[ aquarius records — Japan Noise Free Psych ]

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Showing results 601 through 650 of 1109.

Originally released in an edition of 88 on Japan's cassette-only G.R.O.S.S. label in 1994. Loop Circuit is a collaboration between Akifumi Nakajima (better known as sound artist Aube) and Dub Murashita (?). Limited to 222 copies, on vinyl only...

This one hardly needs a review. Space rockers Bardo Pond, jamming with Japanese psych-rockers LSD-March! Two discs, looooooooong songs, plenty of sprawling druggy psychedelia, throbbing serpentine basslines, busy groovy drumming, and lots and lots and lots of guitars, buzzing and whirring, grinding and roaring, wailing and howling. Culled from two stoned, late-night recording sessions on days off from the 2006 Bardo Pond / LSD-March / Masami Kawaguchi's New Rock Syndicate East Coast tour, these tracks were edited together by Bardo Pond-er Michael Gibbons with no overdubs, just a document of epic, swirling, lurching, grooving spaced out psych rock. Incredible recording, super clear, almost studio quality, multiple drummers, multiple guitar players, the sound is loud, and intense, sometimes blissing out into laid back stretches of near ambient tranquility, but always building back up into howling squalls of freaked out psychrock nirvana. The first disc is the more jammy of the two, more loose and improvised sounding, even the opening track fades in with the track already in full swing, like they had already been jamming for a while before we even got to the part. The second disc introduces flute, and some electronics, and begins with a looped lick, over some skittery drumming, and some serious grinding growling low end, it goes on for ages, and we never really wanted it to stop. It does eventually, which is okay as the band has already moved on, locking into some new looped rhythm, the guitars fiery arcs of sound, that low end continuing to grind and buzz, the multiple guitars and guitar parts careening wildly over a roiling backdrop of howling moaning distorted buzz. The second track on disc two is almost entirely ambient, sounding more like Toho Sara or something, the guitars smeared and blurred, everything buzzy and rumbling, clouds of tinkling shimmer and random percussive clatter, hand drums, glitchy electronics, streaks of feedback, thick swaths of distorted abstract riffing, culminating in a soaring blown out multiple guitar-ed Ur-drone. The disc finishes off with a 20 minute scorcher that goes from furious psych skree meltdown, to stumbling abstract freeform flutter and back, the players locked in a battle to the death, full freakout, ultra-noise mode, vocals scrambling over a dogpile of grinding electronics, a sea of shrieking feedback, an avalanche of drum chaos, and about a ton of blown out guitar damage. Phew. Every time we play this in the store, someone buys one, or someone comes out from the back to see what the heck is playing. This might just be one of the most played discs in the store recently. And rightfully so. As always, aRCHIVE spares no expense on the packaging, but they may have outdone themselves this time. A thick textured black ink on cream cardstock gatefold sleeve, the words LSD and POND embossed and printed in reflective silver ink, inside an 8 page black and white booklet affixed to the sleeve, with live photos and liner notes, each disc in it's own black sleeve, printed in silver ink, Japanese characters, the two discs held together by a Japanese style obi, in the same style as the cover. WOW. LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES. A one time pressing, so don't miss out�

MPEG stream: We Are LSDPOND (2nd Version)
MPEG stream: Sugatanaki Kyofu

Japanese heavy psych guitar exploders LSD-march performing live in a book store?? What happened to shhhhh, quiet please, people are reading? Well actually this DVD document of LSD-march live at Philadelphia's Big Jar books is actually a triptych of solo sets from each of LSD-march's three members, so they are relatively quiet (as compared to the usual full-band blow-out volume dealing). Filmed whilst on a brief US tour last fall, the softer side of each individual in the band is revealed. Drummer Ikuro Takahashi gets the most avant-garde, with an odd apparatus of oscillators giving off experimental drones... while both guitarists Shinsuke Michishita and Masami Kawaguchi do sets of gentle vocal/guitar folkiness, a la the calm in the storm often heard in LSD-march sets. Totally personal, and perfect for this intimate setting. Some use of video effects adds to the psychedelic atmosphere. And of course aRCHIVE has packaged this 550-copy limited edition (natch) dvd handsomely in a hand silkscreened folder with some very cool artwork commissioned for this release.

Fans of the "Tokyo flashback" scene, time to turn out the lights (or put on your shades), and curl up in the fetal position to slowly rock back and forth as you enjoy the latest from downer psych outfit LSD-march. This lovely new studio album is slow and sad, its depressive drowsiness expressed via gentle guitar strum, a background flutter of electronic theremin waves, whistling in the dark, fragile harmonica wheeze, somnolent harmonium drone, and Shinsuke Michishita's weary vocals... Definitely inspired by Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, as well as the likes of The Jacks and Les Rallies Denudes out of the Japanese dark-psych past, LSD-march conjure a "constellation of tragedy" indeed, quite effective emotionally even though English speakers won't understand the lyrics. Those of you who primarily listen to this stuff for the primal heavy duty psychedelic guitar slow-burn gunk, don't worry, your needs haven't been neglected either. You get a dose of that void-crawling, amped-up drone-a-delic action when the plodding track four, "Moeru Pyramid" hits the scene! One of their overall best, and best-recorded for sure (no live-in-a-trash-can bootleg sounds, though we like those too).

MPEG stream: Kimi Wa Tengoku
MPEG stream: Moeru Pyramid

Last time we listed a limited edition cd by Japan's LSD-march from the Archive label, we sold out of it in about, oh, two seconds. That was the Live cd that came our way (and went) last month. Well here we go again -- but this time we were able to score more copies than before. So we figure our stock of Empty Rubious Red will last, say, four to five seconds. Why are y'all so grabby with the LSD-march? Is it because of the cool packaging with which Archive always takes great pains? Is it because there's only 500 pressed? Maybe... but of course it's also 'cause if you love heavy duty distorto guitar psych in the vein of cult '70s Japanese heroes Les Rallizes Denudes. And you do get that here on the dronily intense, trippy title track, in spades. But for much of the rest of the album you also get the kinder, gentler side of LSD-march, with Shinsuke Michishita handling vocals and guitar and bass and percussion and whistling (yes, there's some whistling!) all by himself, joined by drummer Ikuro Takahashi on just two of the tracks. It's quite intimate, really, maybe even romantic -- these are love songs, aren't they? The lyrics are in Japanese but the titles "I Have Been Saving My Love For You" and "I Only Have Hands For Hold You" (sic) sure sound like love songs. Dunno about "Nude And Bizarre" though. A gorgeous late night listen, echoey and emotional. Spacious, slow, drowsy. Melancholic, melodic. Compared to the destructive, amped-up attack of that Live album, the beautiful balladry here is like night and day... a mistily overcast day with rays of sun glinting between the clouds. Nice packaging and graphics as usual (a clear plastic insert overlays the cd, which rests on a nub affixed to a card printed with curls of dark hair similar to the Live cd, if you ever saw one). Mastered by Khanate's James Plotkin, also as per usual with Archive releases. Ok, 'nuff said. Recommended!

MPEG stream: Nude And Bizarre
MPEG stream: Empty Rubious Red

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SORRY. What sounds like a live LP from this Japanese guitar-psych combo, whose recent Suddenly, Like Flames cd we gave the thumbs up to not long ago. If you liked that one and have a turntable, you'll probably want this. It's more dark, distorto bar rock balladry from these black clad Les Rallizes Denudes worshippers, for fans of that band, as well as similiar Japanese downer-retro outfits like White Heaven, Overhang Party, and Shizuka. Assuredly limited too.

