Keiji Haino/Jim O'Rourke/Oren Ambarchi

Live albums are a delicate balancing act, teetering between the fact that they never sound as good as the original recording(s), but possessing musical merit, in that they capture the "moment" of the performance, the rawness and emotion of the show. However, on experimental live record Imikuzushi, all of this emotion is overshadowed by lengthy tangents of atonal noise made up of pointless guitar runs and constant crash cymbals that tire the listener's ears within two minutes of the opening edit. The second edit opens with less abrasive experimentation, even hinting at possible melodic themes, only to break into the same aimless improvisations of the first edit, sounding like they're guided more by violent heroin highs than musical ideas. Keiji, O'Rourke and Ambarchi never stray far from the same sonic recipe in the remaining edits of Imikuzushi, and this lack of depth diminishes the replay value of the record, undoubtedly cheapening the performance archived within it.