Kazumoto Endo - Brick & Mortar CD (Skeleton Dust)
Reissue of the cut-up master's 2003 album. This one seemed so impossible to find before the reissue. Even While You Were Out would pop up for sale from time to time, but Brick and Mortar almost didn't seem to exist even though there were supposedly 500 copies.
A super precise and surgical 26 minutes. With nano-second splicing of pedal chain feedback loops, junk metal, scraped springs, and even pop music samples this album is truly special. Not a second is wasted and it's so meticulously crafted that it never feels like sounds are randomly thrown together. Every sound has a place and purpose.
Themes are created and interplay between the sounds are established, repeated, and then by the time you recognize the pattern, new themes and interplay are created. I cannot even fathom how long the standard track took Endo to edit let alone a whole album.
Endo is such a special artist and almost everyone is already familiar with his body of work. However, this album is truly immaculate and a stand-alone representation of technical cut-up noise. Even within his already well-praised discography, this has to be somewhere damn near the top. I personally think this tops While You Were Out which is a feat in and of itself.
If cut-up is your flavor and you haven't grabbed this yet, don't wait.