We could go on and on about how this is some awesome, super blown out and distorted Rallizes-like Japanese psych here but let's mention the important stuff first: this nicely-packaged live disc is limited to 500 copies, and is already sold out at the label and thus out of print! So the few copies we have now are the last ones we're gonna see. Maybe Archive (same folks who've brought us equally precious live documents by the likes of Boris, Khanate, Growing, and Keiji Haino, some of which went so fast we never even listed 'em) ought to up their press runs? If you've never heard LSD-march before, we'd direct you to investigate their not-so-limited album Suddenly, Like Flames -- if only so as to leave more of these Live discs for all the fans who're sure to be elbowing each other aside to grab one of these. But to fulfill our descriptive duties, we'll go on... Bookended by two different versions of "Black Bouquet" done by different lineups, this disc captures performances that were distorted to begin with, but whose clangor is only enhanced by the "recorded-in-a-concrete-garbage-can" atmosphere. And that's PERFECT for them, making this sound even more like of of those rare Les Rallizes Denudes boots... so we're not complaining at all! Lotsa flaming wreckage of wailing guitar, feedback and murk. Headnodding, driving beats. Slowing down for stretches of gentle balladry before kicking in again with the jams and cranking the VU meter...well actually their "VU" (as in Velvet Underground) meter is always cranked, isn't it? Five of the eight tracks here were recorded in 2002 by guitarist/vocalist Shinsuke Michishita, bassist Masami Kawaguchi, and drummer Ikuro Takahashi (ex-Fushitsusha). The other three date from 1997 and thus feature an earlier LSD-march lineup with Shinsuke Michishita joined by Makoto Inoue on bass, and Eddie and Bill from the band COA on guitar and drums!

MPEG stream: Physical Bud
MPEG stream: Clepsydra Flames

It's Japan's LSD-march at their heavy psych droney mostest, this time just the duo of guitarist Shinsuke Michishita and drummer Ikuro Takahashi, laying down two discs worth of Tokyo flashback style murk and grime...well especially on Disc 1, which is entirely one long song, the title track. It's a slow-building densely textured piece, a 39 minute slithering dark psychedelic guitar solo set amidst thick waves of distortion effects and cymbal washes... perfectly paced and hypnotically foreboding. Gradually the pulse quickens, vocals murmer o'er the miasmic throb, and the living ghost of Les Rallizes Denudes nods approvingly... this piece's payoff being its own mesmeric momentum. When the end does come, after an appreciable increase in volume and noise from the disc's beginning, you can imagine amps falling over, toppling like the monolith in 2001. Boris fans should approve of this metallic rumble. Disc 2 features eight individual pieces, and offers a mediative comedown from disc one's climactic intensity (at first), track one "Aubade" being composed of tingling bells. "Elephant" is next, and is a weird one, a pattering of drums accompanying atonal string scrape that maybe suggests an elephantine trumpeting sound? The disc continues in an equally weird and diverse manner, all the tracks much more intimate and oddly experimental in sound than the more usual LSD-march issue electric storm of disc 1. It's more-or-less acoustic up to track 5, "Love", which stomps on some pedals for a distorted electric (distorted vocals too) dubby noise rock stumble. And then track six enters into some sort of ritual drone ceremony or something... all of this is pretty cool, LSD-march letting their hair down and doing something completely different from track to track, like we said in an experimental spirit, culminating in track 8, "Holy Ghost", a festive freakout for harmonica and scattered percussion. Perhaps their tribute to Albert Ayler, to hazard a guess. It's like these two discs, one a long-form, heavy-duty improv, the other a potpourri of creative freaky ideas, are the intended out-there companions to their recent, much more tightly song-based album Constellation Of Tragedy on Important, a recent AQ highlight. Nikutai No Tubomi comes as equally recommended! Oh, and lest we forget, this is a NUMBERED, LIMITED EDITION OF 500 COPIES!!! And comes in a fancy, thick gatefold package.

MPEG stream: Nikutai No Tubomi (excerpt)
MPEG stream: Stone
MPEG stream: Love

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SORRY. The second vinyl-only release we've had from Tokyo's LSD-march, whose LP Kanashimino Bishouen on HP Cycle and cd Suddenly, Like Flames on Last Visible Dog were both devastating dark psych-out outings in the tradition of Les Rallizes Denudes. This one, handsomely presented in hand-screened cover in a limited edition (of course), hews to their murky brand of psychedelic blackness, while leaning perhaps towards the gentler side of said blackness... Fans will recognize three of the six tracks here as being reinterpretations of cuts from the Suddenly, Like Flames cd. Again the line-up features guitarist/vocalist Shinsuke Michishita joined by drummer Ikuro Takahashi and guitarist (not bassist, this time) Masami Kawaguchi. We've only got a few...

The Last Visible Dog label, who specialize in some of our favorite genres (improv drones, Finnish weirdness, Japanese free-psych, NZ noise) sadly seems to be winding things down, but we did just arrange to restock a whole bunch of their stuff to sell at a "nice price" (thanks Chris!), including a few old aQ faves that we got enough of to relist, though these are the very last copies we're gonna have, ever... Here's what we said the first time we encountered these Japanese fuzz mongers back in 2004: Downer murk and amp-flaming distorto rock from a young Japanese psychedelic rock trio in the wasted, wigged-out tradition of many on those PSF label Tokyo Flashback comps, also harking further back of course to underground '70s lo-fi legends Les Rallizes Denudes! LSD-march, named for a track on the first, heaviest album by krautrockers Guru Guru, slowly whisper and wander through a veil of feedback and plodding rhythms. There's both gentle and searing stuff to be found here. These guys are more serious, mysterious and melancholy than Acid Mothers Temple, with a definite Velvets vibe at times. And when the guitars get cranked, this sounds like the Neil Youngiest of Nagisa Ni Te freakouts. With liner notes (and stamp of approval) from Japanese translator/psych expert Alan Cummings.

MPEG stream: A Bud Of Flesh
MPEG stream: Suddenly, Like Flames

Here's another fantastic transmission from the Black Snowflake Sound studio in Sapporo, Japan, sent out by these prolific psych peddlers! The duo of Michishita Shinsuke on vocals/guitar and Takahashi Ikuro (ex-Fushitusha) on drums have crafted what sounds to us like sort of a cross between two of their recent releases, Constellation Of Tragedy on Important (the gentle, twilight ballads) and Uretakumo Nakunarutorika on Beta-Lactam (freaky, experimental WTF?). Of course, with more than a few flashes of the heavy Les Rallizes Denudes-style amped-up throb and grit we all love included as well. Starting off all slow sad and soft, this disc would be a good LSD-march for Nagisa Ni Te fans as well as those into Rallizes. Moody melody abounds. "Bisyonure No Kimi" is lovely and languid, but also blanketed with shivering guitar feedback and distortion, clouding over Michishita's gentle vocals. Meanwhile Takahashi's drumming is also an crucial contributor to the mood. His deliberate, echoing clank and plink of rhythms on "Ai No Sakebi" are especially effective, in unsettling combination with the piercing Quicksilvery lead guitar unleashed by Michishita. At about halfway through the disc, LSD-march kicks the volume up a few notches for the lumbering, distorto-rocker "Dare Ga Hoeru". But then the very next track, "Taiyoko No Uta" is so weird and glitchy it could be by Starfuckers or US Maple - it's a good example of the abstract, experimental side of LSD-march to which we referred above, like something from Uretakumo Nakunarutorika. They do channel the Rallizes once more, though, on the disc's final and longest named track, "Kimi No Uta Wo Kiite Boku Wa Akuma Ni Natta" (7:17) a slow burner which eventually erupts into muzzy heaviness, mustering quite a bit of drama in the manner of Up-Tight or Shizuka. That's the last song, sort of, but the disc ain't over. And just gets stranger. There's two unlisted, untitled bonus tracks yet to come, including an 8 minute cut stringing together botched takes of a song called "My Mother's Killed Me" (?), featuring all their flubs and false starts, including talkback from the increasingly frustrated (and British?) sound engineer. At one point, they have to stop 'cause someone's cell phone goes off and ruins the take. Whoops. But eventually, by the end, they get the song on tape in its entirety, and it's a nice garagey groover. We're really into the fact that they included all the screw-ups. We love stuff like that. And halfway think that's how they wanted it to sound, based on some of their other strange ideas... There's another, similar bonus track that's only 18 seconds though. More WTF? for you. Basically, Under Milk Wood manages to incorporate everything we already loved about LSD-march, plus some other confusional stuff we didn't even know they were into that's also rad. And everyone here seems to be digging it, even if they weren't already huge LSD-march fans. The band's best yet? Maybe, certainly a good one to get!!

