Perfect Place To Hideaway is the second full-length album from way-cool Japanese psych scene vets The Stars, a band featuring former members of Tokyo flashbackers White Heaven. Guitarist Michio Kurihara (also of Ghost) is perhaps the best known -- you may recall we recently reviewed his fine solo album Sunset Notes, another Pedal Records release. This ain't White Heaven mark II though, as their inspiration stems not so much anymore from west coast '60s psych like The Doors and Quicksilver Messenger Service but just as much from downtown NYC in the '70s -- Television, No Wave, and maybe even avant-disco dance music... But don't worry, The Stars first and foremost are a guitar band. And guitars can be dangerous things. Much of the time, The Stars are happy just demonstrating the truth of that statement. But there's shiny pop moments here that let singer You Ishihara act the crooning rock star, and some simple blissful ones too. These varied six tracks include the moody groove of the 11-minute "Subway (aka Night Walker)", the crashing, apocalyptic, distorto stomp of "Ice Blues" (THE track for those who want to hear Kurihara wail White Heaven style), the angular repetition of "Double Sider", the too-funky "Lemonade", the placid instrumental "Electron Spin Carnnival", and gentle coda "The World I Left Behind".
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
1st full length from this Tokyo new wave psych act, featuring former members of White Heaven.
Now we've got a nice Japanese cd reissue of this (previously, but no longer, available on the somewhat shady Radioactive label). It's more expensive but better. Our review of it before ran something like this:
Some fairly heavy (maaaan) stoner psych blues rawk action here from 1971. Yep, seventy-one. We won't try to tell you that the lone album from Japan's Strawberry Path was one of the best rock releases of '71, 'cause of course there were so many great albums out that year. But if you're a fan of heavy rock of the era, especially the weirder stuff from overseas, you should check 'em out. There's plenty of wailing guitar and jammin' organ on here, but also some mellow moves too so it's maybe more '60s than '70s sounding, and VERY Jimi Hendrix influenced. And we'd guess they were also into such Western acts as Steppenwolf, early Deep Purple, Grand Funk and possibly Black Sabbath. In the realm of early '70s Japanese hard psych they're on par with Speed, Glue & Shinki and Foodbrain, but not quite as as solid as the best Flower Travellin' Band or Blues Creation. These guys (a duo of Shigeru "Jimmy" Narumo on guitars and keys, and Hiro Tsunoda on drums and vocals, helped out by various guests) went on to form the even heavier Flied Egg, who released an LP on Vertigo, a track from which is heard on Andy Votel's Vertigo Mixed disc in fact. This is totally in that Vertigo vein, with classical flourishes of flute and strings, hard-rockin' boogie blues riffage, wild vocals, kickin' drum breaks, acoustic interludes... it's an acid-prog mix that isn't always in the proto-metal direction we might want but we'll take what we can get. Plus you've gotta love the song titles, which are either really cool and weird like "Maximum Speed Of Muji Bird (45 Seconds Of Schizophrenic Sabbath)" or totally indicative of what you'd expect like "I Gotta See My Gypsy Woman" and "Mary Jane On My Mind". Woah, yeah.
Recently we've reviewed the two excellent Flied Egg albums, reissued on cd by Universal Japan, as is this -- if you dug those, Strawberry Path is also up your alley (Path?).
Some fairly heavy (maaaan) stoner psych blues rawk action here from 1971. Yep, seventy-one. We won't try to tell you that the lone album from Japan's Strawberry Path was one of the best rock releases of '71, 'cause of course there were so many great albums out that year. But if you're a fan of heavy rock of the era, especially the weirder stuff from overseas, you should check 'em out. There's plenty of wailing guitar and jammin' organ on here, but also some mellow moves too so it's maybe more '60s than '70s sounding, and VERY Jimi Hendrix influenced. And we'd guess they were also into such Western acts as Steppenwolf, early Deep Purple, Grand Funk and possibly Black Sabbath. In the realm of early '70s Japanese hard psych they're on par with Speed, Glue & Shinki and Foodbrain, but not quite as as solid as the best Flower Travellin' Band or Blues Creation. These guys (a duo of Shigeru "Jimmy" Narumo on guitars and keys, and Hiro Tsunoda on drums and vocals, helped out by various guests) went on to form the even heavier Flied Egg, who released an LP on Vertigo, a track from which is heard on Andy Votel's Vertigo Mixed disc in fact.
