my arrival back in Christchurch to witness the final performance of local experimental supergroup Grunge Genesis in the week noise guitarist, G'n'G member and amateur ethnomusicologist Richard Neave was preparing to leave the country for another Orientalist foray also produced a subsequent flurry [Apr 18-25] of last-minute home recording sessions, a concentrated creative space and an accompanying wealth of material [RN: koto, shamisen, shinobue, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, violin, voice / SM: violin, Mini FM transmitter, field recordings, transistor radios, music box, voice], which I am currently trying to get my head around... there are a couple of preliminary edits (named 'die tote stadt' and 'intaglio') posted in mp3 form here. perhaps it sounds something like the missing link between Ent Lang's "cold, a harvest" and Michiyo Yagi... I am excited about this collaboration. “…the domestic insects of which I am going to speak are mostly night-singers, and must not be confounded by the Semi (cicadae).... the Japanese find as much difference between the notes of night-insects and of cicadae as we find between those of larks and sparrows; and regulate their cicadae to the vulgar place of chatterers. Semi therefore are never caged. The national liking for caged insects does not mean a liking for mere noise…”
- Lafcadio Hern, Exotics and Retrospectives, 1898