MPEG stream: Bisyonure No Kimi
MPEG stream: Ai No Sakebi
MPEG stream: Kimi No Uta Wo Kiite Boku Wa Akuma Ni Natta

Lest we forget, it bears repeating that LSD-march is named after the final song on side two of the first album, UFO, by heavy krautrock legends Guru Guru back in 1970. That the modern day Japanese band chose such a moniker implies taking on not just a certain influence, but something to live up to. Are they worthy? Well, we think LSD-march have already proved pretty deserving of their name. But if there was ever any doubt, this new album ought to settle the question. It's seeeeeeeeeeeeriously trippy. I mean, wow, man. Honorary krautrock magna cum laude! And surprisingly, that's -without- really sounding like the usual LSD-march fare. The sunglasses-at-night-Les-Rallizes-style-distorted-guitar-blowout side of LSD-march isn't exactly in evidence. The mellow, melodic VU-ish balladry for which they are also known is not to be found here, either, this doesn't have the slow and sad vibe of LSD-march's previous studio outing Constellation Of Tragedy. This is a different beast, far freakier really! There IS guitar on here, of course, but the focus isn't on riffs, but rather primitive rhythmics, built in part from tape loops and tape edits. These tracks are shambolic, stripped down, not really song-like, much more confusional and counterintuitive than we'd have expected, except that we were prepared for this by the odd, interesting material on the eclectic, experimental 2nd disc belonging to LSD-march's earlier Beta-Lactam opus, Nikutai No Tubomi. It's as if a lot of other, heavier LSD-march stuff is what they do when they're in public, playing a "rock show", all amped up and emo, but this is more like what goes on at home, at the LSD-march Temple down the block from that of the Acid Mothers, unwinding, getting high, and fooling around with some weird DIY psych that's more playful than it's dark, more delightfully demented than downer depressive. The freakiness is in full effect right off the bat. Track one, "Kumoitachikumo", has a skittering beat wending throughout, hippie hand percussion intercut with distorted abstract noises and weird chanted Reynolsian vocals. We could imagine a cool 12" techno/disco edit of this, actually. Like something Eye from Boredoms would remix. We're also reminded a bit of the recent AQ Record Of The Week from Finland's Fricara Pacchu. And it just gets curiouser and curiouser... a few tracks later, "Aimakuramaku" sounds like a jam session for drum kit + chirping crickets. Maybe it is? The carefully channeled cosmic chaos and lo-fi psych ritual found on Uretakumo Nakunarutorika could be Ya Ho Wa 13 and Amon Duul inspired, the cut-up weirdness perhaps a nod to early Faust. And there's parts that are even sorta Sun City Girlsish, like track five, "Uzunisase", utilizing a looping lick of exotic Eastern-sounding psych guitar, that halfway through gets mutilated and mangled by some abrupt tape edits. And actually they do slip on the shades to delve into some eerie dronology a few times too... The strange sounds here really manage to invoke a lot of AQ-approved musicks, from the aforementioned krautrockers, to (most definitely, and dear to our hearts) the '90s underground Japanoise outsiderness of the Boredoms and Omoide Hatoba, to peeps from the freakfolk Finnish scene like Anaksimandros and Avarus. In fact, if you told us that LSD-march had moved to Finland and recorded this deep in the woods there, we'd believe it. Now that's a recommendation!! We know that's not the case, though recommended this is, as it was recorded at someplace called Black Snowflake, by a sound engineer named Richard Horner (which doesn't sound Finnish, or Japanese for that matter, does it?), who also happens to be credited with some voice and electronics, alongside the two usual LSD-march band members, founder Michishita Shinsuke ("vocal, guitar, bass, electronics" it says) and drummer Takahashi Ikuro, ex-Fushitsusha (here, credited with "vocal, instruments"). Also worth mentioning, is the swank packaging, a thick, colorful oversized glossy cardstock sleeve, like a miniature LP jacket. First 500 limited copies only, anyway.

MPEG stream: Kumoitachikumo
MPEG stream: Uzunisase
MPEG stream: Tatamikomo

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

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SORRY. Frequent Otomo Yoshihide collaborator (Filament, I.S.O., Ground Zero) presents her first solo album, taking her lone instrument, the "100% Free Memory Sampler" to the outer limits of blistering sine wave manipulation. With these mere sine waves she produces a lot of variety - from tracks of piercing test tone torture to more serene, sparse blip-scapes. Impressive.

This may just be our new favorite record (though, it's not that new -- we've had 'em here for months but they sorta slipped thru the cracks, review-wise, until now). Which is not at all what we were expecting. Not even remotely. The first solo release from ex-Acid Mothers Temple axeman and Acid Mothers Temple soul collective member Magic Aum Gigi, MMMM is not just another AMT related psych rock freakout. As much as we do dig almost everything AMT release, we are definitely filled to overflowing with their endless barrage of tripped out psychedelic rock. So it was with some trepidation that we prepared to review yet -another- Acid Mothers Temple related release, the 30th or 40th in the last year maybe. But HO-LEE SHIT! This record completely blew our minds. When we cracked this open, a big triangular insert fell out, printed on it was a circle with the words "Raga Metal" inside, and on each corner were the words "drone", "trip" and "music." And damn if that ain't exactly what this is. DRONE TRIP MUSIC. Or RAGA METAL. Both only begin to describe the blissy heaviness and abstract beauty of this disc. Gorgeous, fuzzy Tim Hecker sort of blurry guitars, doused in tons of distortion and reverb, until the riffs are just indistinct blurs, almost like listening to My Bloody Valentine through a transistor radio under your pillow, all murky and muddy but still gloriously melodic and epic. But beyond that, the riffs and thick swirls of sound constantly drop out, glitching into brief crackling silences before stuttering back into motion, like it was recorded on some old, super degrade tape, or as if the needle keeps slipping off the vinyl or some dizzying combination of both. Like an even more lo-fi, metallicized William Basinski, or a blissed out dronier Faxed Head. It ends up being as much about the music as it does about the strange distortions and mysterious drop outs. Like some EVP transmission from beyond, rendered in fuzz guitars and looped murky rhythms. A super distorted slab of metallic dreammusic drenched in hiss and buzz and recorded onto a thrift store cassette with using a toy tape recorder with dying batteries. So goddamn beautiful. And we only have a few, and only will ever have these few, as it's on the out of print wagon now.

