The Silence
Masaki Batoh’s output of late has been nothing short of admirable. Between a run of solo albums and his work with The Silence, the man’s pumping out multiple albums per year without the slightest dip in quality. Following up the absolutely crushing Metaphysical Feedback from last year, the band pushes into heavy pscyh Nirvana with Electric Meditations. The record follows its predecessor’s reliance on sax and flute to fill out the shifting landscapes, letting heavy walls of riff and tender folk sidle down psychedelic jazz tributaries. The title track straddles the blend especially well, shifting easily on its feet from electric sweat growl to hushed moments of reflection. The album begins with a similar crash to the gates in “Tsumi to Warai,” which wields sax like a battering ram before letting a snaking bass section writhe against the groove into the opening of the album.
They blister next through a psych-funk simmer, dousing the listener with humid flutes and a tangle of rhythm then wind through the wooded paths that bear the brush marks of his time with Ghost. They get lost in the abstract only to pull themselves from the void of twinkling improvisations and conquer once more. Then, just for good measure, they knock the lid off of a cover of Bo Diddly’s “I’m A Man,” sounding like an outtake from Two Bands And A Legend. The Silence has always seemed like Batoh’s well-oiled endgame — a perfect amassing of players that can finally form the sounds that have haunted his head for ages.
It’s the songwriter at his most varied, but the eclecticism fits together like a puzzle box that’s a portal to a realm of fascinating forms. The panoramas on Electric Meditations are vast and wondrous, and it almost seems like he’s been overlooked in the last few years because people expect spot-on psychedelia from a figure as storied as Batoh. It’s worth shouting, however, that the legend is still plugged into the lysergic portal and passing the visions onto us in records that delight, disorient, and divine some sort of deeper cosmic thrum. Don’t miss out on what Batoh’s been conjuring.
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