Yoshinori Hayashi: Asylum (Lovers Rock)

Some people excel in noise. Yoshinori Hayashi specializes in making traditional House tracks blown to smithereens and then glued back together in shapes of his own choosing. The Forgetting Curve, his first record of 2016, was like a broken mirror, with jagged basslines and hypnotic drums exaggerated in shape and scope and then disappearing altogether in the blast pattern. With Asylum, Hayashi hammers away at the bigger shards until they’re ground down to a fine powder of glass and dust.

“Agent Dissolving Device” blends anxiety-inducing synths that give a sinister glow to Japanese idol group vocals layered on top. Rolling percussion carries the track along; it doesn’t benefit from a more blend-friendly remix of the sort DJ Sotofett put forward on The Forgetting Curve, but it’s also more friendly to begin with. In a manner of speaking. The flip side features more experimental, melancholy ambient tracks – frayed ends of consciousness that flicker out in “The Old Man.”