Catch-Wave cover

Catch-Wave

Released

One reason this album is so hard to categorize is that half of the music here qualifies as synth drone—an oscillator and a filter and an envelope all doing their things—but the other part of this music is an improvisor using violin and voice and other electronic means to unleash unpredictable ribbons of varying pitch and timbre. Each of the two pieces takes up as much vinyl as you could occupy in 1975, which is about 24 minutes. This music isn’t so much prayer or lament, even though it feels initially like it might be. On the second side, Kosugi starts saying “wave” and “code” (in English) and works around what seems like the same synth drone from side one. Kosugi bends the words as sound and lets sense dissolve.

Sasha Frere-Jones

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