, ordinary musicians just produce sounds and never think about how or why. So-called contemporary composers work at a slightly deeper level, thinking about questions like why does music appear and why it exists. But they only think about these concepts. I believe that it's acceptable to have a period where you think about questions like that, but that thinking in itself isn't the same as making music. I believe that if you're going to show something to people then you have to physically produce actual sounds, not just concepts. So once I'd realized that, I picked up several instruments and began to think about how you could produce sounds with them. Instruments that already existed. You can simply hit them, pluck them, blow into them and so on(11). One thing that I came up with was indirect ways of making sounds–sound would not be produced immediately but it would appear after some time had elapsed. Perhaps the easiest example I came up with was the alpenhorn–it takes a certain amount of time for the sound to appear after you blow into it. What I thought about was making an alpenhorn so long that it would take about three years for the sound to emerge. But that was just another type of mental conceit, and so totally worthless. When I thought about producing sound, what it basically came down to was me and an instrument. So the only thing left open to me was to discover new bodily movements and create music that way. Just around that time when I was experimenting with my body to find these new movements, I had the chance to see some butoh(12). Using the body has been a main theme of mine since then. For example, when I strike something I don't just do it straight, I break down the action or stop just before or just after the actual striking of the object. No words exist to express or explain those types of action–all I can do is move my body and show people. It's something that doesn't even come across in audio recordings, you have to see it to experience it. How about this for an impossible proposal–instead of a CD, Halana should have a free video, then people can see what I'm talking about.

AC : As far as I'm concerned, while the actual sounds of your percussion performances are interesting, the process leading up to the sound is even more fascinating–the look and sound of you leaping around, the rustle of your clothes, friction with the air, the sounds of your breathing and your hair whipping around. You would really need to capture all those sounds as well.

KH : The process which I am conscious of when I perform is slightly different from everyone else's. Before I make any sounds, first of all I breathe in all the air in the performing space. Most performers feed off the audience, but I'm conscious of entering into a relationship with the actual air in the place, even before the audience has arrived. After breathing in all the air, when I breathe out again I want to engulf the audience in that air. And then on top of that, I want to return the air to its original state again. When I breathe in all that air and engulf the audience in it, it feels like I have become god. That in itself would be blasphemy, which is why I then return the air to its original state. That's the process that I'm always aware of. This might sound like a joke, but it's not–it's easy to become god, but difficult to keep that power. People often say that my sounds are loud, and that can be a negative thing. It's not the sounds that are loud, it's me. I actually become the sounds. People often say how opera singers should sing not from the throat but from the diaphragm, or with their whole bodies. But that just limits the sound to yourself–what I want to do is make the air itself vibrate. And that's why it's loud. I give my body to the air. That makes the air vibrate–that's what I'm doing with the percussion. In the past, when I didn't have that much power, I wasn't able to make people concentrate fully on the sounds. Now I can do that because, in one sense, I can control the whole space. And everyone then goes along with what I want to do. That's how I become god. But because that's blasphemy, I always return the air again to its original state. And by doing that I will be forgiven.
When I'm doing a percussion performance, I am very conscious of myself as one part of the universe. In one sense, there's nothing that I'm forbidden to do. That said, I can't do anything that's going to injure someone in the audience and so far, luckily I've managed to avoid doing so. I'm always ultra careful when I'm doing a percussion performance. It's usually in small venues, and if I were to slip, which is easy to do, with one of the big cymbals and hit someone in the head with it, I'd kill them. That's the only thing I'm thinking about. I can relive the times when I was at kindergarten and I would be playing in the sand-pit. I can do whatever I want, everything is permitted.

AC : Is it possible for you to do the percussion in the studio, or do you need the energy of an actual audience?

KH : I can do it but it's very boring. Of all the things I do, the percussion requires the closest relationship with the audience. But really, everything I do is the same–I need some reaction, whether it's someone telling me to shut up or someone applauding, and the music moves and changes according to that. I get a good vibration from the people who come and see me play live now, so I can get through the performance without any negativity. Before the performance begins and the audience are sitting there waiting, I believe I can pick up a good vibration from them. In the past, if there were people who weren't really interested in what I was doing, I would lose their vibration. I would start putting out negative vibrations, I'd want them to go home. But recently, I don't know why, there's a good vibration, and in return I feel that I have gradually become able to make people feel good.

AC : Is the audience vibration more important for the percussion than it is for the guitar and vocal stuff?

