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keiji haino - watashi dake? - black editions - vinyl

New Copy

Genre: Wave / Pop / Rock - Experimental / Avant garde

1. My Refuge
2. The Disallowed
3. Rise from the Dead
4. Lay It Open
5. Bring to an End
6. I Can't Do It Properly
7. More More More
8. Even If I Break Through
9. Falling Apart
10. Try to come this far
11. Though I Want to Laugh
12. I Want to Return

Over the last fifty years few musicians or performers have created as monumental and uncompromising a body of work as that of Keiji Haino. Through a vast number of recordings and performances Haino has staked out a ground all his own- creating a language of unparalleled intensity that defies any simple classification. For all this, his 1981 debut album Watashi Dake? has remained enigmatic. Originally released in a small edition by the legendary Pinakotheca label, the album was heard by only a select few in Japan and far fewer overseas. Original vinyl copies became impossibly rare and highly sought after the world over.

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Watashi Dake? presents a haunting vision – stark vocals, whispered and screamed, punctuate dark silences. Intricate and sharp guitar figures interweave, repeat and stretch, trance-like, emerging from dark recesses. Written and composed on the spot – Haino’s vision is one of deep spiritual depths that distantly evokes 1920’s blues and medieval music- yet is unlike anything ever committed to record before or since. Coupled with starkly minimal packaging featuring the now iconic cover photographs by legendary photog-
rapher Gin Satoh, the album is a startling and fully realized artistic statement.