Vinyl Tranquilizer

by Skip Jansenn The prolific Japanese underground artist Otomo Yoshahide delivers some of his finest solo turntable work on this CD of conceptual avant-garde pieces. Vinyl Tranquilizer is part of the experimental artist's "Memory Disorder" series, which comes packaged in a white sleeve, implying this is a kind of medication for those uninitiated to noise. Each track is limited to one minute and one vinyl record for each, which he reconstructs in cut up noise collage that is set on rendering the original source unrecognizable. Resulting in an experimental electronic work made up of 60 concise vignettes, Vinyl Tranquilizer is a typically standard-setting outing from the Japanese noise pioneer, who may well be best heard solo as in this CD than in any of his numerous collaborations in experimental improvisation.