HELDON - Antelast LP

"Richard Pinhas’ latest offering is essential. His continual exploration of interior landscapes seem to have caused them to expand to enormous proportions, as if relentlessly probing such terrain only succeeds in making it more cavernous. It’s always edge-of-the-seat surprises as to what we’ll find illuminated within their darkness. And it sounds cool as fuck.

Pinhas has been threatening for years now that each new release might be his final outing (the working title for 2017’s Reverse was ‘@ Last’) and the implication here with Antelast is no different. There is only one further release planned, another collaboration with Merzbow. But at 70 years-old, the guitarist is still at the top of his game. Few artists conjure up the fortitude involved in facing such inner struggles.

Each of the five tracks on Antelast are simply given a number, which makes sense. There’s so much going on that summing them up with any sort of title would be an impossible task. ‘AnteLast One’ is the longest track on the record, clocking in at fouteen minutes and twenty seconds, whilst remaining a juggernaut every step of the way. The sounds are impressive. At six minutes in, an out-of-nowhere guitar part could easily be mistaken for trapped human screams emanating from a great depth. Florian Tatard’s bass from just before the eight minute mark is almost funk. Almost. It’s too captured-beast-frantically-attacking-the-walls-of-its-cage to anchor anybody on the dancefloor. But of course drummer Arthur Narcy is laying it down. And into the twelfth minute Pinhas lets forth some pinpoint laser volleys of kaleidoscopic light, just to add further tangential dimensions to the chaotic swirl." - The Quietus