We proudly proclaimed Magic Aum Gigi's last lp, the mind blowing MMMM, to be our new favorite record when we reviewed it a while back, a dense blast of "raga metal" that pushed ALL our buttons. So we were super psyched when we heard there was a brand new lp, which is way different, but just as cool. Magic Aum Gigi is a Frenchman, and honorary member of the Acid Mothers Temple extended soul collective, but the music he makes on his own is well removed from the blown out psych of the AMT mothership. You won't find any raga metal here, instead, four extended tracks, each created with a single instrument or sound. From the Ash Ra homage on the cover, we knew we were in for something hypnotic and tripped out. The opener is worth the price of admission alone, the first half of side one is solo Jew's harp, heavily affected and processed, the twang and buzz looped into an epic expanse of Reichian rhythmic pulses, rife with all sorts of strange and subtle variations and sonic overtones, some so percussive it ends up sounding like some alien robotic transmission. Fans of Daniel Higgs' Jew's harp record will go nuts. And any one into dense looped drones will be in heaven. We could listen to just that track forever. The second track, and the rest of the first side is a mumbled soundscape assembled from just voices, a background glottal buzz, an undercurrent of rapid syllabic sibilance, all blurred and looped until the voices just sound like haunting tones, deftly arranged into slow shifting rhythms and sweeping moody arrangements. Cool. The flip side begins with a piece for just synthesizer, and is a crazy tangled chunk of chaotic sound, like a squiggly spaceship harpsichord gone haywire, garbled melodies, synth buzz, all atonal and slippery, dizzying and confusional, a bit like some stately Medieval court music, brought to the future and played by malfunctioning computers. Finally the record finishes off with a piece for just guitar, a gorgeous muted percussive drift, the notes all attack and very little decay, an ultra pizzicato assemblage of melodies, pulses and thumps, delayed and reverbed and woven into tranced out krautrocklike rhythms. So awesome. ULTRA LIMITED! Only 200 copies!!

We recognize that probably only people who've been looking for these five cds ever since they were first released in limited and expensive form in Japan almost ten years ago are likely to want to pay nearly $120 for this box set reissue, and they already know In 1993, Japanese label Mom & Dad promised to release fifteen discs chronicling the unreleased studio recordings of Tokyo psych legend Magical Power Mako, but were only able to produce the first five. Israel-based MIO has decided to take on the project and will release three box sets containing five discs each. The material that makes up Hapmoniym 1972-1975 was recorded while Mako was working on his second masterpiece for Polydor, "Super Record". Often compared to krautrock pioneers Faust, this collecton is an incredible assemblage of sound experiments, collage pieces, tape manipulations and astral folk-psychedelia so epic and so out, one might be so bold to state that Hapmoniym as a whole even surpasses the density and innovation of the mighty Faust Tapes. And he was only a wee sixteen years old on the earliest of these recordings! Andee is especially fond of disc two, the part where it sounds like Jimi Hendrix jamming with a meowing cat. Keiji Haino fans take note as he appears on disc one, on possibly his most spaced out psychedelic trip ever. We await the remaining two 5-disc volumes with curiousity and excitement (and, patience). We do, however, have to scold MIO for a slight problem with the packaging: the 5 discs are in slim cd5 cases inside a little red cardboard box, with a booklet as well. It looks handsome, but each disc has its own unnecessary obi that doesn't really fit anywhere in the package once opened, but that of course you can't throw away, either, if you're like us. Oh well. We also could have done with more English language text in the booklet, it's mostly the original Japanese liner notes.

RealAudio clip: One

Mako is truly one of the most masterful musical minds behind some of the best psychedelic sounds that came out of Japan in the '70s, a relatively unsung hero of that scene. While his project Magical Power Mako certainly produced other records that are noisier, weirder, more abstract and fucked up, there is no doubt that the 1975 album Super Record is his absolute tour de force! An album that left many of us stunned upon our first encounter with it. It's one of those records that exemplifies what you really want in a psychedelic record, filled with a wide range of textures and mystical sounds from across the globe that take you on a journey and make you forget where you are. Super Record melts into an unforgettable washed out pastoral setting as it glides and floats through different terrain of dripping colors and hallucinatory smoke. Like the best psychedelic albums of this era, Super Record is an absolute start to finish experience, with different interludes laced with lute, harmonica, melodica, charged fuzzed out guitar all in a ceremonial tone which creates a mood and vibe that would be at home in a film by Jodorowsky or Antonioni. Think of some mind melting combination of Ash Ra Temple, Bo Hansson, early '70s Pink Floyd, Jean-Claude Vannier, and a dash of The Incredible String Band and you start to get a picture of the kind of musical magic that is happening on Super Record. We also get the feeling that some of our favorite modern day psych music makers like The Alps, Blues Control, and Dungen have all been influenced by the brilliance of this album as well. Super and magical!

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San Francisco's Yik Yak label is kindly trying to assure that nobody misses out on any goodness from Japan's Maher Shalal Hash Baz, hence this re-release of Maher's Faux Depart album, recorded at Olympia's Dub Narcotic studio in 2003 with members of Deerhoof sitting in. And fitting in, too, that's for sure! The wonderfully naive psych weirdness of Maher Shalal Hash Baz is well displayed here, with 22 great examples of their mix of woozy, gone-wrong cocktail jazz and soft lullaby indie-pop, the band's instrumentalists coloring outside the lines, their "paints" blurring like watercolors spilled across a canvas but still making such a pretty picture, the kind you'd be proud of if your child brought it home from school to brighten your day. If you missed this before... you know the drill. Note: ep price, full-length cd!

MPEG stream: A Will
MPEG stream: Lightning #2

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY. From the Glasgow label run by the Pastels comes the first widely-available collection of music by long-running cult Japanese folk-psych duo Maher Shalal Hash Baz. With 27 shambolic tracks, widely ranging in style, recalling everything from '80s/'90s lo-fi indie-pop like, well, the Pastels, to '60s Japanese psych a la The Jacks to the mellowest, folkiest Albert Ayler freedom jazz jams! Should appeal equally to fans of Belle & Sebastian, {k} Records, and Ghost/PSF stuff. Lovely and fragile, seemingly innocent yet seemingly ancient. Stephen of the Pastels, who loves Maher Shalal Hash Baz so much that he started the Geographic label _specifically_ to release this collection, says: "When you consider how rare it is that you actually hear something that is startlingly different from other music in any given year, or even in a decade (I just tried and could only think of Aphex Twin, a couple of hip-hop productions, and the lyrics of Belle & Sebastian and Silver Jews) it feels such a privilege to be working with people you consider to be actual visionaries." (And terrorists, too, if the stories in Stephen's larger article are to be believed. Let us know if you want to see it!)

The willfully naive charm of Japanese cult pop act Maher Shalal Hash Baz is hard to capture in words. You kinda have to experience it. And even then you might not 'get it'. But if you do, you've got a new favorite band. Here's a nice chance to have that "experience" -- a cd ep featuring an entire live Maher Shalal Hash Baz performance from 2003, five tracks, a little over 26 minutes in length. And playing live -- raw and spontaneous -- is the MSHB modus operandi. Mournful horns and innocent vocals, no overdubs, it's the MSHB experience all right. After over 20 years in the biz, band leader Tori Kudo is still all about recruiting totally untrained musicians into the MSHB ranks, allowing their barely-rehearsed playing to teeter-totter wonderfully, tilting somehow inevitably towards fragile beauty though it seems like a musical mess should result. You'll hear 'em taking chances on this disc, and much emotion is revealed, much loveliness as well, from a woozy, droning, plinking instrumental called "Asahana" to the jazzy melancholia of "Gratitude"... Short but oh so sweet.

