If you've ever wondered what qualifies as "out there" for a psych-prog OG who spent the last 20 years leading a band of itinerant, like-minded freaks, this album is your answer. Brain Pulse Music, on which Ghost ringleader Masaki Batoh realizes a long-held dream to control music via brain waves, offers two such compositions amidst several improvised pieces featuring traditional Japanese instruments. Recorded over two days after the March 2011 Japanese earthquake interrupted initial recording sessions, BPM is dedicated to the victims of that earthquake, with proceeds from sales benefiting the Japanese Red Cross. (And it goes without saying that, whatever my thoughts on this album, this is a generous use of Batoh's time and talents; purchase it here.)
Brain pulse music (henceforth "bpm") is made using a stereotypically goofy-looking contraption, one that features a wired headset and a readout monitor on a cart. If someone told me it was an object retrieved from Nikola Tesla's laboratory, I might believe them. (This photo indicates that Batoh might be aware of the device's humor.) Bpm was initially conceived to treat patients with "congenital abnormality of the cerebral nervous system." It is generated via a device that consists of a headpiece, goggles, and a "motherboard." Brain waves are sent via radio to the computer, which translates them into wave pulses and then into sound.
Batoh had a bpm machine created for this project, which transformed from an experimental endeavor to a therapeutic one in the wake of the earthquake. The seven tracks on BPM were prayers and requiems, according to Batoh. Those words suggest a projected empathy to the victims; listening to BPM, though, it seems just as likely that the album was a vehicle through which Batoh and his collaborators coped with the devastation around them. Certainly it's difficult to imagine the discordant reeds of "Kumano Codex 1" or the morphing digital crevasses of "Aiki No Okami" being of much use to the injured or grieving, but I can absolutely imagine that long, meditative pieces here were salves for their creators.
The execution here, though, is too far divorced from the concept. Bpm is an esoteric, potent tool but it's utilized only twice here. "Eye Tracking Test" is the result of a woman "playing" the bpm as Batoh flashes images before her. It sounds like early computer music, like something off the OHM+ box set: a tone poem whose technology defies meaningful composition. The second bpm piece, "Aiki No Okami", is fizzy dementia, industrial hiss mingling with strangled chants. Both tracks indicate the bpm is a valid noisemaker; whether it can be used for more substantive projects is unclear.
The remainder of BPM is a series of slow, sparse improvisations that Batoh and his collaborators concocted with traditional Japanese instruments. These are more conceivably "prayers," and their tempos draw focus onto the types of sounds we usually associate with traditional, acoustic Eastern music: thin metals rubbing together, barely tuned drum skins, and the echo of light, hollow woods. The restraint shown during a track like "Kumano Codex 3"-- eight minutes of wispy flute and drum patter-- is admirable. "Kumano Codex 5" sounds like a wind chime on a still day.
These "Kumano" tracks are pretty and somber; no doubt Batoh's veteran hand steered them. They're an odd fit, though, tonally and technically with the bpm tracks. BPM feels slapdash, no doubt a product of its rushed creation. As a benefit for earthquake victims and as an outlet for Batoh's grief and fear, there's plenty to recommend. As a pure sonic experience, it is a very novel, very undeveloped idea mingling with some very old ones.
