Recorded live at the Playfreely Festival in Singapore, November 2019, Authority is Alive is a potent performance mixed from an intoxicating brew of poetry, philosophy and sonic alchemy. Bearing the theme “The Transparency of Turbulence”, the festival featured a strong line-up of East Asian and Southeast Asian artists and bore the ambition to be “an alternative to how we coalesce and navigate a region that is continuously torn apart by words, egos, greed and ideologies.”
“Everything... living... breathe...”
In an unannounced coupling, Japan’s psychedelic and avant-garde legend Haino Keiji teamed up with Singapore’s art rock veterans The Observatory to deliver a visceral performance. Both have a history of using collaboration as method and it is evident that this meeting pushed all musicians to their creative and emotional limits. Haino, alternating between voice and guitar, was sonic shaman, channelling the raw forces of nature through his entire body. Ad libbing from a self-penned poem, his expressionistic vocals spanned tortured shrieks and falsetto whispers on ideas such as the nature of power, the dissolution of the self and the notion of mu-i 無為 (wu wei, or effortless action). Elsewhere, his guitar workouts were wild and unhinged, pure propulsions of energy.
“Do not find...”
The Observatory, pared down to a three-piece since 2019, showed off their new predilection for thrilling improvisation influenced by their Southeast Asian roots. Dharma’s use of a mallet to strike his guitar, prepared with metallic sheets and rods between its strings, created moving, gamelan-like melodies. At certain points, in call-and-response fashion, percussive polyrhythms would be exchanged with Cheryl Ong on drum kit; Ong’s background in traditional Chinese percussion brings a fresh take to an instrument typically employed in western rock and jazz idioms. Meanwhile, Yuen Chee Wai sat his guitar on a knife’s edge between control and excess, introducing beautifully resonant tone clusters and harsh, crunchy noise.
“Be found!”
Under the dim lights of the mid-size black box venue, with audience members sitting cosily at their feet, Haino and The Observatory led an ecstatic communion. Mixed and mastered by Lasse Marhaug, the chance to lose – and find – ourselves in this otherworldly performance is now here.
Recorded live at The Transparency of Turbulence
29 November 2019
Playfreely Festival at 72-13 (Singapore)
Live Recording Engineer > Lee Yew Jin
Mix and Mastering > Lasse Marhaug
Song > Haino Keiji
Translation > Nakayama Yuta
Executive Producer > Mark Wong
Art Direction > Yuen Chee Wai
Cover Photography > Darren Soh
Insert Photography > Third Street Studio
Special thanks to
Christopher Ang (Bcube), Maria Clare Khoo, Kudo Hiromi, Lai Yu Tong, Lee Yew Jin & Jeffery Yue (Ctrl Freak), Andy Lim (Art Factory), Fiona Lim, Nakayama Yuta, Mish’aal Syed Nasar, Mervyn Quek & Ong Soo Mei (72-13), Renée Ting
The Observatory’s music is texturally complex and viscerally emotional, crossing wasted borders and musical extremities that
parallel polarities within human existence, provoking and inspiring in a deeply enigmatic way. The group draws inspiration from their Southeast Asian roots and heroes of new music and art....more
supported by 17 fans who also own “Authority is Alive”
Heavy as a really heavy thing, naturally… which makes it that much more powerful when the Sharrock-meets-“Stella Blue” vibe crystallizes around 24 minutes in. Transcendent. Steve Smith
supported by 12 fans who also own “Authority is Alive”
Floor-to-ceiling Boris ragers! It’s like they looked back on songs like Statement and Woman On the Screen and said “let’s do a whole album like that!” Most of these tracks don’t even pass 3 minutes! Zerkalo holds up the middle with some anguished doom.
In the end, *NO* is as strong and declarative as it’s title. Brian Parker
supported by 12 fans who also own “Authority is Alive”
Definitely different from his more recent collaboratively ethereal and leisurely LP's, this is a crepitating, sparsely textured album that sounds like a peregrine mixture of Whitehouse eeriness, Diamanda Galas, and the first Sonic Youth LP if it was played by Jandek. A fascinating LP that is best played at very loud volumes lying on the sofa after a few Fernet Branca's. brantly