Tatsuhisa Yamamoto - scoria (2022)

Drummer Tatsuhisa Yamamoto fills out Longform's rapidly expanding canon with a percussive composition that pushes from abstract minimalism into dense, rhythmic, FFT-filtered noise.

Widely known in Japan for his collaborations with Jim O'Rourke, Phew and Eiko Ishibashi, his work with free jazz legend Akira Sakata and his performances alongside artists like Keiji Haino and Oren Ambarchi, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto is a drummer who's dedicated to seeking out ways to enhance or extend his technique. On 'scoria', he uses the longer form timeframe to explore the potential of a single rolling rhythm that he disturbs over the course of almost 20 minutes.

Beginning with a mechanical pulse that's joined by more organic hits and clicks, 'scoria' picks up more elements as it snowballs through time. It sounds as if Yamamoto is playing along, weaving brittle live percussion in and out of the main electronic rhythmic push to create a Corsano/Keszler-like cracking glass patter. But the throbbing pulse gives just as much an impression of minimal techno, or Manuel Göttsching's legendary "E2-E4" as it does free jazz; as soon as the track powers past the central point, Yamamoto ditches the initial drive and collapses into freeform, digitized abstraction, filtering his sounds into a dense cloud of buzzing, whirring and splattered electronix.