TATSUYA YOSHIDA & RICHARD PINHAS: WELCOME IN THE VOID

My first encounter with Tatsuya Yoshida, who co-composes, "Welcome... ... In The Void", 2014, alongside Richard Pinhas, is through this same record. This project was selected to be on Yoshida's PA section, although by the book, it should have been the other way around.

Drummer Yoshida finally was the one to subdue a bit, Pinhas' frantic obsession with Robert Fripp's self-named "Frippertronics". I mean, he uses them more than Fripp himself, who now constructs a more refined kind, named "soundscapes".

But no matter how much I appreciate and still want to appreciate Richard Pinhas own guitar language, it is always surrounded by this "cloudy aura" of sounding like a Robert Fripp's involuntary (?) clone.

Well, as told, Yoshida's thunderous and creative drumming kind of balances and keeps Richard, most of the time, busy doing what he does best, the daring and whirling guitar soloings mixed with an ever changing palette of strumming colors, like his great Heldon or his best early solo efforts. But although owning his own style, he falls off the wagon more than once. Damn!

Welcome.....in the Void, consist of 2, 30 min long each, non-stop, progressive psychedelic electronics. (A.V. to fit in!). There are extraordinary sections, of tumultuous and deep whirling inspiration, when both musicians form a perfectly balanced communion of excesses, going both ways of their performing skills. But inevitably, I can not keep my mind off, the constant and alien apparition of Pinhas' "Frippertronics".

Therefore, ***3, "Good! One way trip" PA stars.