purpose of the concordance
There are two purposes in assembling this document.
The first purpose is to provide a guide to listeners, new and old, of Haino's music.
At the time of this writing, there are almost 200 recordings containing some contribution from Haino.
Due to the Japanese titles and Haino's predilection for black covers,
the only way for English speakers to distinguish some releases from others is through catalog number.
The purpose of this document is to provide some distinction between the releases,
pointing out unique characteristics and indicating stylistic and artistic evolutionary relationships
between releases.
The second purpose of this document is as an excuse to listen to 200 albums again, some of which haven't been
touched in a decade or more.
organization of the concordance
This document is organized according to the author's whim. The classification of
ensembles into named groups, free improvisation, other collaborations and guest
appearances is wholly debatable. Pay no attention to this organization other than as a guide
to help the reader easily locate the record or area of interest. Within a given category, the recordings are discussed in the chronological order of
their release date, rather than the chronological order of their recording date.
scope of the concordance
This document intends to cover as completely as possible the officially,
legitimately released musical recordings of Haino. The listing is only
complete to the best of the author's knowledge. There are likely omissions
from the Haino discography due to the author's ignorance of them.
This document does not attempt in any sense to provide a complete commentary on bootleg recordings,
as their are thousands of them.
In some cases, there may be a dispute in the legitimacy of the release,
in which case it is likely included all the same.
other sources
This document represents one person's interpretations of Haino's music.
There are a variety of other sources for fairly extensive reviews of Haino's body of work.
A few of these sources are listed below.
- Arcane Candy by Garry Davis.
Garry Davis has assembled one of the most extensive sets of reviews of Haino albums and live performances.
Most of the reviews are written by Garry. This is an invaluable resource for a set of opinions
that are generally more reliable and factual than the ones contained in this document.
- The Reviews Page at An Unofficial Keiji Haino Website by various.
Since 1995, An Unofficial Keiji Haino Website has been an information site for Haino's music,
generally free of the ridiculous comments contained in the reviews of this document.
There is one page where reviews can be posted by anyone in the world.
This is a good resource to get a diversity of opinions.
- Forced Exposure by various.
Before the dawn of the internet, Forced Exposure was the key portal through
which music of Haino and many other experimental musicians made its way into the record stores
and hands of private individuals.
With the advent of the internet, Forced Exposure's website has grown and is now a reservoir of reviews for each release they have in stock.
Although many of the descriptions are promotional blurbs intended to sell the product,
they also serve fairly well to accurately describe the music on the disc.
You can do a keyword search for Haino.
You can also do a keyword search on Alan Cummings,
which will land you more than one hundred short reviews
from his hand, including many that involve Haino. Alan's knowledge of Japanese independent music is much broader than my own and his reviews, therefore,
are better able to place each disc within its proper context.