MASAKI BATOH: Brain Pulse; CD (2012)

Electronic, Experimental, Drone, Folk, Japanese, Japan, Psych, Masaki Batoh, Ghost; CD – Ex Used condition

Brain pulse music 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. Brain pulse music 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 Brain pulse machine 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 Brain pulse music were prayers and requiems, according to Batoh. Those words suggest a projected empathy to the victims; listening to Brain pulse music, 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.