Michael Ranta is a name that has floated around in the background of my wider perversions for some time. First entry into consciousness would have been via Improvisation Sep 1975 with Ichiyanagi and Kosugi, though I probably took him there for the odd gaijin out. Later, more prominently, via his contribution to the epic dronework of Jean-Claude Eloy. Still, despite Ranta's obviously central role, particularly in Eloy's Yo-In (and to a lesser but nonetheless significant extent in Anahata), I was not compelled to investigate further. I guess I took him for just one actor in a very elaborate piece of work. But what Ranta in fact brings, aside from some formidable percussive skills, is a wack-load of traditional percussion instruments, gongs, gamelan, whatnot. The results, in Yo-In, are as the title promises: somber electroacoustic "ritual drone" based around a wack-load of (principally metal) percussion- a subdued, languid, meticulously structured set of reverberations that would contrast sharply with Heliopolar Egg. Heliopolar is far more raw, rough, almost wild at times- but as FreakAnimalFinal says never really veering into free improv. Or perhaps to say that, while this most certainly is free improv, it is a kind of free improv to be enjoyed by those into heavily dirge-flavored industrial murk. The CCCC comparison is warranted- particularly in the analog oscillation cum sheet-metal droning of the Bangledesh performance; though it should be obvious, even at a cursory glance, that Geerken and Hasegawa share in common more than a few inclinations.
The Ranta/Lewis/Plank ascenger mentions is perhaps more purely into the realm of the free improv, but often swells into some huge and scary textures that verge on sublime. Far superior to immediate predecessor "Free Improvisation" from the one-time unit of Wired (Ranta, Lewis, Plank, Karl-Heinz Bottner) released on Deutsche Grammophon in 1974, and to this superiority I would directly attribute the greater prominence of Ranta's percussion. Still Wired stands as an interesting and much replayable document of the period:
https://youtu.be/4wigyhs9drghttps://youtu.be/YKYR2RxaBugFor a sense of what Ranta gets up to when left to his own devices, check out his solo joint Yuen Shan (released on Metaphon, the same label that brought us the abovementioned Ranta/Lewis/Plank). This is, naturally, a huge and wanking orgy in a wack-load of reverberant banging, clanging, dinging, ringing, plonking, bonking, clonking. Fair bit of thud, too. For the most part very sedate, subdued even, favoring a rather darkened aesthetic that could owe something in its flavors to Eloy, occasionally whanging to life with all gusto. Could be my favorite of the lot, a nice come-down after all the wild indulgences of the collab stuff.
