Patrick Shiroishi, will release his new solo album Forgetting Is Violent, will arrive on September 19 via American Dreams. The saxophonist known for his involvement in The Armed, remote ambient-jazz quartet Fuubutsushi, experimental classical ensemble Wild Up, and a sprawling discography of collaborative work with Chelsea Wolfe, Algiers, Xiu Xiu, Dirty Projectors, Che Chen, Claire Rousay, and many more. Shiroishi’s solo work largely reckons with racism against Japanese Americans. For his fourth solo album proper, Forgetting is Violent, Shiroishi considers racism as a whole, historical and ongoing, with the urgency it deserves.

“There is no moment in my life in which this is not happening,” which features Haining, China-raised, Berlin-based artist and vocalist otay::onii. Both a quiet confrontation and a moving memorial, the song, like the album, explores how systemic oppression persists across time, and how silence, erasure, and the ignoring of painful histories around injustices allow them to perpetuate today.

Forgetting Is Violent is Shiroishi’s first album to feature guests. Across the work, he’s 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). “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.”

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.”

Forgetting is Violent meditates on racism and colonialism from history to the present day. “Stemming back to my ancestors, and the stolen land that we live on—there’s just so much of this racism that is so alive and well, and so apparent, and continues to be apparent in our country and around the world,” Shiroishi says. “Something that cannot be forgotten.”

“That act of sharing and bringing it up, even though it’s difficult,” Shiroishi says, “it makes us feel like we’re not alone. And I think that’s important, especially in a time where it’s just so fucking grim, that we can support each other and be together, that there is hope in the future….” As time passes and genocide looms, Shiroishi’s music—insistent, liquid, organic—is but one source of hope.

Patrick Shiroishi
Forgetting Is Violent
American Dreams

01 “To protect our family names” (feat. Aaron Turner)
02 “Mountains that take wing” (feat. Gemma Thompson, Aaron Turner)
03 “…what does anyone want but to feel a little more free?” (feat. Aaron Turner, Faith Coloccia)
04 “There is no moment in my life in which this is not happening” (feat. otay::onii)
05 “One last walk with the wind of my past”
06 “Prayer for a trembling body”
07 “To become another being there has to be some kind of death”
08 “Trying to get to heaven before they close the door” (feat. Mat Ball)

pre-order Forgetting Is Violent by Patrick Shiroishi HERE