Album Details

• Artist: South Saturn Delta
• Album: Experience The Concreteness
• Label: Cold Spring
• Year of Release: 2011
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: patchen on 2011-04-01

Four songs taken from various live shows from 2003-5, "Experience The Concreteness" is a blistering but inspired psych-noise hybrid that adds to the discussion of the potential of both. A collaboration between Japanese noise legend Masonna (aka Maso Yamazaki ), electronic/guitar wizard Hiroshi Hasegawa (Astro, C.C.C.C.)  and drummer Nobuko Emi, South Saturn Delta (name taken from a posthumous Hendrix release) explore familiar regions for the trio, but the blending of their experience makes for some surprising tangents.

Those familiar with Masonna know that he is probably the most harsh, extreme noise artist Japan has produced. Songs like "'Captain Beefstake Plant," the opener, would quickly advance painfully into the skull in the hands of Masonna alone, but Hasegawa "tempers" that fear by adding some disorienting grooves that help make this almost contemplative. That might only seem a respite, as "'Decadence Cultivation," complete with screaming vocals, pushes the limits of both noise and psychedelic loops which, joined with percussion, manages to sound harrowing and trippy at once. Tangents into drone ("Banishment Snake") and unglued gritty jam ("Rocket Incantation") round out these sweaty but heady live proceedings.

"Experience The Concreteness" may be a supergroup one-off, or it may lead to some deeper interest in taking this sound further. The trio that comprise South Saturn Delta are more than familiar with taking risks, and reveling in the ear-splitting results.  That here they are stepping out of their "comfort zones" to disturb ours is foolish, since these are artists with no boundaries or sonic comfort zones.

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