KH : Yeah, definitely. When there's a feeling of rejection or something happens at a percussion performance, I can only perform within my own expectations. There's no sense of surprise. If there isn't a good vibration then I can't enjoy the performance. If I'm not surprised at what I'm doing then there's no way that the audience will be either. What surprises people is seeing something that they've never seen before. For me to feel that sense of surprise depends to a large extent on the atmosphere–it doesn't matter whether it's good or bad, but I need some kind of an atmosphere to react with.

AC : You are doing something totally new with the percussion, but I think a lot of people have a tendency to look on it as somehow "primitive."

KH : People look at something they really don't understand, and they label it "primitive." On the other hand, I think that prayers and curses ultimately head in that direction. It's easy just to label the percussion as primitive and leave it at that, but as I see it it's very simple. First, I use very few sounds, it's stripped down to the essentials–the problem then is why you perceive that as "primitive."

AC : Primitive in the sense that it's just your body and some very basic sound producing objects. There's no electricity involved. The object could be as basic as a rock, and you use it to produce a rhythm. But people are still immensely moved by something that basic, that primitive.

KH : Why should people be moved only by primitive things? That sounds bogus and condescending. That type of reaction is just the same as the trap that all those "world music" people fall into. Japanese are especially susceptible to that line.

AC : The first two or three times I saw you play, your music had an actual physical effect on my body. After the performance was finished I'd be unable to stand up, I'd feel really light-headed, sometimes even slightly nauseous. It was almost like it was taking my body a time to adjust to something totally new–as if I had been eating nothing but burgers and drinking Coke for years and then suddenly switched to vegetables and water. It would take my body time to readjust to the new diet, and there would be some physical "withdrawal" symptoms, if you like. Is that kind of physical effect on your listeners something that you are conscious of or aim for?

KH : I think it's slightly different. Because I'm trying to do something that hasn't existed before, there are certain effects that come along with it. I think the main problem is my consciousness. Sometimes I feel like playing percussion, or guitar, or ethnic instruments, or singing–so I do. But I don't do it in order to produce some specific effect on someone.

NM : Is that the same as you were saying earlier about prayers and curses?

KH : For me, everything is the same.

NM : Like you're just doing something, without any intentions. Your heart is always calm. That's how I perceive you.

KH : In one sense, things like that happen by accident. But they do happen all the time. On the other hand, when I go home after playing and my body is aching, I always think, "why do I do this?" Actually I went to shiatsu(13) this morning–it really hurts. I wonder how long I can keep on doing this. The worse the state your body is in, the more painful it is. If you press on your hand like this, there shouldn't be any resistance to your finger. But when there's something wrong, and circulation isn't correct, your body actually resists and won't let the fingers penetrate into the flesh. And because the body is resisting, shiatsu feels really painful. Because I use my body in performance it gets really tense. So I still think, "why am I doing this?" I can't explain why my music has that kind of effect on the body. If I became unable to move my hand I couldn't play guitar anymore–that's the only way I can explain it. For me, the whole body of a great singer resonates to produce the sounds. I feel that I'm very close to accomplishing this, but if I'm just slightly off in my technique then it hurts. Breathing out hurts sometimes. The idea isn't to project your voice using your whole body, but to make your body resonate. You understand? Not a massive explosion of energy, but a buildup of concentration within the body and then you sing. The problem isn't the volume or tone that you're able to produce but your consciousness.

AC : Do you need that kind of pain to verify to yourself that you're putting your all into the music? Or is it more like if you were playing properly you wouldn't feel any pain whatsoever?

KH : The latter is possibly true. But I don't like that kind of method. To be more precise, I'm using a religious image again–Christ was nailed to the cross and if his pain was his testimony, then I feel that my pain is unavoidable. To put it a better way, I'm offering up my body as a sacrifice. In terms of the relationship between me and the universe, in order to make myself feel better I have to offer myself up to the universe. I started thinking this way when I was about seventeen or eighteen. I believe in the therapeutic properties of music, this is something I've talked about before–how some music makes you feel good, how it physically relaxes your body. Then there's all this so-called "healing music" recently–that's just a joke. What I can't understand is how the people who make that kind of music believe they can heal people without they themselves experiencing any pain. Of course, from their point of view I'm just a fool–putting myself through agony in order that my listeners can experience happiness. They think it's a pointless waste of effort. I have thought the same thing myself, but still I wonder how someone who hasn't experienced pain can hope to heal other people.

AC : Is this healing effect different from the idea that certain tones react with certain parts of the brain, all those Indian ideas of modes and so on?

