KAWABATA PAUVROS / Extrême-Onction / CD
Fractal 011

Cadence Magazine - vol.27, n° 5 - May 2001 (USA)

The visual accoutrements that serves as artwork on Makoto Kawabata and Jean-François Pauvros Extrême-Onction are just as disturbing and unnerving as the audio soundscapes they unveil in their music. Sixties era fashion shots of Asian and Caucasian women in underwear are juxtaposed with a collage of photos and a pile of naked ‘corpses’. A directive on the sleeve note suggests “This Record Must Be Played Loud”. The music (Gisant sur le Sol Rouge: Rencontre, Vertige, Dingue, Extase, Linceul/La Nuit de la Trahison/Casino des Trépassés (pour Tristan Corbière). 48:26. Recorded: 11/8/99, Paris.) is largely dominated by expansively looped drones, shimmering sound sheets, and stretches of distortion-saturated dissonance. Harmonic streaks bleed into ethereal chord fragments creating a piecemeal morass of amplified and heavily treated sounds. There are periodic snatches of odd lyric beauty (Extase) and, as ambient background noise, the melange of works well. Under close scrutiny for anything resembling a linear cohesion of ideas, however, the highly personalized sculptures seem to fall apart.
Derek Taylor

Motion Reviews - June 2001 (UK)

Heavenly music by two very dark angels performing very, very quiet guitar improvisations. Makoto Kawabata is one of the gods of Japanese psychedelia while Jean-François Pauvros is a denizen of the French underground.
The duets are not to be confused with the quietude of Taku Sugimoto, for instance, who coaxes the odd note out of his electric guitar just now and then hangs back to enjoy the silence, though there is much silence here, too. Rather they work very delicately with feedback and the bowing of strings and bringing subtle effects into play.
“This Record Must Be Played Loud”, state the liner notes. False advertising: its dark appealing ambiance is done more justice by allowing it to insinuate itself on its environment at low levels. Striking.
Stephen Fruitman

One Final Note - issue n°6 - Spring 2001 (USA)

Neither of the players in this guitar duo was familiar to me prior to receiving this disc for review, though i recognize Kawabata’s name from the roster of Japanese noise band Acid Mothers Temple. Perhaps appropriately, they play music that seems to abjure obvious influences, to be sourceless, nameless, non-idiomatic. The liner notes are cryptic as well, consisting essentially of a quote in French about universal abandonment and being sick of life. This is, i suppose, as good a key as any to the mood of this disc: it’s dark and darker still. Imagine being trapped in a room listening to Pornography by the Cure and Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music back to back on an infinite tape loop, but then suddenly having it all filtered through early Hendrix and Morton Feldman. Or something like that.
There are lots of ominous moods here - sometimes the reverb-drenched sound resembles a pipe organ, at other times the wail of banshees or the drone of power generators. Huge spectral noises, from the ethereal to the caustic, flow through the speakers. They’re fond of varying wisp-thin high sounds with arpeggios (in the manner of Taku Sugimoto), but in general they are far more focused on textures than on notes. There is feedback, manipulations of the whammy bar, and reverbed power chords aplenty. Absent are the guitar heroics of many such duos, and present are variations of pitch and timbre, even huge slabs of sound like one might find on a Fushitsusha recording.
La Nuit de la Trahison starts more quietly, and builds, as if in expectation of a climax. Of course it never arrives. Instead, we chance upon an almost private discourse - soft overtones come through, produced by one of the guitarists’ bow, amidst the same clangorous sounds we hear throughout. And Casino des Trépassés actually commences on a lyrical note - a minor chord, naturally. This closing piece reminded me heavily of the duos between Nels Cline and Thurston Moore, particularly in the use of a delay device to establish a repetition.
In the end, not much happens here and there are few new discoveries upon playback. But this one may be a good bet for fans of rock-tinged experimental guitar settings.
Jason Bivins

The Wire – n°202 - December 2000 (UK)

The Wire – n°205 - March 2001 (UK) : Extrême-Onction sees Makoto Kawabata follow Keiji Haino's footsteps into a duel with French outsider guitarist Jean-François Pauvros. Overall it's an ethereal encounter, at points so gentle that you have to pump your stereo to raise anything more than surface sighs. Its atmosphere is as intensely meditative as Haino's Nijiumu group.
David Keenan

Chronic'art : Le mag - 19/03/2001 - Website (France)

"Ecstatic guitars" L'extase est le point cummun à trois albums récents (de Thurston Moore/Lee Ranaldo/Christian Marclay ; Makoto Kawabata/Jean-François Pauvros ; Taku Sugimoto/Gunter Müller) en apparence fort différents. Alors qu'on ne cesse de valoriser l'originalité en la ramenant à une caractéristique individuelle, leur musique, comme bien d'autres aujourd'hui, opte décidement pour le dépassement du sujet. Oubli, ensevelissement, vertige. Au coeur de la question : l'improvisation. On peut dire autrement l'absence du sujet en se situant au lieu et à l'instant de sa disparition. Saisi au moment de l'Extrême-Onction (c'est le titre de l'album), on assiste à son engloutissement. Des nappes tuilées se lèchent à se confonfre en un camaïeu de gris. S'en détachent peu à peu quelques particules flottantes. La fascination devant l'élément berceur, enveloppant, animé d'un lent mouvement autonome prélude au glissement dans l'inconscience. Deux guitares pratiquement indistinctes suffisent à ce doux commerce avec le vertige et l'absence. Un sourd battement venu du tréfonds est tout ce que l'extase laisse affleurer dans le ravissement. Alors se creuse la houle du linceul jeté sur la dépouille, étreignant en ses plis la forme du vide. "Gisant sur le sol rouge" échelonne ainsi en cinq stations (Rencontre, Vertige, Dingue, Extase, Linceul) l'intime rapport de l'extase et de la mort. La musique fonctionne désormais comme un écran apte à recevoir les projections de chacun, et à les absorber en sa gaze ondulante. On y entendra des voix lointaines, des cris s'élever détachés de toute chair, de mouvants ectoplasmes. Le travail du lointain et de tous les effets qui s'en peuvent tirer forme le ressort de "La Nuit de la Trahison", une nuit très habitée de Lovecraft. Le lointain déréalise. En lui tout flotte et le fantasme prends corps de fantôme. La traversée du miroir s'effectue insensiblement sous la caresse des archets. "Et toi qui es malade de la vie, viens ici cacher ta tête et repose sur le gazon salé dans le désabonnement universel" : ces vers de Tristan Corbière, placés en exergue de l'album sont tirés du "Casino des Trépassés", dernière pièce, à lui dédiée, née d'un simple accord balayé, pris dans les rets d'un écho qui s'ensevelit en couches dans son propre volume. De Wagner à Tangerine Dream, de Fripp/Eno à Pauvros et Kawabata, c'est une même fascination reconduite pour l'extase comme passage, tunnel profond, où s'abîmer sans fin ; moment de trouble où la perte de soi est tout le sujet. La musique est peut-être le médium le mieux à même de produire ce vertige parce qu'elle est durée , croisement et partage imposé de nos temporalités.
P.-L. Renou