To Start With, Let’s Remove The Colour

This album’s cover is gray instead of the usual black, which gives a slight hint as to its tone. Haino is in a quiet, melancholy mood here, playing detuned but not distorted electric guitar in a fumble-fingered style that’s part jazz, part postpunk, and singing softly, almost as if you’re overhearing him. His voice is frequently pushed through a cloud of reverb that makes him sound like a ghost, and pieces sometimes end earlier than you think they will, as if he’s just given up halfway through, or lost his train of thought (the title track lasts only two minutes). On the other hand, there’s “How Did You Know? Mistaken,” which is a half hour long. This is the closest he’s ever come to making a Jandek album.