Lethe is Kuwayama Kiyharu and his instrument is an abandoned grain warehouse. Within this space, he makes noise. He does this by dragging large, heavy objects across the dirty, irregular floor, by hurling other objects against walls, battering sheets of metal, banging wood, etc. Some eight minutes into the first track, a relatively tonal, deep drone is sounded, only to fade, but giving a glimmer of resonance. This tends to be the modus operandi: the sounds of agitated, industrial detritus eventually underpinned, in somewhat mournful fashion, by strings, horns or other "real" instruments, as though gazing with melancholy on catastrophic activity.

It's a compelling mix, in some ways reminiscent of the music of Olivia Block who also has buttressed field recordings with oddly traditional, chordal sounds. Lethe's space, however, is both cavernous and claustrophobic, not bucolic. When the brass enters the second of the two pieces, amidst the clanking of chains and breaking glass, the effect is anything but pastoral � much more anguished. One imagines some massive, endless, Beckettian performance of La Monte Young's "Poem for Tables, Chairs and Benches" with additional anarchic behavior thrown in for good measure. A strong, dark effort, well worth hearing.