This is totally in that Vertigo vein, with classical flourishes of flute and strings, hard-rockin' boogie blues riffage, wild vocals, kickin' drum breaks, acoustic interludes... it's an acid-prog mix that isn't always in the proto-metal direction we might want but we'll take what we can get. Plus you've gotta love the song titles, which are either really cool and weird like "Maximum Speed Of Muji Bird (45 Seconds Of Schizophrenic Sabbath)" or totally indicative of what you'd expect like "I Gotta See My Gypsy Woman" and "Mary Jane On My Mind". Woah, yeah.
One of our favorite Japanese improv guitarists takes his brand of minimalist abstraction to a new level on this disc, which 1) you have to turn WAY up to even hear the notes he's playing, 2) features lots of notes *not* being played, and 3) is fucking gorgeous. What we mean by 2) is that the three long tracks on here would be a lot shorter without all the silence. Not everybody will be
Japanese guitar improviser Taku Sugimoto (whose gentle, sparse style has made him an AQ-fave) teams up with German electro-acoustic guitarist Annette Krebs (who must live in Japan, as she constantly collaborates in that scene), to make a duo record of popping, scraping, droning, hissing, chiming, buzzing, crackling sounds for Sugimoto's Slub label. Sugimoto's measured, quiet playing, with his isolated melodic moments, is almost too fragile to successfully blend with the random percussive sound-events being conjured by Krebs (we assume, though of course it's hard to tell who is making what sound). This Eine Gitarre Ist... disc certainly IS worthy of investigation by Sugimoto and/or Krebs fans (and Keith Rowe or Kevin Drumm fans too for that matter), but to be honest we'd rather have seen this live, and just listen to a solo Sugimoto disc at home. There IS plenty of the silence and near-silence that characterizes Sugimoto's style, it's just that it too often comes as a relief from the parts that sound like someone (Krebs most likely) is slowly breaking her guitar into little bits. We like to listen to stuff like that too, just not when Sugimoto is playing. But others may disagree, so check it out.
Another meeting between these two friends and improvisers, Tokyo guitarist Sugimoto and Chicago guitarist Drumm. Their guitars (and electronics) will gently and delicate scrape at your brain. It's all very abstract and pretty and full of tiny sounds, good with earphones. Quite nice.
Just got these in today, list day, four new aRCHIVE dvd titles (Ai Aso, Mick Barr, Khlyst, and Suishou No Fune). So, we haven't had a chance to watch 'em yet but since they're limited and all we figured you'd rather we just went ahead and listed 'em now rather than waiting 2 weeks. And all four artists are pretty cool after all.
So, this one is from Japanese Tokyo Flashbackin' bleak psych-folk unit Suishou No Fune, featuring live footage from their 2007 East Coast USA tour, as shot and edited by James Plotkin. There's material from shows in NYC and Philly, and a segment where they jam with Bardo Pond and somebody called Harmonica Dan (like we say, we haven't seen it yet, but we'll guess he plays harmonica). So that all sounds pretty rad, if you like this band as much as we do. And Bardo Pond too!
The dvd is approximately 1 hour long, and is packaged in a swank four-panel foldy card thing in a PVC bag, with art/design by Stephen O'Malley. Limited, OF COURSE, to 600 copies!!!!
Oftimes, in the past, the drifting dark psychedelia of Tokyo "bleak folk" combo Suishou No Fune has been on the dreamier side, never quite as distorted and heavy as some of their amp-frying Japanese peers. Up-Tight and LSD-march and Acid Mothers Temple and so forth tend to crank it up more brutally, more often, while Suishou No Fune, though often displaying flashes of heaviness, are usually content with wallowing in a more atmospheric, delicate sort of murk... so a title like "Mystic Atmosphere" is to be expected... yet on this new limited edition cd-r, Suishou No Fune (here a trio, with occasional drummer Tail on board) are fairly quick to turn it up to 11! The dreamy drift is still there, but also lots of clattery drum-pound and guitar grind, taken to its most loud n' distorted degree on the final, 14:48 monster jam "SUSANO'O". Elsewhere Suishou carve canyons of feedback through the mists of opener "The Memory Of Ancient Times" (also 14+ minutes), plod ritualistically into sweet oblivion on "Endless Descent" (11 minutes), and throw a lo-fi thrashing psych tantrum on "UZUME" (3 minutes). Definitely a SNF disc for those hankering to hear 'em heavy it up and freak out a bit more than usual. WAY limited. We only have a very small handful and they're the last copies ever...