KH : This idea of there being certain sounds for morning or afternoon etc., as far as I understand it, is a Northern Indian idea. Southern Indian music doesn't seem to have quite the same concept of ragas for morning, or ragas for evening. When I first started listening to Indian music I thought that that concept applied to all of it. But recently I've been listening to Indian music again and revising my initial opinion of it. If you look at it in terms of the relationship between the self and the universe, then the time of day doesn't matter. I think that was how Indian music must have been originally, though I don't like that word, been. This idea of music for... for example, say it's afternoon in India, then it's a different time in other countries, so the music has no universality. The whole idea of morning or afternoon just acts as a limit. You can save people who are experiencing afternoon at that time, but not those who happen to be experiencing evening. That's why I always concentrate on the relationship between the self and the universe–I want to show proof that time is irrelevant. If you start thinking about time, about morning or afternoon, then you become limited by that. If you talk about time and position then things like age also come into play–but what I talk about is if someone's consciousness begins to long for something, then that person can exist in the one-on-everything relationship that I mentioned earlier. Just from talking like this, we can gradually move closer to a reply to your earlier question. There's no way I can explain the relationship between the individual and the universe just off the bat. But this is all stuff that I've talked about again and again. Ask me something different.




AC : Do you think that singing, using the voice, creates a more direct relationship with an audience than expressing yourself through the medium of some instrument?

KH : At the moment I don't feel any difference between them. There's a tendency to use the word "voice," to describe it as an instrument–I don't agree with this. I am most definitely a singer. When you use the word "voice" I just have an image of someone playing around with methods of voice production, whereas what I do is I sing. For me what I do are songs, though maybe some people might not agree. Maybe there is a slight difference between singing a song and playing an instrument, but because I use both to make music I look upon them as being the same.

AC : How important are the actual words to you when you sing?

KH : If lyrics come to me then I'll sing lyrics, if they don't then I'll sing something else. The best situation for me to sing lyrics is darkness. (laughs) So if you want me to sing, you can forget about having a video crew around. (laughs) For me the best song is one where I surprise myself, where I sing melodies and rhythms that I've never sung before. And if I can attach lyrics to that, then that's the best kind of song for me. But for some reason, if there is any light, I can't sing. This links back to another image that I always use–where does music come from? I personify that every time I play live.

AC : Are there any singers that you would identify as definite influences?

KH : There's so many. But that word "influence" . . . . I'm going to put this bluntly–it's not a word you should use towards people, they can be offended by it. Especially if you ask them who they've been influenced by. There are a lot of people whom I like, but I think that influence is really only limited to one part of what I am, there was some influence at one particular time upon one particular part of me. Maybe I learnt something from them, but this idea of influence means that you can never go beyond what that person did. And that's why I get pissed off when people ask me who I've been influenced by. I've never said that I was influenced by Blue Cheer. My sound is far wilder than theirs anyway. (laughs) Maybe I liked them back when I was in high school, that's only natural. Everyone was given birth to by their mother, they didn't just suddenly materialize. But I don't think I was influenced by them. In one sense, I still like things that I once liked. Everyone talks about growing out of a certain kind of music, don't they? They say that they used to like hard rock, but they've grown out of that now. I don't feel like that at all. I still love to listen to Blue Cheer. It makes me feel like dancing. Or if I listen to Charlie Christian I can still really get into it. Probably the stuff that I've stopped listening to the most is contemporary 20th century composition. Definitely. Too much of it just coming from the head. When I talk with people I try to make these ideas as easy as possible to understand. I use simple words. Like I always say, any conversation that a child can't understand is a lie. If you don't do that then you'll end up playing with vocabulary, playing off the words you know against the person you're listening to. If you do that then there's absolutely no way that the ideas of music as therapy, or a tool to become closer to people can exist.

AC : Moving on to something totally different. You present a very defined image, a definite style, don't you?

KH : Again this is something that I've said before–if I were to shave my head and wear white robes it would be too close to what I sing about. (laughs)

AC : Is there any sense that as a musician you feel you have a certain role in society, and you then wear certain clothes to differentiate yourself from other people?

KH : It's got nothing to do with feeling. I've been doing the same thing now for over twenty years–so this is the only way I can be.

AC : But still, there must have been some point when you made a decision to dress a certain way. You weren't born looking that way.

KH : Priests are the same, they're not born wearing robes.

AC : So what made you decide to adopt that particular style?

