Keijo Haino at Transmissions V festival, Teatro Rasi, Ravenna
Any music aficionado’s list of artists to see before you die should include Keijo Haino (灰野敬二).
The show I witnessed at Teatro Rasi, Ravenna was the second time I have been fortunate enough to witness his mind-blowing performance art.
He remains a complete enigma and one of the few musicians you could truly describe as a one-off.
He doesn’t really sing but produces a series of high-pitched shrieks, screams, squeals together with more guttural grunts, some of which sound like death rattles.
Using delay pedals this range of sounds are multi-layered to punctuate what can best be described guitar abuse. The result is a perfect storm of electric blues, improvisation, avant-garde heavy metal and pure noise.
Haino seems indifferent to whether you like or loathe what he does so it feels redundant to even say if you think his music good or bad. this is simply a sonic adventure to experience and marvel at.
