Prolific American-Japanese sax player Patrick Shiroishi goes back to his brutal prog and metal roots on his solo album «井上 – Inoue» and catalogs 60 saxophone exercises, the shortest one is only seven seconds long and the longest one clocks at 29 seconds. Shiroishi says that this album offers a listening experience that is «equally punishing and rewarding». Like-minded Lebanese trumpeter did recently a similar project on «Sampler/Sampled» (Morphine, 2022), in which its first part cataloged the unique sounds and extended techniques that Kerbaj developed for the instrument in the past 25 years.

Shiroishi recorded these exercises during the Covid-19 «plague years», 2020 and 2021. The first 30 exercises, titled the «Thirty Verses of Inoue», the A-side of a cassette (plus download option), features pieces composed strictly with Shiroishi playing the alto sax with programmed drum accompaniment. The last 30 exercises, titled «Thirty Eulogies of Inoue», all on the B side of the cassette, expand the sonic palette with additional metal and wood sound sources. The album was mastered by drummer Weasel Walter, who shares a similar interest in free jazz and metal music.

This intense experience stresses Shiroishi’s powerful and highly rhythmic conception of free jazz sax. He blows the sax as if it was a machine gun tied to the horn that produces uncompromising, compact and nervous time bubbles, clearly paying respects to the seminal fiery heavyweights like Albert Ayler or Peter Brötzmann. The programmed drums sound as quoting metal drummers who hit drum sets with double bass drums. The last exercises offer slightly more open sonic events, still super intense with a punkish in-your-face approach but noisier and more chaotic.

Captivating in its own strange way.

Eyal Hareuveni

Patrick Shiroishi (as, dr.prog)