KH : Because I like it, obviously. I'm not being sarcastic or anything, but if I don't dress like this then I feel uncomfortable and can't relax. That's certainly true now. For example, if someone worked as a wage-slave at a company for forty years and then retired, the day after they retired they'd probably get up in the morning and put on a suit and tie. I'm probably close to that. Now, if I had some clothes that weren't black and I put them on by mistake and went out, I think that I'd run straight back home and change. I wouldn't be able to relax. Rather than deliberately choosing any particular style, like everything else I do it has to be this way. Do you understand? This is my reality. I've got to wear something–the police would arrest me if I went out naked. For me, it's not a question of wearing, it's a principle. I don't tell you to wear black or grow your hair long–they're my own principles. This is the way I want to be. Just like when I was small and I'd play by myself in the sand-pit when everyone else was playing with building bricks. Of course the way I look now is a pose, but I don't want to look any other way. If I hated people looking at me and kids pointing then I could cut my hair. I could do it anytime I wanted. But for the moment I want to look this way. Maybe I'll change tomorrow, who knows. I enjoy being this way. If I didn't like it then I'd change.

AC : What do you think is the rôle of a musician in society, in the world?

KH : To warn people. To tell them that the world's getting worse, that they should change, that they should try to make things better. It's different from the whole hippy thing with everyone clapping and singing the lyrics. That comes down to "we're all human so let's get on with each other." But if you reduce it to just a human level then you can't expand that feeling to anything outside the human world. That's why I hate sing-alongs.

AC : Has there been any change in the musician's rôle over the centuries?

KH : People often call me a shaman. Their form and style may have changed, but I definitely believe that shamans still exist in this world. I really flatter myself that I am one of them. People called me a shaman back when I was in Lost Aaraaff, when I was about twenty, but I didn't understand what the word meant then. But even if I didn't know the word I still had some idea of what they were getting at. I realized that maybe there was something like that within me. A musician's rôle doesn't change. The evil that was there at the start is there for all eternity, the same with the good that was there at the start. If it wasn't like that then one would prevail, the balance would be destroyed. The world isn't completely evil, there's no way that could happen and it would have no meaning. But it's not completely good either. That's why I used the word "warning."

AC : How do you visualize yourself in your sixties or seventies? What do you see yourself doing?

KH : I'd like to be totally white-haired and still be playing hard rock. (laughs) That's the way I'd like to be–I mean if I was doing percussion shows with white hair down to here, the image would just be too close. (laughs) Rather than that I'd like to keep on playing hard rock, though I don't know how long I would be able to sustain the intensity. That would be cooler, I think. People might think it was stupid though, this old guy singing and playing guitar. The problem is my body–there will be a physical difference between the toughness of my body now and twenty years later. Physically I'll be a lot weaker. The sound I could make will probably be the same, that doesn't matter. My feeling of putting in 100% will be the same. So the sound and feeling will be the same as twenty years previous, and maybe the attack will still be the same. The sound and consciousness will be the same, but what will be different is the toughness of my body–how hard I will actually be able to perform.

AC : You don't think that your increased consciousness will compensate for any physical deterioration? That it will enable you to find new, different techniques?

KH : I don't want it to be like that. In one sense, if I wanted to I think I could. Maybe it's wasted effort, but I want to put my all into my playing. That's why on the surface it looks like I'm performing extreme acts of violence on the guitar. Depending on who's listening, it can look like someone cursing, or like an extreme prayer. But I want to put my all into everything. It's hard on the guitar though–they soon break. (laughs) But that's the way it's got to be. In that sense, maybe the guitars are resigned to destruction from the moment they come into my hands. What's different about my approach is that I think it's unfair to the guitar to use pliers or hammers to play it. That's too easy–I don't feel any pain. But I use my hands and that can hurt. In the same way it's pretty uncool to kill someone with a gun, but very cool to do it with a sword. Because there's an equal chance that you'll get killed first. I like to be prepared for the worst when I do something. Not because it's good or whatever, just because I like it that way. I'm sure about that. And that's the way I want to play guitar. I think that my guitar-playing now is very tough–even if it hurts or I cut myself, I can just about keep on playing.

AC : Do you think your music will continue to exist after you're gone?

