Patrick Shiroishi // Forgetting is Violent LP

風物詩のメンバーとしても活動しているサックス奏者Patrick Shiroishiが、2025年10月にAmerican Dreamsからリリースしたレコードです。

実験ジャズ〜ドローン8曲を収録。

レーベルその他作品はこちら /// Click here to see more American Dreams releases available at Tobira.

----------------------

12" black vinyl. 
Comes with liner notes by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Hua Hsu.

Tracklist:

1. To protect our family names 04:56
2. Mountains that take wing 07:18
3. ...what does anyone want but to feel a little more free? 04:18
4. There is no moment in my life in which this is not happening 05:29
5. One last walk with the wind of my past 06:34
6. Prayer for a trembling body 04:00
7. To become another being there has to be some kind of death 01:36
8. Trying to get to heaven before they close the door 09:17

Text excerpt by American Dreams:

"Forgetting is Violent, Patrick Shiroishi’s latest solo LP, is his most immediate release yet, expanding the scope not just of his music but of his extramusical considerations. Where his past releases on American Dreams reckoned with racism against Japanese Americans or presented Shiroishi’s saxophone as heard in a parking garage, Forgetting is Violent considers racism as a whole, historical and ongoing, with the urgency it deserves. Here, for the first time, we hear Shiroishi joined by a supporting cast that reads like a who’s-who of heavy music: Aaron Turner (SUMAC, ISIS), Gemma Thompson (Savages), Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer), otay::onii (Elizabeth Colour Wheel), and Mat Ball (BIG|BRAVE). The constant, as ever, is Shiroishi's patient, probing musicality, marrying heaviness and lightness, acceptance and defiance, both packing a punch and welcoming new listeners into the fold. 

“I’m always interested in pushing the horn,” Shiroishi says. “You’re not gonna sound sweeter than Paul Desmond. You’re not gonna write crazier melodies and harmonies than Ornette. So I'm trying to figure out: what can I do different, while being me, and expressing what I’ve gone through?” Even though Shiroishi began writing the music on Forgetting is Violent years ago, while supporting Godspeed You! Black Emperor on tour, his honed craft is apparent on record. On his 2023 tour supporting Emma Ruth Rundle, which brought his powerful live sets to a larger audience, he built on his signature sound, using effects pedals to loop, freeze and distort notes with his saxophone. Most of all, the music comes from his lived experience and the desire to reach others with it. The effects pedals, the field recordings, the arrangements—Shiroishi says, “they're all tools to convey a message.” 

It follows, then, that Forgetting is Violent is his first album to feature guests. “I think it stems from my love for collaboration,” he says. “I’ve been a part of a lot of ensembles, a lot of different free improvised stuff. And a lot of that playing is where I gain new insight into what I can develop further in my solo practice.” Between his work as a solo artist, work with The Armed, collaborative releases, and guest appearances, Shiroishi’s discography is as dizzying as it is diverse, including work with—among countless others—Chelsea Wolfe, Algiers, Xiu Xiu, Dirty Projectors, Che Chen and claire rousay. On Forgetting is Violent, we hear coruscating guitars, layered vocal harmonies and daubs of electronics along Shiroishi’s saxophone—even his voice. Turner wields a massive guitar on the album’s first three songs. Thompson joins on guitar on “Mountains that take wing,” and Coloccia’s electronics & voice undergird “…what does anyone want but to feel a little more free?”. Whether soft or raucous, spacious or dense, Shiroishi provides the fire, his collaborators the ice. [...]"

Artist : Patrick Shiroishi

Label : American Dreams

cat no : ADR-84