Here's a meeting of the minds few could have predicted, a live document conjoining digital mixologists Pan Sonic with the explosive guitarist/performance artist Keiji Haino. Nothing seems simpatico on face: Pan Sonic's brash hardrive-conjured cloudbursts share an affinity with Haino's psychedelic detonations, but beyond that both share little in the way of aesthetic or common sonic values. Whatever or whoever corralled these two acts together surely had a madman's way about them, like sticking two electrical wires' ends together; only mayhem could result. And, in this case, that's absolutely true.
No matter how you slice it, this is a visceral, jaw-dropping, head-cleansing, mind-wiping, sonically cathartic experience — live, it must have bordered on the lunatic fringes of the ritualistic. Though the disc has index points, the recording unfolds as one long mammoth undertaking, and, despite Pan Sonic's fluttering sub-bass sounds and muted industrial sturm und drang, this is pretty much Haino's show. Bellowing like a demon in heat, he lends a devotional, if nigh on satanic, air to the proceedings, whether using his guttural screams and yelps to exorcise vast tracts of his soul or melting his frets by fingers seemingly on the brink of combustion. Guitar notes uncurl and arc into the upper stratosphere at will, underpinned by Pan Sonic's gusty metallic breezes; at times, Haino appears to be blowing harmonica (!) but only the audience can attest as to whether this is simply his guitar's numerous faces. The rest of us listening at home, bowing to all this ceremonial acidity, can just revel in the noise and leave such questions at the door.
As it is, most of Pan Sonic's followers might find this recording something of an alienating proposition. Haino's allegiance to the Japanese psych underground pulls the electronic duo into all kinds of different directions, one which finds their contributions here to be more pithy than provocative. Nevertheless, it's a coruscating mind-meld of extremities all the same — you have been warned.
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