Ground-Zero

Live 1992 +

Label: Doubtmusic Country: Japan

Ground Zero was Otomo Yoshihide's 1990's amazing collision band, using an incredible array of techniques and strategies to create incredibly unusual music. Kato Hideki, Yamataka Eye and Uchihashi Kazuhisa are three of the important improvisers that were a part of the band. As with any group that recorded as prolifically as Ground Zero, there are always tapes that were passed over for various reasons. Yoshihide has recently been rummaging around in his closet for lost and unused recordings, and this CD is made up of two such recordings.

The first 11 tracks of Live 1992 + are from a live recording in Tokyo, 1992, before the release of their first album. The band performs a series of short, bombastic and intense pieces. The sounds quality is a bit rough, but the cry of Yamataka Eye that starts the album off tells you that you're in for something unusual, born out of the intensity of this young version of the band. The second half of the release is taken from the recording of their first self-titled release on God Mountain, Ground-Zero. According to Yoshihide, there was a great deal more material to the recording sessions for the first self-titled release, all of which were destroyed in a fire at GOK Studio. Yoshihide discovered a DAT of some of that material which had been dubbed. The last two tracks of this album are taken from those recordings, giving the listener a longer look at Ground-Zero's early studio efforts.