MPEG stream: Asahana
MPEG stream: When I Die

After the lengthy collection (Geographic's From A Summer To Another Summer) that introduced this Japanese band to Western audiences, here's a fifteen-minute quick listen from Tori Kudo's project Maher Shalal Hash Baz. Kudo wields recorder, sweetly-picked guitar and directs various "water"-y sounds made on percussive toys etc. Sing-song vocals, gentle clarinet, warm cello, purposeful organ all are used for maximum sweetly shambolic naive pop. This is released on Stephen Pastels' label, and the Pastels are an apt comparison in terms of sharing melodic styles and a stripped down, lo-fi indiepop aesthetic. Eccentric, playful, sweetly childlike. If you liked their From A Summer collection, this will please you too, and if you've never heard them before, this is a lower-priced way to do so.

RealAudio clip: Good Morning

The wonderful, willfully naive Japanese indie-pop psychedelic ensemble Maher Shalal Hash Baz takes the first half of this split cd with a live performance recorded in Scotland. Honking sax, wayward vocals, sad-sack percussion, helpless guitar, plinking piano, and even skipping rope make it into the mix. Somehow, it's gorgeous, in a melancholy off-kilter way that few bands could pull off. Following Maher Shalal Hash Baz's seventeen tracks there's ten more by San Francisco outfit The Curtains, who likewise manage to make a virtue out of simplicity and spontaneity, their technical abilities (or lack thereof) never hampering their expressiveness. A good pairing indeed. The Curtains are noisier and more 'plugged-in' than MSHB, with electronic keyboard sounds forming some of their most striking moments. With both bands, what's improvised and what's not is hard to suss out, but experiencing the results can be quite pleasant either way if you don't demand much precision from your 'pop'. To us, these 27 tracks are a pleasant jumble worth experiencing.

MPEG stream: Medicine For Melancholia
MPEG stream: Bummer With Cakes

The "Psychedelic Solid Free Attack Group" from Tokyo return on the legendary Psychedelic Speed Freaks label with five scorching new tracks. Mainliner this time around are bassist/vocalist Nanjo (High Rise, Toho Sara, etc. etc.), guitarist Kawabata (Acid

RealAudio clip: Static

CLEAR VINYL! Limited release!! Back in '97, when this utterly distorted slab of Japanese psychrock was originally released on compact disc, we were perhaps a little bit more succinct in our reviews than we are now, saying simply in two sentences:� Nanjo, Kawabata and Yoshida return, with another blast of High Rise-style psychedelic riffery. Turn it up past, like, "2", and give your stereo speakers a few final thrilling moments before they fry. Still true! Perhaps, for those just tuning in, we should add that Asahito Nanjo is the bassist from legendary PSF-label psychedelic speed freaks High Rise, Makoto Kawabata is of course the hairy bearded "motor psycho" guitarist from the beloved Acid Mothers Temple, and Tatsuya Yoshida is the eight-armed drummer from Magmoid prog duo Ruins, just to mention the primary crucial underground Tokyo acts these cats have been involved in. Mainliner Sonic was the trio's 3rd album, give or take a cd-r or cassette or two, if we've got the chronology correct. And it's just one of two Mainliner efforts with Yoshida on the drums, a lineup that happened to be identical to that of another, more spazzed out band, Musica Transonic.� At a little more than a half hour in length, these five tracks represent a typical in-the-red session of Mainliner's more Les Rallizes Denudes than thou loud garage psych improv groove mayhem. Really, you've heard of "fuzz monsters"? This is, like, fully 94 percent fuzz, almost like a blast of Merzbowian noise, with some crashing drums and raucous riffing and squiggly soloing buried beneath. Totally trance inducing. All the noisiest garagiest bands today PLAYING AT THE SAME TIME might not be able to top this. For fans of Acid Eater for sure!!! The cd version has been out of print for years (though we hear rumors of a reissue on a Chinese label...) so it's even awesomer to have this vinyl edition on new label Assommer (run by one of the guys from the LA psych band OGOD, currently on tour in the USA with Acid Mothers Temple).

MPEG stream: Tsukisasaru
MPEG stream: Mainliner Sonic II

At last, a reissue of the debut album from Japanese heavy psych trio Mainliner. It came out on Charnel Music in '96, but has been out of print for a long while now and with its unavailability has grown in stature. Of course, it's a great record, the one that Acid Mothers Temple were trying to emulate on their recent "Electric Heavyland" set. And yep, it does feature AMT's Kawabata Makoto on 'motorpsycho' guitar, along with free jazzer Hajime Koizumi on drums and bassist Nanjo Asahito of the legendary High Rise. Mainliner always was just a slight variant on the High Rise template (themselves a variant on the Les Rallizes Denudes template it seems), formed originally by Nanjo 'cause his High Rise bandmates were averse to touring and he wanted to take his rock on the road, or so the story goes. Anyway, this disc was Mainliner's first and best, all players outdoing themselves in the realms of psychedelic heavy garage improv distortion overload. So, if you missed it the first time around, now's your chance to experience this classic. It's nice to have it back in just 'cause now we're listening to it again and we'd forgotten how great it is. Rock! MPEG Download: "Black Sky" [/audio/mainlinerblack.mp3]

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The new cd from Japanese psychedelic power trio MAINLINER is actually a reissue of their previously vinyl-only Psychedelic Polyhedron LP from back in '97, which was MAINLINER's second album, though a lot of folks never saw it. At last it's now on cd for all you MAINLINER fans who missed out on that long-gone import vinyl. Huh? No, I'm not shouting at you. It's just that putting MAINLINER in all-caps seems like a fitting way to indicate how loud and distorted and blown-out and in-the-red these guys are. But you know that already. Alongside bassist Asahito Nanjo's other band High Rise these guys are the kings of Japanese garage acid fuzz speedfreak heavy psych, pretty much. Though, actually, on this record, the original two side-long cuts, "Show The Cloven Hoof" and "Cardinal Virtues", were slightly less bludgeoning than usual Mainliner fare, being dark, meandering improvs closer to another of Nanjo's projects, Ohkami No Jikan, than to the pedal-to-the-metal rock insanity of, say, Mainliner's perversely titled debut Mellow Out. But compared to almost anything else they're certainly over-the-top. And this compact disc reish includes a bonus third track also from '97, a riffier ten-minute rocker called "Solid Static" if somehow you need an adrenaline kick after those first two 20 minute tracks. In case you're curious, the line-up for this particular Mainliner album is the same as yet another of Nanjo's bands, Musica Transonic, the trio consisting of Nanjo with guitarist Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple) and drummer Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins)!

