Aihiyo

Keiji Haino, cover band singer? Yes! Around the turn of the millennium, Haino formed Aihiyo, a trio with bassist Masami Kawaguchi and drummer Ikuro Takahashi (also a member of Fushitsusha). This self-titled debut album consisted of versions of Japanese pop songs by Ichiro Araki, Naomi Sagara, Seri Ishikawa and others, alongside equally radical reinterpretations of songs by the Animals and the Zombies. The version of Ishikawa’s “Wet Sand in August,” itself a re-recording of a movie theme from the early ’70s, is almost literally stunning; Haino and crew transform its stately, beautiful melody into a nerve-scraping apocalypse, playing it at one-quartet speed through a wall of sheet-metal distortion. On the Animals song, he trades guitar for harmonica as the bassist and drummer turn a blues riff into a life-and-death struggle with the void. The album ends with a beautiful, if dirgelike version of “Between Night And Morning,” originally recorded in 1969 by an androgynous/gender-bending Japanese singer known as Peter.