There's been a batch of cool releases recently from this underground Tokyo flashbackin' "bleak-folk" duo, including live albums on both the aRCHIVE and Important labels. How best to follow those up? How 'bout with a two-disc, two-hour studio set on Holy Mountain, all the more room for the Suishou two (Pirako and Kageo, both on guitar and vocals) to sprawl out and let their heavy lidded (if not quite heavy) psychedelia bleed so bleakly and beautifully, including a few tracks previewed in live versions, like "Cherry" and "Til We Meet Again". Even if you haven't heard those, if you've heard any Suishou No Fune chances are you know what you're in for... the usual Suishou blend of fragile vocals wailing ever so gently over meanderingly melodic string strum and amp hum, a downer droney trance-out that's super languid and echoey, relaxed and Rallizesized.
The extended, lethargic and lovely lo-fi shimmer that Suishou No Fune conjures is embellished by some percussive rattling ritual at the opening of "Prayer", and enhanced elsewhere by occasional amped-up moments of distortodelic heaviness ("Resurrection Night" being a solid sixteen-minute example), though it's generally far to the softer side of countryfolk Boris and Acid Mothers Temple (for instance). We can guess you'll be filing this with your Shizuka, LSD-march, and Nagisa Ni Te cds... that is, filing it only after playing it over and over quite a bit, lost in a hypnotic reverie each time.
Prayer For Chibi was recorded with the help of Steven Wray Lobdell (David Redford Triad, Faust) and the cd booklet features Japanese-to-English translations of all the lyrics by the always helpful in that regard Alan Cummings, lyrics full of flowers, dreams, rain, stars, fireflies, and la la las...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
What does Japanese underground psych-folk, limited to 300 copies, we only got a dozen mean to you? That we don't have to write a lengthy review of this? Thanks, we thought so.
It's criminal that they made this so limited, 'cause some fans of this band are going to be disappointed (the ones that don't get a copy, of course, not those that do). This disc is another bleak trip into the "mystic atmosphere" of Suishou No Fune's lo-fi soundworld, the six long tracks here wandering a metaphorical, musical labyrinth golden with the glow of a setting sun. Some tracks generate a droning din, others more languidly flow with fragile vibrations, the band almost nodding off, but *nervously* never quite achieving that sad bliss. It's a hazy and gauzy interplay of (mostly) subdued electric guitar, clattering drums, and morose, wailing vocals that sound like the singer is singing *to himself*, trying to stave off existential loneliness and despair in the depths of the labyrinth. The guitar will sometimes build up, threatening full-on psych storms, but only really reaches max volume on the disc's final track, "Exit From The Labyrinth".
We'd recommended this to fans of LSD-march, Fushitsusha, etc. but it's not necessary. Firstly those folks probably already know about Suishou No Fune and secondly, we only have enough of these for Suishou No Fune fans first and foremost.
As always with our reviews of aRCHIVE releases, there's two things we can say about this, right off the top: the packaging is swank (in this case, the cd is affixed inside a glossy trifold card, itself enclosed in a translucent vellum wrapper). And it's hella limited (600 copies). So act fast if you want to score one of these documents of late-night, slow-burn psych from the duo of Tokyo's Pirako and Kageo. Recorded live in Philadelphia, PA on the 19th of March, 2007, The Light Of Dark Night consists of one 42 minute long track, featuring renditions of three songs flowing together: "Till We Meet Again (You Returned Home To The Heavens)", "A Rose Bloomed", and "You Look At The Night Sea". It begins with their guitars gently droning out of an ambient gloom, bleak yet beckoning... as their music meanders moodily forth, there's stretches of quiet, crystalline beauty, graced with soothing melody and yearning vocals... at other moments the proceedings are also graced with heavy duty distorto crunch, guitars amped up into sheer sheets of flashback fuzz! With no drums this night, it's more about the drone and the drift... definitely a disc that folks into the aura of Boris' Feedbacker might melt for.
Another excursion into the bleak, be-shadowed world of Tokyo psych-folk trio Suishou No Fune. Four long, shoegazing songs recorded live at several shows/venues. All share certain elements...
Aching, drifting guitar lines quietly howl of beauty and despair, melodies gracefully soaring and then expiring tenderly alongside the echoes of weary vocals and lethargic percussive clatter. This disc is definitely a slow-burn, late-night affair, all-embracing in its epic downer aesthetic.
While Suishou No Fune never sound like they're going to break a sweat (nodding off is more like it), they do channel an additional level of emotional energy into the pentultimate track 3, "A Rain", wherein the drum crashes and vocal cries and guitar wailings all crank it up a notch, more volume and chaos and sheer beauty. But that's the mere precursor to the wall-of-noise presence of the last and longest (21:50) track here, "The Storm Of Light / The Cherry", a grand fuzz finale of amped-up distorto drone... still gorgeously bleak and blissful!
