What we wrote at the time…

A stalwart of the Japanese underground scene who has operated boldly at both ends of the spectrum, Akiyama has worked with the Onkyo minimalists Taku Sugimoto and Otomo Yoshihide, but also earned his rock chops in collaboration with Keiji Haino and on solo damaged blues riff cuts.

An interestingly contradictory talent, he’s equally at home producing slow, halting and sombrely unfolding acoustic improvisation that can be haunting, raw, and quite beautiful; or piercing minimal examinations of electric guitar with buzzing, micro-tonal shards of sound built up with the use of small resonators and metallic plucking. He’s also recently released an LP of electric blues hooks relentlessly repeated and distorted, like Henry Flynt caught in a groove of John Lee Hooker riffs. It’s an approach full of contradiction, and all the more intoxicating and seriously hypnotic for it. This is his first ever performance in Scotland.