MPEG stream: Solid Static

In some Spinal Tapped version of mythology, the gods of rock and roll, of noise, of distortion, of turning amps up to 11 and melting faces, having once said "let there be rock!", recently must have looked down in dismay from the heavens (where they dwell in castles made of ROCK, which float on puffy clouds generated by fog machines) upon their creation and found something in today's music scene sorely lacking. Where was the primal motorpsycho fuzz feedback rock freakery they originally had commanded? Not nearly enough of it about (and heck, even too much would never be enough). So, they summoned their loyal servitor, The Bearded One, Kawabata Makoto. As lead guitarist/guru of trippy Japanese jammers Acid Mothers Temple, Kawabata has always been a devout worshipper, doing the bidding of the gods with many, many Acid Mothers shows and releases month in and month out. But now he was called upon to do something more - to resurrect the mighty MAINLINER, power trio to end all power trios, and teach a lesson in transcendental distorto-delic mayhem to all mankind. And, lo, faithful Kawabata has not failed in this holy task! Thus, Mainliner is back, with Revelation Space. It's been over a dozen years since the last proper Mainliner release, 2001's Imaginative Plain cd on PSF, and even longer since Mainliner made their debut with the unbeatable classic Mellow Out. The lineup has changed - in fact it's important to note that this is specifically billed as Kawabata Makoto's Mainliner, 'cause originally he was just the young hotshot guitarist in the band, which was in fact founded by bassist/vocalist Nanjo Asahito of the legendary High Rise, as an almost doppelganger version of that trio so Nanjo could go out on tour when High Rise couldn't. But now, for whatever reason, Nanjo's no longer participating in the band, presumably having given Kawabata his blessing to carry on with the name and mission. Kawabe Taigen, from new wave Japanese psych band Bo Ningen, has been chosen to replace him; and in addition to holding down the rumbling bottom end, he manages to emulate Nanjo's droning otherworldy croon quite capably. They've had several different drummers on various releases (including Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins); the drummer here, Koji Shimura, is from AMT, has played in High Rise and many other "Tokyo Flashback" acts, and appears on several previous Mainliner releases including Imaginative Plain. Thankfully, as it turns out, the "new" Mainliner is just as over-the-top and in-the-red as the old Mainliner ever was, maybe more!! They took this seriously - it's not just yet another freaky Kawabata album (as good as they always are), nope. The opening title track drops the listener in at the deep end and then some, immediately unleashing insane blown out crumble and stutter, the guitar sounding like it's being run through an effects box labeled both Brainbombs AND Faxed Head, but then when it's wed to simple motorik drumming, and hazy, soft focus vox, the combination is strangely beautiful. Beautiful, too, the blurts of feedback shriek, the echo-drenched squalls, the chaotic drum splatter. Really, it's less about the songs, and more about the sound. If stripped of the insanely distorted guitars, this iteration of Mainliner would be a whole different, less beastly beast. And sure, white noise psych guitar freakouts were always a (big) part of Mainliner, but the sounds here seem so much more extreme, the guitarnoise utterly relentless, the whole record wreathed in a crackly field of malfunctioning guitar / damaged amp buzz skree, almost like something Editions Mego would put out, that caustic and corrosive. But still, let's talk about the songs. The two-minute blast of "D.D.D" is like Aufgehoben doing a Stooges cover, playing through mile high Marshall stacks, and plugged into a daisy chain of dead battery stomp boxes, this time the maniacal vocals matching Kawabata's wild noise-shred with some seriously acrobatic, near falsetto wailing. Even the 'prettier' songs, like "Taitan", find Kawabata wrapping the tribal rhythms and swoonsome shimmer in wild tangled ribbons of strangled, distorto shred and stuttering, glitched out axe frenzy, so the prettiness is not just buried, but obliterated, or so it seems, until that guitarnoise is momentarily peeled back, eventually revealing the hushed mesmer still lurking just beneath the surface. "The Dispossessed" (found on the cd only) could be some classic proto-metal groover, with its busy drumming and woozy, bluesy groove, but there, the guitars seem to explode from within, a grinding blast of Hendrixian shreddery fused to Butthole Surfers style psychedelic freakery, again balanced by some truly haunting, ethereal vox. And then there's the final track "New Sun", a 20+ minute epic, that begins with a gnarled churn of super distorted riffage, wrapped around an almost 'funky drummer' beat, those drifting spectral vocals hovering over the top, the band locked into a weird warped groove, a lurching metallic blues stomp, that about 4 minutes in slows down to a dirgey crawl, around the same time the guitars explode into some seriously heart of the sun super nova style fretboard freakery! And when they return to the main riff, the guitar is somehow even more distorted and blown out, and they cycle through the song proper one more time, before finishing off with 8 minutes of utter in-the-red cosmic guitar god freakout, with Kawabata flying high, his axe spitting sparks, the drums and bass buried beneath an avalanche of some of the freakiest, fantastically fucked up, psychedelic leads ever, building to a finale that cranks the drums to a frantic gallop, the bass thrumming fiercely, all within a swirling sonic cloud of Kawabata's amp destroying, soul searing psych-drone shred. Whew!! The gods must be pleased. Any Mainliner fan will be too. But this is NOT just for Kawabata/AMT/Mainliner fanboys, excited though those folks should be. Nope, 'cause there's at least one aQ staffer who realized after hearing this that they NEEDED, but didn't have, all the previous Mainliner albums. You might too, and this would certainly make a good place to begin your lifetime of worship. Not sure what the future holds for Kawabata Makoto's Mainliner, 'cause Kawabe Taigen's Bo Ningen band is based in London, where they seem to be making a name for themselves, collaborating with the Savages and such (we'll try to track down some imports by the way). But even if this is all we get out of this trio for another 12 years, it will suffice - it just might take that long for our ears to recover!! As some of you mighty recall, the vinyl version of this was originally meant to be a Record Store Day release this year - they didn't get it pressed in time, so it was bumped back, but it's still hella limited - 500 copies for the world, either white or swamp green vinyl, released on what we're gonna call Mainliner Day. We've got about a dozen left and that's gonna be it. The good news is, though, that the compact disc version, which isn't quite so limited, contains a 9 and a half minute bonus track, the aforementioned "The Dispossessed". Other differences: the vinyl sleeve is black with gold print, while the cd comes in a white miniature lp-style sleeve likewise with gold print. And graphically, both kind of look a lot like Mellow Out, doubtless quite intentionally.

MPEG stream: Revelation Space
MPEG stream: Taitan
MPEG stream: New Sun

Protometalheads, psychfreaks, Japanophiles - listen up. Imagine, what if Janis Joplin sang for Black Sabbath? And further imagine, what if both Janis and Sabbath were in fact Japanese? Well, you almost don't have to imagine. 'Cause Carmen Maki and Blues Creation's album together has just been reissued, on both cd and vinyl! It dates from the magic year of 1971, originally released 'round about the same time as Blues Creation's all-time proto-metal classic Demon & Eleven Children, which we've gone on and on about before, one of the heaviest albums of the era, from a band who were basically the Japanese answer to Black Sabbath. And Japan had some heavy bands back then, like Flower Travellin' Band, Flied Egg, Ranmadou, and Speed Glue & Shinki. But of all those, the most Sabbathy one was probably Blues Creation (though of course FTB comes close, having actually covered the song "Black Sabbath" on their debut). The lovely Carmen Maki, for her part, was already a popular Japanese singer, definitely of the Janis Joplin blues belting school. Though she's also been likened to Grace Slick, and even to a female Robert Plant. Made sense for her to team up with this particular shit-hot blues rock outfit, both live and on this record. Bands back then tended to do a lot of covers, but instead of being obvious and covering a Janis Joplin song, the opening track here is a bit more obscure, though it might sound somehow familiar anyway, it's a version of "Understand" by a lady often compared to Janis, Lydia Miller of the American band Fantasy. They do a few other standards on this album, "Motherless Child" and "St. James Infirmary", but all the other tracks were written by Blues Creation guitarist Kazuo Takeda. And to be clear, this record isn't nearly so heavy as Demon & Eleven Children, not all the time, a lot of it's in fact fairly mellow, and all of it is, naturally, quite bluesy. But, even when they're not in the midst of a rollicking full-tilt Mean Old Boogie, the gentler "soft rock" stuff is pretty nice; and each track usually builds into a fine frenzy of wild wailing blues licks and distorted riffery. Those solo sections are really when the Blues Creation guys get to let loose, though Cream is probably the much bigger influence here that Sabbath. Maki later fronted a band called Oz (no not the Swedish '80s metallers), who were pretty heavy too, and proggy; we'd love it if that stuff got reissued too someday...