A while back we had this band's self-titled debut (remember the nice pink cover?). Unfortunately we can't seem to get that one anymore, but we do now have this, Suishou No Fune's latest, Where The Spirits Are, released on the Holy Mountain label (home to Six Organs Of Admittance, Davis Redford Triad, Om, Mammatus, etc.). If you've heard that previous album of theirs you'll have an idea what this is about... Or also if you just peep the cover photo: three Japanese guys in shades and Keiji Haino haircuts. Yes you're guessed it, Tokyo Flashback style downer drone psych. Quietly drifting, distorted, dark sheets of guitar accompanied by abyssal cries, not altogether unmelodic however. They can rev it up cacophonously when they want, but for the most part they hold back the heaviness in order to generate a more gentle sort of atmospheric gloom, on such appropriately named tracks as "Apparition On A Moonless Night" and "Black Phantom". Again, murky majesty for fans of Up-Tight, LSD-march, Shizuka, and the like.
3rd album of super bleak, slo-mo deep drone psych from these Tokyo Flashback vets, the follow up to their 2006 Holy Mountain release Where The Spirits Are. There's three loooong tracks here in the gently morose mode you'd expect, with distorted whale-call guitars and hollow, lonely vocals... what you might not expect is the distressed psychedelic harmonica soloing that now features prominently (on track two)! Who knew the wheeze of the harmonica could be so fitting with such mysterious and murky surroundings? The gasping, dying breaths of monomaniacal melody it brings to the proceedings are usually appropriate however.
And we've gotta say, that's a great title ain't it? Writhing Underground Flowers. Like you've wandered into some gloomy cave full of bleached-white fungal growth, trembling in a subterranean breeze, a living mockery of true sunlit floral splendor... beautiful yet terrible too.
Housed in a nice pink cover-sleeve, this album's floating guitar psych is the work of another relatively new Japanese underground psych outfit that we first got turned on to via the PSF label's recent, excellent Tokyo Flashback 5 compilation! In our review of that comp, we described them/their track thusly: "bleak folk duo, very lovely, eventually overcome by space-out distortion". And that same assessment applies likewise to this self-titled debut disc of theirs, except that here they're a trio, with the core pairing of Pirako and Kageo (both guitar/vocals) joined by drummer Tail. 69 minutes, five tracks, delicate, dreamy and drifting. With gentle vocals and electric guitars mostly engaged in ethereal exploration (but capable, at times, of generating speaker-rattling stormclouds, when the trio get into their more slow-burning Rallizes-ish moments) this should be right up the alley of any of you into such bands as Nagisa Ni Te, Doodles, Shizuka, Overhang Party, and Up-Tight.
We took preorders for this (and the deluxe box set version too) a few weeks back, but now we have it in stock, we got a few extras of the regular edition so folks who maybe missed out on the preorder now have a chance to grab one of these!
A long in the works new release from one of our favorite labels, Brazil's Essence Music, who in the past have brought us amazing records from Boris, Circle Acid Mothers Temple, Aidan Baker, Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, Atomine Elektrine, Merzbow, Drakh, Rapoon, Wolfskin and more. This latest comes from Tokyo psychedelic drifters and longtime aQ faves Suishou No Fune, who are teamed up here with local psyche rockers Numinous Eye, aka Mason Jones (Subarachnoid Space) and Mike Shoun (The Oh Sees), whose recent Clockwork Moon lp we raved about recently on the aQ list.
And this is not a split, no this is both bands together, we imagine in some dark dimly lit space, in the middle of the night, no words exchanged, just a gradual opening up, everyone slowly losing themselves in a sonic trance, and letting the music carry them off, cuz that's what this sounds like, woozy and washed out, laid back and lysergic, the rhythm section simple and shuffling, motorik and darkly propulsive, while the multiple guitars weave tangled melodies, and smear strange shadowy streaks of ambience and atmosphere. Chordal swells pulse of deep rumbles, wound around the unwavering rhythm, while above, the sky is filled with prismatic streaks, aching, lilting melodies, soaring, drifting, ethereal and ghostlike one minute fierce and fiery the next. There are vocals too, wordless croons, that slip into strange falsettos and then back again, a sort of monklike chanting, that becomes almost operatic, there's harmonica too! On the more abstract nearly 30 minute second track, the drums skitter loosely beneath streaks of melodies and shards of disembodied guitar skree, little bits of twang, and distant reverby textures, while the harmonica wheezes and whispers, that track occasionally coalescing into a sort of almost-krautrock, but more often than not, simply dissipating into loose clouds of drifting sound, free form psychedelic exploration, lush and textured, but super open and abstract, the various guitars holding things together with their aching melodic explorations.
