GARBAAAGE is the duo of Japanese experimental percussionist Naoto Yamagishi, who describes himself as searching for music before its word and concept were formally defined, and Finnish, Helsinki-based, prolific avant-guitarist and electronics musician Lauri Hyvärinen, who uses the electric guitar as a sound generator. Yamagishi and Hyvärinen have been collaborating frequently in the last decade as a duo and as a trio with Colombian cellist Sergio Castrillónm or with the Usva reio with Finnish reed player Jone Takamäki.
GARBAAAGE’s debut album was recorded live at Hošek Contemporary gallery in Berlin in April 2023. The album – a limited edition of fifty cassettes plus a download option – offers extended, free improvised, sound-oriented pieces (divided into two pieces, both last 18’47’’).
Yamagishi’s acoustic, tactile, friction-based, and highly resonating percussion blends with and into Hyvärinen’s spiky and noisy electric guitar sounds. This duo offers a restless, disorienting, and uncompromising drone-like texture that constantly juggles between instinct and structure, density and silence.
Live at Hošek sounds like a primal and mysterious ritual that has the power to exorcise some earthly demons. The deep-toned percussive vibrations and the wave-like guitar lines cast some repetitive, noisy chants, as Yamagishi and Hyvärinen deepen their journey into the dark abyss of sound.
Eyal Hareuveni
Lauri Hyvärinen (electric guitar), Naoto Yamagishi (percussion)