MPEG stream: Understand
MPEG stream: Lord, I Can't Be Going No More
MPEG stream: Motherless Child

That *Acid Mothers Temple Alert!* *Acid Mothers Temple Alert!* *Acid Mothers Temple Alert!* emergency warning alarm has been going off pretty much continually here at Aquarius over the past couple weeks, driving us all batty. We thought it must be broken or something but no, there's just been THREE more releases from those hairy Japanese hippies known as AMT plus another Kawabata collaboration (w/ Daevid Allen of Gong). So let's assess the threat. Makoto Mango is a pseudonym for Kawabata Makoto for this release, entitled Guru & Zero. He's joined by Psycho de Lick (Daevid Allen) and Mango Cottongo (guess who). Together they recorded this disc, one single 48 minute trip, I mean track, that's full of "organic loopage", "bio illogical yodelling" and "glissando guitar". Hallucinatory drone, whispered vocals, heavenly guitar tones, sci-fi effects, spoken psychedelic sermonizing... these guys aren't known for their restraint, but they do manage to maintain a nicely tripped-out mood for the duration. A bigger success than Gong's Acid Motherhood album, from the standpoint of someone who digs Kawabata's mellower journeys. Note: y'know that picture of Kawabata on the toilet that graced the back cover of that disc? Well on the inside of this cd's booklet they take that unfortunate idea and run with it...

MPEG stream: Kawabata Biodynamique (excerpt 1)
MPEG stream: Kawabata Biodynamique (excerpt 2)

Even if it didn't say Kawabata Makoto on the cover, or if you didn't know that Kawabata is the guitar player in Japan's Acid Mothers Temple, you might guess that this was somehow Acid Mothers Temple related, just from the cover graphics. Naked hippy chick in yoga pose, check. Flying saucer, check. Comic book style voice balloon, check. (She's saying, "AHAAAAAAA... UMMMMMM", which could be alternate, onomatopoeic titles for this disc's two tracks, actually.) And knowing that, you have an idea what this is all about. It's one of Kawabata's most blissed out, droned out efforts. Actually, it's hard to imagine something as physical as a guitar being involved in its making. Kawabata seems to be playing some more ethereal instrument, a simple shimmering cloud of cosmic sound that already existed at the dawn of days, long before anything as mundane as a guitar was ever invented. The transcendent, translucent 46 minute "She Came From The Shining Sea", followed by the shorter (17 minute) and even quieter "Kiss On The Dream Planet", seem more like mental projections, delicate dream drones direct from Kawabata's inner space practice space. It's certainly difficult to believe that he's actually, you know, touching anything to make this music. In reality, these two tracks were recorded at the actual Acid Mothers Temple (Kawabata's flat in Tokyo, we assume, or better yet a commune filled with those naked hippy chicks) in January and March of 2006... Kick back, close your eyes, and enjoy. LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.

MPEG stream: She Came From The Shining Sea
MPEG stream: Kiss On The Dream Planet

A collaboration between Mike Patton (Mr. Bungle, Faith No More, Fantomas) and Masami Akita (Merzbow). This is actually quite listenable, considering their combined propensity for annoyance. Playful and downright giddy Noise!

Another impressive release on Aaron Turner's post Hydra Head label Sige, this one a three way live tag team between Turner's House Of Low Culture, Mamiffer and Japanese noise legend Merzbow. Spread out over three sides (the fourth is an etching), this live show displays a surprising amount of restraint, considering the multitude of cooks in the kitchen, and considering one of those cooks is the iron chef Masami Akita. The first side is all Mamiffer, aka Faith Coloccia, with gorgeous bit of dark, droney, cinematic chamber music, what sounds at first like solo piano, until you realize the piano is suspended in a field of glimmery soft focus buzz, atop deep rumbling swells, peppered with distant industrial creaks and groans, the piano occasionally giving way to long shimmering metallic tones, or thick dark blackened swirls, but always settling back in that haunting elegiac piano driven drift. Mamiffer's side finishes off with a final eruption of grinding blackened churn, a psychedelic soft noise squall, that while still laced with melody, is still seriously ferocious. The second side finds House Of Low Culture teaming up with Merzbow, which on the face of it has the makings of something seriously noisy, but instead, the two created a lush expanse of hushed dronemusic, delicate and haunting, all ominous low tones, and warm washed out thrum, streaked occasionally with feedback, and shards of skree, the sound grows more and more dense, still lovely, but with a sort of blackened cast, dreamily funereal, with mysterious vocals drifting in the softly roiling sonic shadows. A brief crescendo leads directly into another stretch of dark shimmer, peppered with bit crashing gongs, and thick crumbling black buzz sells, it's not until the last minute or two, that things get downright Merzbowian. The final (playable) side, features all three, a Mamiffer / HOLC / Merzbow collab, and is easily the noisiest of the bunch, a constantly shifting sprawl of undulating low end, blasts of hissy white noise, heaving slabs of crumble and crunch, corrosive and caustic for sure, but still textural and atmospheric, and strangely melodic. By HOLC / Mamiffer standards things definitely get pretty fiery and fierce, but by Merzbow standards, the sound is still relatively tranquil. A pretty fantastic chunk of spaced out abstract noise drone for sure. LIMITED TO 330 COPIES, each one hand numbered, housed in super swank, black on black Aaron Turner designed matte jackets, with printed inner sleeves, pressed on clear vinyl, music on three sides, a cool etching on the fourth.

Yoshida from Ruins and Mani from Guru Guru!

We previously heard from San Diego indie rural-psychsters Maquiladora on the Acid Mothers Temple n' friends 3cd compilation Do Whatever You Want a while back. Now here's a Japanese import cd featuring them jamming with the Acid Mothers Temple's number one guru, guitarist Kawabata Makoto (and also ex-AMTer Cotton Casino). Over these two discs is sprawlingly spread a lot of lovely, drifting, droning, gentle, largely instrumental cosmic bliss with a slight desert-sunset, country-psych feel (hints of Maquiladora's rootsy roots come through with some plantive home-on-the-range harmonica that appears alongside the less rustic instrumentation of analog synth, glissando guitar, Hammond organ, piano, vibraphone, etc.). Maybe it's due to Makoto's usual magic, but this is surely good enough that now we'll definitely have to check out Maquiladora's own couple of previous records! Real nice, mellow, moody.

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MPEG stream: UFO Goozu

English speakers may prefer to refer to this group simply as Circle Triangle Square (for their name is actually just those shapes, with no words English or Japanese). Yup, Tokyo's Captain Trip label has really dug up a weird obscurity here for fans of out-there Liner notes (in English as well as Japanese) by leader Sakuro "Kant" Watanabe explain that his group travelled around Japan with tents and sleeping bags doing street performances in costumes and make-up. Meanwhile, along with releasing LPs, Watanabe also privately published underground magazines and played drums in another group called, in English, Social Ostracism. Other Maru Sankaku Shikaku members included a young Reck (later of Friction and Optical*8) and a fellow who also played the starring role in a local production of Hair! It was apparently a very radical scene going on, in which these folks played a part. Watanabe speaks of his artistic efforts as being "tools for trips" and you'll believe it, particularily in light of this passage of free-association in his liner notes: "Time, avant-garde, rock n' roll, vagabond, inhaling paint thinner, journey, beat, nihilism, underground, blues, hippie, Kohenji, genius, LSD, Shinjuku, yippie, painkiller, death, shoplifting, long hair, revolution, insanity, Kyoto, grass, hitchhiking, sex, commune, psychedelic, hashish, Zen, Asobi (playing or game), Satori (spiritual enlightenment), make-up, solitude, loneliness, anti-establishment, idiot, cool, rock festival, trip, Guru -- they were neighbors, part of us, and enemies sometimes." These discs convey the vibe of a quiet, mysterious ritual, one which can build into a sudden frenzy, however. Seemingly random sounds coalesce into rhythm and structure. Vocals, sometimes quite wild, and percussion are the basis for their music, which appears to be entirely freeform and improvised, full of electronic blurts, whistles, bells, clapping, wah wah guitar stabs, plus many and various unidentifiable noises. There's even hints of a very primitive '70s Miles Davis/Sun Ra thing in this stew of sounds, but it's way out, way abstract, and certainly not jazzy or funky. It's either avant garde genius or babbling directionless indulgence, depending on how much into their mindset you can get. And, it's very important to mention: there's SO MUCH beautiful cracky surface noise from the LPs (no digital clean-up here!) that it almost sounds like Maru Sankaku Shikaku is jamming with Philip Jeck! While perhaps not an intentional part of their music, it really adds to it, making this seem more ancient and secret and hidden and droney. Spiritual/artistic ancestors of the Sun City Girls, the No Neck Blues Band, Thuja, Hochenkeit, AMT, Boredoms, etc. Thus, definitely not for everybody!