"The Rainbow Dissolving In The Ocean" channels a little Haino, in the wailed vocals, over moaning, keening guitar buzz, peppered with flurries of drum skitter and cymbal shimmer, all blurred and smeared into heaving dreamlike billows, eventually building to a wild multi-guitar, psych-noise tangle, swirls of echo and reverb, thick thrumming bass, and swirling percussive shimmers, all wrapped in a prickly field of distorted guitar swirl. And finally, closer "Space Cruising", locks things down rhythmically, the drums and bass, laying down a languorous, sinewy slither, wreathed in shimmery guitar strum, and again, surrounded by constantly shifting streaks of psychedelia, twangs, rumbles, whirs, melodic squiggles, slow smoldering chord progressions, eventually the whole thing builds again to one final blowout, aching vocals, blown out guitars, wild drum pound, the sound noisy and heavy, but still strangely lilting and lovely, definitely channeling the spirit of Les Rallizes Denudes, as does much of the record!
This is a special pre-order for two different versions of the latest release from one of our favorite labels, Brazil's Essence Music, who in the past have brought us amazing records from Boris, Circle Acid Mothers Temple, Aidan Baker, Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk, Atomine Elektrine, Merzbow, Drakh, Rapoon, Wolfskin and more. This latest comes from Tokyo psychedelic drifters and longtime aQ faves Suishou No Fune, who are teamed up here with local psyche rockers Numinous Eye, aka Mason Jones (Subarachnoid Space) and Mike Shoun (The Oh Sees), whose recent Clockwork Moon lp we raved about recently on the aQ list.
And this is not a split, no this is both bands together, we imagine in some dark dimly lit space, in the middle of the night, no words exchanged, just a gradual opening up, everyone slowly losing themselves in a sonic trance, and letting the music carry them off, cuz that's what this sounds like, woozy and washed out, laid back and lysergic, the rhythm section simple and shuffling, motorik and darkly propulsive, while the multiple guitars weave tangled melodies, and smear strange shadowy streaks of ambience and atmosphere. Chordal swells pulse of deep rumbles, wound around the unwavering rhythm, while above, the sky is filled with prismatic streaks, aching, lilting melodies, soaring, drifting, ethereal and ghostlike one minute fierce and fiery the next. There are vocals too, wordless croons, that slip into strange falsettos and then back again, a sort of monklike chanting, that becomes almost operatic, there's harmonica too! On the more abstract nearly 30 minute second track, the drums skitter loosely beneath streaks of melodies and shards of disembodied guitar skree, little bits of twang, and distant reverby textures, while the harmonica wheezes and whispers, that track occasionally coalescing into a sort of almost-krautrock, but more often than not, simply dissipating into loose clouds of drifting sound, free form psychedelic exploration, lush and textured, but super open and abstract, the various guitars holding things together with their aching melodic explorations.
"The Rainbow Dissolving In The Ocean" channels a little Haino, in the wailed vocals, over moaning, keening guitar buzz, peppered with flurries of drum skitter and cymbal shimmer, all blurred and smeared into heaving dreamlike billows, eventually building to a wild multi-guitar, psych-noise tangle, swirls of echo and reverb, thick thrumming bass, and swirling percussive shimmers, all wrapped in a prickly field of distorted guitar swirl. And finally, closer "Space Cruising", locks things down rhythmically, the drums and bass, laying down a languorous, sinewy slither, wreathed in shimmery guitar strum, and again, surrounded by constantly shifting streaks of psychedelia, twangs, rumbles, whirs, melodic squiggles, slow smoldering chord progressions, eventually the whole thing builds again to one final blowout, aching vocals, blown out guitars, wild drum pound, the sound noisy and heavy, but still strangely lilting and lovely, definitely channeling the spirit of Les Rallizes Denudes, as does much of the record!
There are two versions of the record, a super deluxe boxset version, with extra music in addition to the extravagant packaging, and this one, the standard version, which is nearly as limited as the deluxe box, only 170 copies made, and each comes in a handmade and hand painted tip-on style mini lp sleeve with a printed Japanese obi, every one totally unique, we're only gonna order as many copies as we actually get orders for, so if you want one, and you probably do, you should definitely order it now. We'll have them in a few weeks and can send them off then.
