If you haven't heard any of the Haino hurdy-gurdy releases, listening to at least one is essential. Haino provokes an eerie semi-mechanical, semi-acoustic drone from the instrument. The natural sound of the instrument in Haino's hands leans toward the abrasive side. Abandon All Words at a Stroke... is as mellow as I think Haino could get on the hurdy-gurdy, i.e. it is mellowly abrasive. The vocals are soft and contemplative, absent of Haino's howls and shrieks that distinguish many of his other recordings. All together, the single track CD has a gentle and affectionate feel to it. The drones are not so long or uniform that the listener can tune it out. On the contrary, the drones are constantly being manipulated by the speed and continuity with which Haino turns the crank of the instrument. If you haven't heard any of the Haino hurdy gurdy CDs, this is a good place to start.

This second disc also reads as a single-track, but it contains roughly a dozen distinct "songs". All feature Haino on "wave drum" and voice. This is Haino's first official release featuring wave drum. I don't know precisely what manner of electronic percussion the wave drum is but only in some of the tracks do you hear its "wavy-ness". By this I mean, you hear variations in pitch during the duration of the drum resonance, along the lines of a tabla. On the other tracks, widely different electronic sounds are generated by this instrument. The vocals are much harsher and choppier compared to disc one, with shrieks and barks here and there. This disc tends toward the sparse, in my opinion.

Keiji Haino's two disc Abandon All Words at a Stroke so that Prayer Can Come Spilling Out is one of Haino's masterpieces, at least in the more ambient and less psychedelic mode of his art. The first disc contains a 47-minute soothing piece for hurdy-gurdy and treated voice titled "Whereto Can I Cast Away This Fragrant Echo Called The End..." (reminiscent of Tony Conrad's pieces for violin). On the other hand, the 44-minute "I Have Decided To Tear You To Pieces" for wave drum is an industrial collage of metallic noises, distortions and ghostly voices.