The Wire, July 2010:
John Wiese has one of the most distinctive solo voices in Noise music – his moment-to-moment compositional logic and unique deployment of stereo panning are unmistakable. Even in his most sympathetic collaborations, like recent discs with C Spencer Yeh, Lasse Marhaug and saxophonist Evan Parker, Wiese's gestures cut through the sonic palette, leaving the listener in no doubt as to who made what sound. Two notable exceptions to this tactic are his duos with Merzbow and Pain Jerk, both giants of the 1990's Japanese Noise scene. In these cases, he manages to match his partner's style, sounding as much like a fan as he does a collaborator. But in doing so, he's pushed both to make their best albums in decades.
15 years ago, Pain Jerk (Kohei Gomi) was the Noise-head's favourite artist, fixing the chaotic histrionics and high-energy momentum of Masonna to the sensitive timbral detail of mid-career Merzbow. Nerima is the second album by John Wiese and Pain Jerk, after 2007's by-mail collaboration, Terrazzo. Recorded in real time in Tokyo, Nerima finds Wiese and Gomi developing a shared language base on the sound of Pain Jerk's classic 1990's recordings. Over short repeating loops, Gomi creates jagged slashes of feedback while Wiese builds up layers of wet, squiggly laser sounds.
By engaging Gomi in his own style of playing, Wiese controls the boundaries of the music, steering and editing Gomi's performance. He is, in the moment, creating the Pain Jerk album I've wanted to hear since 1997's masterpiece Gallon Gravy. It's a strategy both reverent and manipulative – a real-time fan edit of the music of his childhood heroes.
William Hutson