Summons Of Shining Ruins is the nom de plume of Japanese post-shoegazing guitarist Shinobu Nemoto, who had released a rather exceptional piece of cinematic ambience for Experimedia in 2009 that came and went rather quickly. This is another one that will disappear in the blink of an eye as well, given the tiny edition of this pressing. There's only 53 copies around, probably due to the inclusion in the packaging of an antique chemists label culled from chain of British drug stores that at one time sold such things as 'liquid extract cascara sagrada' and 'camphorated oil.' A nifty piece of esoterica to go along with this tape of woozy, muffled drones from Nemoto. The tracks are much less dramatic than the album he did for Experimedia, instead these sullen ambient movements slowly waver along grey streamlined tones with upwelling melodies moving to the foreground from time to time. Certainly on par with the murky cassette work that Maeror Tri and Troum produced way back when, or maybe even some of the Lovesliescrushing driftworks but given a tape hiss makeover. Nice.
Craziness courtesy Mssrs. Yoshida (Ruins) and Yamamoto (Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba). 29 tracks with titles like "Rush In Outer Space" and "Dream, Scum, True!!".
Hey folks, here's one of the few releases on Japan's rather eccentric (and excellent) EM Records label that's NOT a reissue or archival collection, but new music by a new band! Weird. (Of course.) The oddly-named Supernatural Hot Rug And Not Used is one for those into free-rock improv noisiness, being a duo on electric guitar and "sort-of" electric bass. No effects. No "songs". Lots of quiet noisiness (but it's not "noise"). This Osaka-based outfit consists of Bunsho Nisikawa (guitar) and expatriate Canadian Tim Olive (bass), whom some might remember from a band called Nimrod, also Twerdocleb and Soap-Jo Henshi. Somehow, in a Osaka studio, they're able to conjure up stuff that sounds more like a creaky, glitchy field recording than two guys playing instruments. Together they weave a weird n' wild collision/collusion of sounds, some subtle, some not so... The more dronily mysterious, stretchy-scratchy, almost-rhythmic moments bring to mind the prepared turntable works of Pierre Bastien and Strotter Inst, or a more relaxed Voice Crack. Or even Coelacanth. This also sounds like something you might expect to hear on the Erstwhile label, from the likes of Keith Rowe or Toshimaru Nakamura. A pretty cool find for those who consider themselves connoisseurs of such interesting, abstract sounds! By the way, the band name is an example of the absurd "Japlish" prevalent on T-shirts in Japan...
Two new Utech's this list, and that's something to be stoked about, 'cause the label rarely disappoints, if ever. This one's from Japanese guitarist Suzuki Junzo, who's played in Tokyo flashbacking psych rock bands like Overhang Party, Miminokoto, and Astral Travelling Unity, though here he's solo, just him and his guitar and the black void. Yes, it can be bleak and ominous... but pretty, calm, mesmeric, too. There's four long tracks, beginning with the 20-minute title track, inspired by bluesman Lonnie Johnson's "Blue Ghost Blues"... though again, this isn't blues. Something far darker. For the first half, it could be a folky James Blackshaw on luudes kind of thing... then it enters eerie ambient suspense soundtrack territory... before around the 12 minute mark when Junzo puts the pedal to the metal and his amp begins to howl and fry Keiji Haino style. For reals, for Rallizes. Track two, "Beyond The Yellow Clouds", is 11 minutes of dark shimmering drone bliss, segueing smoothly into the disc's shortest (8:33) but most badass track, its title a tribute to the Pink Fairies, "Shivering Larry's Last Freakout", totally monomaniacal, distortodelic, repetitive riffarma that comes across like one of Tetuzi Akiyama's brilliant/dumb "Don't Forget To Boogie" cuts mixed maybe with some NWOFHM (Circle) stuff, frantic primitive minimalist ZZ Haino in a wind tunnel action - damn! Then as a comedown, chillout, final piece, there's 13 more minutes of ghostly guitar grind, a la Ulaan Khol or Li Jianhong, "Studies For Three Broken Canes Of Dr. Dream", that lives up to its fantastic title, whatever that means. We like, but we'll be queuing up ol' Shivering Larry again in a second, that's the jam!
Utech wins again with this one - grab a copy and put on your shades and enjoy. Limited to 300 copies only. And as usual with Utech stuff, packaged in a nice oversized sleeve. The artwork's mostly black, the only image, a half-seen Junzo holding his ghostly guitar. He's NOT wearing shades, which seems strange.
