The first recorded collaboration between German new music ensemble Zeitkratzer and Keiji Haino was a concert captured on 2008's Electronics (zkr 0006). That date placed Reinhold Friedl's diverse experimental ensemble in squalling sonic juxtaposition with the Japanese musician's fiery, paint-peeling guitar playing, primitive electronic manipulation, and, on the last track, his free-form drumming. For this concert (there have been many unrecorded ones in between), Zeitkratzer feature many of the same members --with the notable addition of the fantastic Frank Gratkowski on clarinet -- but Haino is sans any instrument save for his voice. The six works range from the spectral to the forbiddingly intense. This complete performance presents an all but totally necessary context for how Zeitkratzer attempt to not only support Haino, but exhort and engulf him as well. That said, it is worth noting that the 11-minute "Roses" is perhaps the most haunting and beautiful work Haino's voice has graced. In this sparse, elongated work of delicate percussion, muted French Horn, strings, double bass, and organic ambient sounds, he goes both deep and wide in his utterances, elongating his tones, rounding his words, and softening a technique that is almost spiritual in approach. Here he frees himself of all concerns save for musical and perhaps mystical linguistics. By contrast, "Smashine," set to an atonal, crushing pulse, reveals his guttural side with primal growling and grinding as Gratkowski's instrument howls above the fray. "Birdy" pairs vocal and musical glossolalia. The angular -- almost razor-sharp -- approach of quirky rhythms and instrumental phrasing in "Wet Edge" elucidates how Haino's notions of cadence, anticipation, and pressured release are woven inside a larger, almost labyrinthine instrumental framework. The end result is that the two extremes blur the middle, extending the terrains on their margins; the entwined center is not the end result, but part and parcel of a journey that is embarked upon without resolution, its landmarks highlighted throughout. Zeitkratzer + Keiji Haino may be fiercely challenging, but it is also completely exhilarating. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

1		Ghosts
2		Smashine
3		Roses
4		Birdy
5		Wet Edge
6		Cryogen

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