Reviewed by vital weekly – number 1071 – week 8
http://www.vitalweekly.net/1071.html

 
KAZUYA ISHIGAMI – CLEANER 583 (CD by Slowdown Records)

Perhaps I am entirely wrong, but it seems that I have not heard any new music by Kazuya Ishigami since Vital Weekly 772, when I reviewed two collaborative works, one with Kentaro Takei and one by Tamako Katsufuji. Before that, in Vital Weekly 685, it was the last solo release by him. In the old days he sometimes worked as Daruin, and was a member of AdC~/DaC~ and Billy? The latter ‘?’ being part of the name. With the amount of music that have passed my ears ever since, you’ll have to excuse me that I only have a very vague recollection of how Ishigami’s music sounded back then.
I do remember it sometimes being quite noise based and sometimes venturing out to be drone like and atmospheric. I have no idea what Ishigami did since that last release, if there was a reason to be all-silent for so long. The cover, nor the information, doesn’t reveal much as to what Ishigami does here, so one has to assume that these eleven pieces are a further continuation of his earlier forays into exploring laptop techniques in processing field recordings and electronic sounds. Usually Ishigami’s pieces are long, say between six and eight minutes, exploring a few sounds per piece, bending and reshaping them. You could wonder if all of this time is needed for each of these pieces, as sometimes it seems just not enough. It works best if somewhere during a piece Ishigami slips into an entirely different stage, and allows for some other sounds to be part of it, such as in ‘Cussing’. On ‘Cleaner 583’ there is not much in the way of true noise, which I thought was a particularly good thing. It could have been slimmed down a bit, a bit less tracks and all a bit shorter, but it’s a most welcome return anyway. Let’s hope the time lapse to the next one is not that big. (FdW)
––– Address: http://www.parallaxrecords.jp