KH : I don't care. In one sense, if I'm going to try and look cool then I want that to end with me. No succession. And for me, expression has got to be like that if it's not going to be a lie. The point lies with the individual. By the individual I don't mean egoism and vanity, I mean how much the individual is capable of offering up himself to the universe. If you do that, individual convenience doesn't enter into it–and if it does then you haven't thoroughly offered yourself up. If you've done something that other people can imitate then you've shown your weak point. In other words, what you were doing had no tension to it. Maybe there is one part of me that wants someone to succeed me, but my methods are designed so that no one can imitate them. For example, even now there's no one who can play guitar like Jimi Hendrix. There are certain parts of what he did that continue to exist in various types of music. You can copy his rhythms. But the way his harmony depends on the fingers half-fretting certain strings, barely touching others–that's amazing because it was something that he didn't sit down and think up. Music that came after him has been analyzed more and more, been explained in really fine detail. Going back to what I said earlier, the reason why people want to go back to a primitive state is that they think that requires no thought. People are tired of having to think. In their minds, they don't want to think but they are thinking all the time–about their families, about what to eat. And that's why they came up with this idea of "world music."

AC : You don't like to talk about what the future will bring, do you?


KH : If I'm making music properly then the future doesn't matter.





http://www.halana.com/haino.html

i don't think he's put anything out this year, which, come to think of it, is a bit of a surprise, i think the last thing he put out was a duo record with kk null called mamono, i think it's on blossoming noise

I think Haino is the only guy who has the right to the title 'Rock Star' these days. I have never been truly star struck over anyone except him walking around at Instal- there's just something about the guy. He's like a black metal Willy Wonka. And I mean that in a good way.
Risking major embarrasment (what the fuck, it's only the internet) this is me stood behind Haino at Instal. I was incredibly stoned and became completely transfixed by his hair:

(Im not the bloke on the right BTW)
Yeah, and his set at Instal with Conrad - wooohoooo. These all star jams are so often disappointing, but they truly had an amazing flow going. I will hold that with me til I die. Wolf Eyes wish they were tenth that rocking, bloody lunks.

I'm not aware of anything in the works either. I'm sure we won't have to wait too long though. The world can only go so long without churning out a new Haino release.


I'm super excited about moving to Japan next month so I can finally see the dude play live (doesn't hang out in Texas very much). I'm hoping to see him play with Vajra in Tokyo this October. Caaaaaaaaan't wait. I'll report back here.

Ok... I've held my tongue for long enough... someone is going to have to explain the hype here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5_ShGuxgsI

...what? Let's be honest, that was dreadful. Call it art or whatever, if it lets you sleep at night... but it looks like my dad playing guitar...

So could someone show me something more impressive, please? Before I completely pass judgement.

You're going to judge his music based on a hyper-pixilated barely audible minute long youtube clip? OK.


Maybe listen to the song clips on the Aquarius Records website. Search Haino in the search box. Or just watch the other videos on youtube. There are plenty.

It's plenty audible, and it shows absolutely no redeeming qualities. I've only seen one other video.

I've checked out a few videos in the past few minutes... some of his noise stuff is awesome. But in my opinion, dude shouldn't 'sing' or play guitar.
I'll leave you all alone now, I've said my bit and learned my share.

oh my, someone slagged the greatest guitar player ever.

this must feel what others feel when i tell them hendrix is kinda boring.

Hendrix is terrifically boring, isn't he?

I'd be tempted to not say Haino was the 'best' ever. But then he is unspeakably brilliant. I think it's his ability to play the shit out of proper shredders/ fretwankers/ blueswanker whilst never actually doing so and pursuing something entirely his own that I like. I would say, similarly but from a jazz-ish/ classical-ish side of things, Kazuo Imai is similarly brilliant whilst utterly different. I tried to find the video that was on youtube of Haino playing Hurdy-Gurdy, but it seems to have vanished, annoyingly.

While looking for the above, I came across this, which is unrelated to Haino but quite pretty nonetheless.

Haino has done some good stuff over the years, but I could live without his solo percussion/hurdy-gurdy/vocal squwaking projects. He did a solo electronics thingy in London earlier this year, and the racket didn't have much in the way of variety, and it came across as fairly boring.

what? where?

It was at The Spitz earlier this year (think it was in January) - he did a two-day thing there, one day playing w/Chris Corsano, and t'other day playing solo.

I think that was last November or thereabouts wasn't it?

permanently?

I remember I finished my job the Friday before that gig, which makes it somewhere in the September/ October/ November time, depending on the accuracy of my CV.

Hey, Mr Melly, you were at the same gig as myself, Iain, T&B AND Marras. Small world etc. I was the drunk one.

Until I get bored and want to go somewhere else. Which may never happen.