Keiji Haino, Takashi Mizutani, Munehiro Narita, Kawabata Makoto... these are (some of) the gods of Japanese psych guitar. Add Suzuki Junzo to the list, if you haven't already. He's quickly becoming one of our faves, for blacker-than-blues guitar/feedback wrangling. Back with another solo disc for the always-on-it (and out-there) experimental Utech label, Junzo, who has played guitar for such bands as Overhang Party and Miminokoto, delivers a gorgeous, darkly entrancing mixture of both noisy, heavy-duty distorto drone whoosh and quietly lovely acoustic atmospheres. Regarding the former, the epically titled (and epic otherwise as well) opener "When The Grey Skies Turns Into Blood Red" launches right into a session of wind-tunnel psych guitar grind, tumbling end-over-end with skittering percussion accompaniment to match, courtesy of Junzo's colleague Ikuro Takahasi (LSD-March, ex-Fushitsusha, etc.). That 15 minutes and 15 seconds of amp-worship improv is beautiful in its way, as is the quite contrasting next track (and title cut), Junzo shifting gears for an intimate acoustic reverie, a la James Blackshaw or Jack Rose.
Junzo is back to laying on the ghostly reverb (and some whispery hushed vocals too) with track 3, "La Notte", and the freely-textural percussion returns as well. That one's lovely enough, but then the finale, at 17 minutes even more epic than the opener (and with an even more epic title, too: "Dance Of The Inhabitants Of The Invisible Tower In The Ring Of Holy Mountain") takes us a way on a tremulous trip of slow sad strum and minimalistic string buzz. Tune in, zone out.
Yeah, another very nice one from our man Junzo!! In the usual swank Utech packaging.
For whatever reason, the recordings of Akio Suzuki are not easy to come by. Most of the output from this visionary Japanese instrument builder and improviser have quietly emerged and quickly disappeared. So this very subtle and very delicate 2003 improvisation with David Toop from the good folks at Sound 323 in London certainly caught our attention. One of Suzuki's most well known instruments is his collection of stone flutes, and the sounds from these instruments feature prominently in this set with David Toop. These curious objects product an eerie and ancient sound whose rasping whistles and watery trills embody an earthiness that predates the nomenclature from the history of music. Suzuki matches these sounds with delicate scrapes and textures from a couple of cymbals and a handful of small rocks. Toop does his best to articulate similar gestures within the purely acoustic improv strategies of the New London Silence school which developed in parallel Bernhard Gunter / Lowercase aesthetic of very quite electro-acoustic music and out of the late period works from AMM. For better or for worse, some of Toop's elements speak of a particular time and of a particular place (e.g. London, 2003) whereas Suzuki's offerings are beautifully non-specific in their cultural references. At other times, the two spiral metallic textures and softened drones of feedback with whirring flute glissandos, which all quietly float out of periodic silences. We've been told that during one of the quieter moments in the session, a woman next door can be heard singing in the bath. But like Suzuki's previous Kogezan Koukiji of temple improvisations recorded against a backdrop of a dramatic rainstorm, we've been thwarted in hearing these sounds by the patter of a springtime rainstorm and the constant blur of traffic sounds on Valencia Street. We're pretty sure Suzuki would be okay with those interruptions.
"Mind Blowin' Hippie Music" they do say so themselves. Ah, I remember we used to stock this album back when it was a vinyl-only offering (to/from the gods of Psych) around ten years or so ago. Ten years...wow. Now the good folks (and Ghost fanatics) at Drag City have at last made it available on cd, along with the reissue of Ghost leader Masaki Batoh's Collected Works cd. Batoh was also the guitarist in this band, a Tokyo psych quartet that flourished circa 1989-1993. Their lone album Live At Your Cosmic Mind is a fine slab of whooshing, driving, badass, acid space rock freak out stuff, by and for the stoned. What at the time was Hawkwind and Les Rallizes Denudes worship, contemporary with the likes of Fushitsusha, High Rise and White Heaven, now fits in perfectly with the current crop of psych-overload-overlords like Comets On Fire, Pharaoh Overlord and LSD-March. And Acid Mothers Temple too, of course -- in fact it's surprising not to see Kawabata's name on the sleeve! A sleeve decorated with (as I think someone else has pointed out before) some really rad Pedro Bell (Funkadelic cover artist!) styled color felt-tip pen psychedelic artwork. From the side-long opener "Badstone" to what was formerly side two, "White Lightnin' Boogie" and "Last Cosmic People Still Dreaming", this half-hour three-tracker is altogether heavy and blissful. Or, as Sweet & Honey put it, "Far Trippin' Out, So Cosmic--So Deep". So, thanks Drag City for doing this reish (and the Batoh one too, especially!) but we have one small complaint: Drag City, c'mon, we know you could spring for more than a single square of paper as the cd "booklet"...if you're gonna do that, at least use heavy cardstock or something! Well that's our cd packaging pet peeve Number 493...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Psychedelic pre-Ghost Japanese trio with Masaki Batoh.
