Kasai, Toshi – “Plan D NE” – [Joyful Noise Recordings]

whngr   12/16/2021   12-inch, A Library

Percussive Analog Synth from the industrious visionary Toshi Kasai of Big Business, Altamont, Deaf Nephews, engineer, producer, and collaborator of and with innumerable projects from Melvins, Totimoshi, Helmut, to Tool, et.alia, explores an anachronistic fantasy world evoking drug-addled dragons, alien psy-ops, aquatic sleep paralysis, and more artifice of one’s subconscious mind in a universe of seemingly unconstrained creativity that despite often feeling improvisational still flirts with the obsessive mad artist trope that I tend to enjoy.

A kind of sound engineer’s sandbox, Kasai employs several drummers from his esteemed (and varied) circle to ensconce themselves in his sonic throne festooned with MIDI triggers while he fondles his copious collection of analog synthesizers that can resolve to a sort of svelte prog. Only two instruments but with layers and complexity that may send some of you back to that Love In back in ’72 when you mixed your opium with your acid, felt your mind dissolve as the oil-lamps churned… and sound became your savior or perhaps more currently, a Nyquil overdose filled with aural hallucinations and irregular heartbeats.

You’ll probably dig this album in headphones. There are some spatial aspects that bend the mind and while the mixing feels carefully considered, the performances are at times chaotic and frenzied, while the element of improvisation (ostensibly) lends a note of immediacy existing simultaneously under a highly buffed post-production polish. There is courage and honesty in the arrangements and a sense that giving yourself up to the moment will yield otherwise unattainable results. Is it art or an exercise, an installation or a happening? Whatever it is, it isn’t easy… benefits from multiple listens, may be unrepeatable, and has no rival… excepting the other three three slabs from the four EP set, coming soon.

Los Angeles – 2021