Incapacitants

No air to breathe. Incapacitants have spent four decades pursuing what their own Fumio Kosakai once called "hard noise," and Zouvneree is another full-saturation statement from a duo who are, for many, the exemplars of Japanese noise at its most single-minded.

The project began in 1981 in Osaka as the solo outlet of Toshiji Mikawa, who wanted a vehicle for pure noise away from the performance-art chaos of Hijokaidan. After relocating to Tokyo he was joined by Fumio Kosakai, once of C.C.C.C. and High Rise, and the two settled into the relentless course that has defined them ever since: all electronics, all voice, no melody, no rhythm, no relief.

First impressions register only an ear-flattening wall, but closer listening reveals the opposite of crudeness - notched textures, squalling high tones and low-end rumble braided into a dense, almost hallucinatory mass that works toward ecstatic overload rather than mere volume. Issued on Alchemy Records, essential for anyone tracing the deepest currents of the genre.