by Martin Walters
A strange diversion for the Japanese guitarist who, when not at the helm of power noise trio Fushitsusha or exorcising his demons solo, uses the umbrella of Nijiumu to create evocative dark ambient music. He may call this his traditional music project, and that goes only as far as the instruments he chooses: percussion, acoustic bowed instruments, and hurdy-gurdy are sculpted into droning sound masses akin to Organum or Nurse With Wound. While everything Keiji Haino records is so distinctively his own, Nijiumu is the most gentle and less dogmatic of his recordings, in that it has similarities to post-industrial music, and is the most accessible of the many style he works in.