Album Review: The Most Painful Time Happens Only Once Has It Arrived Already..? by Nazoranai

A clatter of deep bass and percussion stabs underneath the synthesized gaping yawn of a cruise ship leaving port at the gates of hell. The strange aria of an androgynous overlord whines, croons and screams over the continued submersible crash of cymbals and toms, all the while twisting alien klaxon noises from a synthesizer, parrying with the cosmos he faces via the wormhole he’s just opened in Birmingham’s cavernous Symphony Hall. It’s July 2013, and Keiji Haino’s exorcising demons with Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O’Malley in tow.

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As Sunn 0)))’s uncompromising aesthetic takes another step towards wider exposure, thanks to the Seattle drone band’s recent 4AD team-up with Scott Walker, here’s a side project which almost certainly won’t enjoy similar reach. It’s great, regardless. Over four long tracks of formless free-jazz-meets-rock destruction, Stephen O’Malley – the Sunn 0))) reprasentative here – arguably stamps his sonic identity less than Nazoranai’s other members, Japanese noise icon Keiji Haino and Australian ambient master Oren Ambarchi.

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It feels weird writing this about a record that has Keiji Haino on it, but it sounds like all involved in making The Most Painful Time Happens Only Once Has It Arrived Already..? were having one heck of a ball in the process. I could be wrong, of course, but that's the vibe you get. And why not? After all, all three of Haino, Oren Ambarchi (on drums here) and Stephen O'Malley (of Sunn O))) fame - here on bass) have done more than their share for the cause of serious experimental rock music (and beyond), so fair dues to them if Nazoranai has become their way of letting their hair down (OK, Keiji Haino's hair is always down, so that's a shit metaphor).

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