RealAudio clip: disc one, track 2
RealAudio clip: disc two, track 2

Koji Marutani, who also runs the Digital Narcis label, sets down meditative layers of field recordings and sound fragments, in an attempt to calmly mirror the randomness of memory. Satie like piano improvisations (though he's too cool to mention it's played on a Klavierchord), plunderphonic styled cut-ups of TV commericials and banal pop, and cold fusion pulses are intersperced with the fluid ambient passages.

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SORRY. Japan's hopping noise honcho. Continues the "Good Alchemy" series of outrageous aural assaults.

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SORRY. More of the crazy, dynamic noise Masonna is known for, this time available on a relatively inexpensive American disc.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

SORRY.

And now for the third of our reviews of the three "Freakout Triplex" cds that were released in 2002 in honor of Maso Yamazaki's 15th anniversary (of noise/music making, presumably). There was a disc apiece dedicated to each of his main projects: Christine 23 Onna's Acid Eater (reviewed on list 255), Space Machine's 2 (reviewed on list 258), and Masonna's Shock Rock (being reviewed right NOW). These weren't readily available over here in the USA when they first came out, so we figured a bunch of you Japanese psychedelic/electronic/noise fans would be interested if we reviewed these, now that we can finally get 'em. Masonna is Maso Yamazaki's best known project, his solo screaming noise guise. As harsh Japanese noise goes, Masonna's at the top of the heap, up there with the likes of Merzbow and Hijokaidan in a sort of unholy trinity. Quite prolific in the past, Masonna's discography is rather large to say the least. But you can be sure than ANY Masonna album you hear is gonna sound like just about the most insane noisy thing EVER. Shock Rock, his umpteenth cd release, is also as far as we're aware the last full-length Masonna album to come out... So it stands to reason that this could well be the noisiest. We're not talking trance-inducing drone like you might get from, say, Aube or even Merzbow, sometimes. We're talking short sharp shocks of feedback-attack noise, 31 tracks on this 46 minute disc. Ultra-distorted, deliriously painful, apoplectic EXTREME noise here! Which, paradoxically, can be a pleasurable, almost gleeful thing...though it's an acquired taste no doubt! Folks who already know and love the likes of Shinsen Na Clitoris (Vanilla, 1990) or Mademoiselle Anne Sanglante Ou Notre Nymphomanie Aureole (Alchemy, 1993) will want to add this to their collections. It's as spasmodically fierce as those classics. But for Japanese noise noobs, well, this might be like jumping in at the deep end! However, if you're not afraid, and/or simply want to get maximal noise for your 27 bucks, this surely would be the ticket!

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MPEG stream: track 16

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SORRY.

There's noise, and then there's noise!!! And then, there's Masonna... and this, the Ultimate Masonna (volume one). Never heard any Japanese noise? Well, there's always a first time, and this could be it. Maybe you'll love it (if not, you'll probably hate it... not much room for any reactions in-between). If you have heard Japanese noise, you probably already know Masonna. Along with Merzbow and Hijokaidan, he's probably the most (in)famous and most extreme of all the many Japanese noisicians. At AQ, he's also quite popular for his other sonic endeavors, the analog spaced out kosmiche electronic trips of Space Machine, the super psychedelic rhythmic synth grooves of Christine 23 Onna, and the fuzz-freaked garage rock of Acid Eater. Those outfits, to varying degrees, can be considered music, even pop music. But recording under the Masonna moniker, Maso Yamazaki makes sheer noise, no "music" involved at all. Just ultra dynamic, distorted screaming and electronic distortion, volume cranked to the max, an all-out expressive attack, acrobatic and energetic. Very similar to his famous "jumping" live performances. In honor of Masonna's 20th anniversary of noisemaking, packaged with super swank graphics (we dig the elaborate Greatful Dead/Quicksilver looking logo) and liner notes in both English and Japanese, Ultimate Collection Vol.1 brings back two long out of print Masonna documents. It includes the oddly titled Masonna Vs. Bananamara LP, originally released on vinyl in 1989 by Japan's Vanilla Records in an edition of 290 copies, and the aptly titled 1996 album Hyper Chaotic, originally from tiny US label V Records. Reissued together on one compact disc, these two albums comprise 48 mostly short tracks (many of 'em under a minute each) of the most intense, shrieking shards of distortion with which you've ever abused your ears... you've been warned!! The vs. Bananamara album (which was Masonna's debut LP after some self-released cassettes) perhaps features more high-end skree, while the later Hyper Chaotic is more about blown-out white noise... but there's plenty of both sounds throughout!

MPEG stream: Keckold
MPEG stream: Baimn Lamx
MPEG stream: Hyper Chaotic - Chapter 2
MPEG stream: Hyper Chaotic - Chapter 13

What could be better (and noisier) than Masonna's Ultimate Collection Volume 1? Volume 2 of course. In honor of the man's 20 years of noisemaking madness, Alchemy has reissued several crucial, long out of print Masonna documents as two-on-one cds in this Ultimate Collection series. You can check out our review, elsewhere on our site, of Vol. 1 to read more about Masonna and his legendary place in the pantheon of Japanese noise, alongside the likes of Merzbow and Hijokaidan... suffice to say if you've never heard this stuff before, be warned! It's noisy all right. Not everyone will have the same reaction (no siree) but for us, when we hear the harsh sonic genius of Masonna, it's like, we freeze, fascinated, compelled - numbed and hypnotized even. It's really enjoyable... really. So, Volume 2 comprises the early 1990 album Shinsen Na Clitoris (of which only 499 copies were pressed), and the 1998 cd-r Tripsy Sunshine (which was even rarer, in an edition of 49 copies!). Rather than the many short, sharp, shocking tracks found on Vol.1, there's just four long tracks here, each of the original albums split into two approximately 15 minute pieces. Though, on Shinsen Na Clitoris, it still sounds like a lot of cut-up edits. That album is all about totally destroyed, distorted to hell vocals, Masonna's insane shrieking demonic baby babble in a swirling vortex of feedback and warped FX, the sounds of guitar (?), electronics, and his voice all one massive noisy jibber-jabber. Whew! He's really freaking out, hyperventilating probably. Later, on the Tripsy Sunshine tracks, Masonna moves more into the fuzzed out psych-synth territory of his Christine 23 Onna and Space Machine projects, with washes of fuzzy synth overload and throbbing pounding rhythms. So it becomes a bit more 'musical' but just barely. There's certainly gobs of sheer chaotic please turn that down NOISE to happily torment your earholes with as well, from start to finish. You know how you can't fit more than, like, 80 minutes of music on a compact disc? Well this disc is one hour long, but it's probably got more (noisy) SOUND crammed into it than any cd you can find, whatever the length. Basically, Masonna takes to heart the principle that if you're gonna make noise, make it the noisiest. And he sure does.

MPEG stream: Shinsen Na Clitoris Part 1
MPEG stream: Space Psychetronics Erector