The Gerogerigegege • Hell Driver

 Better if this was in a music non-recommendations collection because I advise you to not listen to this.


The Gerogerigegege's 1999 album "Hell Driver" is one of the greatest Free Improvisation albums of all time.

It's this jumbled up collection of the most depressing bits and pieces of sound all piled up together with a few field recording mixes. 


The title track "Hell Driver" is the real start and kick to this album. It's quiet, nothing like what we've seen from The Gerogerigegege's past few releases. It's one person in a dark room, presumably an attic playing the piano for 15 minutes. He records this slow, atonal, and somewhat shattered piano piece. You're in an intimate atmosphere with the guy, like you're in the same room together and the piano's only three feet away from you. The piano is out of tune, that adds to the charm of the atmosphere. Some parts of the piece cut off, especially during the end. It adds to that feeling of uncertainty and eerieness the album gives. 

Picture this. You're walking a cobblestone road and it's past midnight. The streets are empty and you see the landmarks of the small city you're walking in. In a way it's serene... but you can't help but feel that something's wrong. That of course is natural. The feeling of being alone is a terrifying thought. You try to enjoy the serenity of it all but to no avail.

Everything's out of place yet it's comforting in a way. 

That's what this part of the album is.


"Moonlight & His Loser Knife" is the highlight of the whole record. It's 35 minutes long so it takes up nearly half of the record's run-time. It begins with this catchy tune before being cut off by silence. What follows after that is this droning noise that travels through both your ears. All this was improvised with a guitar tuner. A few bits of random sound are thrown around, like the sound of metal lids crashing which catch you off guard, somewhat like a jumpscare. An audience speaks audibly in the background if you could hear closely enough. Noisy compared to "Hell Driver". The tuner is annoying in nature, but it switches it up once in a while. The frequency changing, the layering, the speed of the tuner's back and forth noise. 

It's clear that this isn't something to be listened to. No one in their right mind would sit down to this to be enjoyed. No, no. What this seemingly nonsensical noise is a window into the frontman of the group's feelings during the time of the recording of this god-forsaken record. 

This track is annoying but it's crucial to the record as a whole. 


Track number four "Pray Silently ~ Pray for Late Mr. Hiroyuki Ohkura" is a more bizarre cut than the last. 

The whole thing is panned to the left channel. Which tells me this is going to be interesting. After the mess that is "Moonlight & His Loser Knife", which chops up your brain. This track puts those remaining pieces, throws them in a blender and turns it into mush. The track begins with Japanese men being silly, just bantering and talking with each other. Then the real fun begins. An acoustic guitar being destroyed. The destruction starts with the strings. It sounds as if the strings are crying out to you, but its fate is sealed. The strings are tortured like they would do back in medieval times. After mangling the strings for six minutes, it ends with a loud cymbal crash. 

Everything from the panning to the left, to the poor guitar strings being destroyed. This one's my favourite.


"Night is Morning"

Similar to "Hell Driver", this is another piano driven track. But instead of being far away from the piano, this time you are directly inside it. You can hear the thuds of the keys being pressed, the creaks of the strings, the breathing of the pianist, everything is uncomfortably up close. It closes the whole record perfectly as to not give us not even a satisfying ending. Everything we have done to get to this point is worthless and we would all return to ground zero. 


Life is nothing to write about, yet I still find small holes in the ground that's a tad bit special.

Nothing's worth it.



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