Catastrophe Point #5 is the latest in Nagoya-based artist Kuwayama Kiyoharu’s signature series of compositions that explore the charged, mysterious atmosphere of disused industrial sites. Once inspired by a space − in this case an abandoned warehouse by a pier in Nagoya, Japan − Lethe searches for objects in situ and uses them to perform a ritual of sonic alchemy, or resurrection. He brings a dead space back to life, gives it a voice, and allows it to speak. Metal chains, sheet metal, rocks, and factory debris are bowed, struck, and dragged across the concrete floors of the massive hall, reverberating and responding as Kuwayama and his microphones scuttle across the desolate terrain. Over the course of the album, the music stealthily shifts from oceanic ambient haze to volatile, ominous malevolence.

Kiyoharu Kuwayama began working with sound in the late 1980s, using half-scale violin, cello, and found junk objects in the group Minotaure. In 1999, he and violinist Rina Kijima formed the improvisational acoustic duo Kuwayama-Kijima to bring their instruments outdoors and perform in environments with unique acoustic properties, notably underneath a highway overpass and in a construction site. Between 1999 and 2003, Kuwayama organized the five-day-long Lethe.Voice.Festival in an unused grain warehouse.
Lethe is Kuwayama’s solo project, with the Catastrophe Point series being his primary concern. Each piece is the series is inspired by intensely resonant locations: abandoned warehouses, Shinto temples, grain silos, and underground shelters. His work is full of the empty rattle of deserted industrial space, with carefully constructed scrape and clang of objects found at each location.
Lethe was last heard from on Intransitive with Tsurumai, his stellar collaborative CD with Dutch noise legends Kapotte Muziek. He has also appeared on albums with bassist Matt Heyner (Malkuth, Cold Bleak Heat, No-Neck Blues Band), Jonathan Coleclough, Hidekai Shimada (Agencement), Carter Thornton (Enos Slaughter, Izititiz), Kiyoshi Mizutani, Urabe Masayoshi, and Campbell Kneale (Birchville Cat Motel).


Review


Lethe / Catastrophe Point #5 �
Lethe is Kuwayama Kiyharu and his instrument is an abandoned grain warehouse. Within this space, he makes noise. He does this by dragging large, heavy objects across the dirty, irregular floor, by hurling other objects against walls, battering sheets of metal, banging wood, etc. Some eight minutes into the first track, a relatively tonal, deep drone is sounded, only to fade, but giving a glimmer of resonance. This tends to be the modus operandi: the sounds of agitated, industrial detritus eventually underpinned, in somewhat mournful fashion, by strings, horns or other "real" instruments, as though gazing with melancholy on catastrophic activity.
It's a compelling mix, in some ways reminiscent of the music of Olivia Block who also has buttressed field recordings with oddly traditional, chordal sounds. Lethe's space, however, is both cavernous and claustrophobic, not bucolic. When the brass enters the second of the two pieces, amidst the clanking of chains and breaking glass, the effect is anything but pastoral much more anguished. One imagines some massive, endless, Beckettian performance of La Monte Young's "Poem for Tables, Chairs and Benches" with additional anarchic behavior thrown in for good measure. A strong, dark effort, well worth hearing.
- Brian Olewnick 2010-06-23

Lethe / Catastrophe Point #5
Review : Jean-Claude Gevrey / scala tympani
L’auscultation des espaces sonores est indubitablement au coeur de la pratique de l’artiste japonais Lethe. De´passant le strict point de vue environnementaliste, il s’inclut lui-me^me dans les atmosphe`res industrielles qu’il expose et, a` la manie`re d’un danseur de buto^, va sobrement puiser l’e´clat enfoui au plus profond de l’obscurite´.
Empruntant son pseudonyme a` la mythologie grecque, Kiyoharu Kuwayama semble en effet ope´rer a` la frontie`re des mondes, ceux du passe´ et du pre´sent, ressuscitant des espaces abandonne´s et transfigurant les vestiges d’une e`re industrielle qui s’en trouve largement re´invente´e. Pourtant la musique de Lethe ne saurait e^tre aussi paisible que le cours du fleuve des Enfers et la me´moire d’une vie ante´rieure est ici loin d’e^tre comple`tement efface´e. Bien au contraire, un rituel occulte la convoque, la fait renai^tre de la poussie`re, l’extirpe des murs pour la transformer en une pre´sence sonore particulie`rement sombre et suggestive. Le the´a^tre re´sonnant de cette ce´re´monie est un entrepo^t de´saffecte´ du port de Nagoya. Pas n’importe lequel : le nume´ro 20, un lieu que Kuwayama connai^t bien pour y avoir organise´ un festival de musique expe´rimentale de 1999 a` 2003. C’est d’ailleurs juste apre`s sa dernie`re e´dition qu’a e´te´ enregistre´e la matie`re premie`re de ce disque. Errant parmi les de´combres, Lethe marche avec lenteur sur le sol granuleux, se frotte au be´ton, marte`le les surfaces me´talliques, re´anime des machines de´vore´es par la rouille et en capte les moindres e´chos. Grincements lugubres, ruminations du vent s’engouffrant dans les fissures, humidite´ palpable dessinent un paysage tout en volumes dans lequel Lethe, abandonnant souvent sa distance d’observateur, intervient discre`tement en raclant des chai^nes, projetant des tasseaux ou soufflant dans ce que l’on croit e^tre une immense trompe, e´voquant autant l’activite´ portuaire environnante que les instruments invente´s par Yoshi Wada.