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Nazoranai is the supergroup of Keiji Haino, Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O Malley. For close to four decades, Haino has been a legendary figure in Japan s avant-garde community through his commanding presence in the band Fushitsusha and numerous solo ventures. Ambarchi, a prolific electro-acoustic composer of heavy ambience and hypno-rock, has long stood at the leading edge of Australia s experimental music scene, while O Malley remains a principle architect for the drone / doom metal project Sunn O))) in harnessing extreme sub-harmonic frequencies.
Collectively, Nazoranai operates as a live recorded collaboration, although Haino is quick to point out the difference between the words "nazoranai" (which in Japanese calligraphy means "not repeating," as in developing a distinct, individual style) and "sokkyō" (referring specifically to improvisation). In this parsing of terms, the group separates themselves from the free-music scene, which can be just as convention-bound as the established genres from which improvisers hope to escape.
On the trio s third album, Beginning To Fall In Line Before Me, So Decorously, The Nature Of All That Must Be Transformed, Nazoranai explore two side-long tracks of superb abstraction. Ambarchi and O Malley provide the perfect brute-rock rhythm section to Haino s wrecklessly pure expression through instrument and voice. Blurred noise, dark hurdy-gurdy and thunderous harmonics build an accretive mantra of jagged electricity.
While Haino s extensive discography resists easy interpretation, he constantly challenges himself to further his art by channeling the unknown. Shifting from his native Japanese to English, he asks: "Do you still have a mystery?" This existential plea could apply to the artist s own deep inquisitions or stand to confront his audience about that which eludes their understanding.
W.25TH / Superior Viaduct is proud to present Nazoranai s latest work, recorded at SuperDeluxe in Tokyo, which marks the band s first release on an American label.
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