delivery health: superdeluxe!

For more than a decade, Giovanni Di Domenico, Jim O'Rourke, and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto have been coming together in various combinations -- duos, trios, and larger ensembles -- slowly becoming one of the most noteworthy, understated collaborations in the landscape of experimental sound. In 2015, the trio recorded a brilliant LP entitled Delivery Health ‎for Silent Water, laying the groundwork for an enduring project that adopted that album's title as its name, debuting properly in 2017 with the stunner Hard Off. Over the years since, Di Domenico, O'Rourke, and Yamamoto have played together in Bonjintan, their project with Akira Sakata, and in further collaborations with Eiko Ishibashi and Joe Talia, not to mention O'Rourke and Di Domenico's prolific work as a duo. A bit more than five years on from Hard Off, Delivery Health finally return with SuperDeluxe!, a stunning new double-LP on Holidays Records. Comprising roughly four years of early activity from the trio that rests at a fascinating juncture of electroacoustic composition, free improvisation, and noise, it's easily among the most engaging and intoxicating efforts yet from one of the most dynamic bands working today. Like its predecessors, SuperDeluxe! rides a beautiful line between striking singular creative ambition and accomplishment, and simply feeling like a free-wheeling conversation between friends who have relinquished their egos and presumptions out of a deep sense of mutual respect. Ironically, as forward thinking as it feels, the album is a kind of retrospective rewind, comprising five live documents recorded, of course, at the legendary SuperDeluxe! in Tokyo between 2012 and 2014 across its four sides. Taking you deep into the very beginnings and previously unheard activities (at least for those who were there on these nights) of Di Domenico, O'Rourke, and Yamamoto, the trio weaves a knotted tapestry unfurling as sheets of sound, that sidesteps signifiers and the expectations that one might have of each of these artists on their own. Ranging from brisling ambient passages drawing on latent melodic flirtations, heavy jams on guitar, drums, electronics, and keyboards, and outright, full throttle noise, each moment represents a visionary excursion into the depths of experimental, improvised sound, revealing a shocking sense of real-time dexterity from each player, as much as the collective whole experiments in improvised sound. SuperDeluxe! is an immersion into the joys of music making, collaboration, and ultimately listening. Contemporary improvised music at its absolute best. Insert with Japanese text on colored paper; obi; edition of 300.