Or, title SWR, band name Acid Mothers Temple SWR? It could be the other way around, hard to tell, does it matter? Either way, this is the debut disc of jamming from a rather warped power trio formed by members of Japan's Acid Mothers Temple -- specifically guitarist Kawabata Makoto (him again!), bassist/vocalist Atsushi Tsuyama, and sometime AMT drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, whom you should also know from Ruins! SWR stands for Stone Woman Record, three things these guys like a lot. Yoshida is especially well-known for his interest in stones, Kawabata's album covers tend to emphasize his appreciation of feminine beauty, and records, well, AMT wouldn't exist if vinyl hadn't been invented eh? So, song titles include "Do You Know Where The Second Hand Record Shop Is?" and "More Stones, More Women, and More Records" -- along with other, more puzzling titles like "There Is Nothing To Make You Happy In This Box!", "Eat A Pebble" (an ELP reference?), and "Gustavo Hendi".
The records that SWR specifically might be spinning in their practice pad could include krautrockers Guru Guru (is the cover alluding to this?) and the free form freakouts of Hawkwind... There's lotsa weird vocals and effects. The sleeve just lists the instrumentation as bass/guitar/drums with only Tsuyama getting vocal credit, but we're pretty sure we can hear Yoshida's warble as well, along with some violin and perhaps flute. Very trippy and silly and psychedelic. It's more of the '70s psych fantasy that these guys have made themselves masters.
Fans of the incestuous Japanese psych/prog scene to which AMT and Ruins belong may be able to get a sense of SWR if we tell you to imagine a cross between Nishinihon and Musica Transonic. That is almost what this is, in terms of who is in the band. Yoshida and Kawabata are both in Muscia Transonic, Kawabata and Tsuyama both in Nishinihon. And for that matter, Tsuyama and Yoshida are both in Akaten, and we could go on and on naming other bands with some shared membership: Zoffy, Mainliner, Seikazoku... oh, actually SWR has *exactly* the same lineup as Seikazoku. But this, while equally as weird as that band, is more aligned with the surreal heavy rock spoofing of Nishinihon... Don't expect anything too easily-digestible here, this ain't gonna convince your pal for whom Queens of the Stone Age is as weird-as-it-gets. SWR's equal parts riff rock and indulgent insanity, with the chaos/groove balance teetering wildly, will make him/her run for cover.
Lastly, we've said it before and we'll say it again. How do they find the time?? I mean, sleeping and eating and other necessary bodily functions somehow must all take place when these guys aren't playing (and likely, recording) music. When the heck that is, we don't know. But we hope they never stop.
At long last, the debut solo full-length from Mitsuru Tabata (ex-Boredoms, ex-Leningrad Blues Machine, and of course still K.K. Null's longtime guitar partner in heavyweights Zeni Geva)! Self-described as "monumental abstract rural eastern psych" and that sounds about right. Avant-guitar-drone-ophiles line up here. Beautiful!
Yay, here's another new solo album by Acid Mothers Temple member Tabata Mitsuru (who also has Zeni Geva and the Boredoms on his heavyweight Japanese underground musician resume). We mentioned this one in our review of his other recent solo disc We All Gonna Face The Rising Sun not long ago, and it's pretty similar, again getting the thumbs up from us, for it's gorgeous, droning blend of guitar, loops, backwards tapes, and noisy (but not too noisy) glitch. The tracks Mahhagogo parts 1 and 2 (with their cute little vocal intros) bookend this disc, being the hissingest, harshest dronewerks here. In between them you'll find four other pieces that are mostly much mellower, prettier and placid... mostly. All instrumentals, made from bits of simple guitar melody and swooshing pulses of gentle psychedelic electronics. The likes of "Hydrozoa" are a lazy drift of ambient abstraction, for a sundappled afternoon nap... So nice! Feedback and distortion transformed into utter, sweet blissfulness.
So, it's been two Tabata Mitsuru albums in a fairly short span of time, but we've been fans of him for forever and by Acid Mothers Temple standards, he's not really that prolific. So, if he keeps doing what he's been doing on these, we'd be happy with a few more this year please!!
Japanese guitarist Mitsuru Tabata's name should be better known than perhaps it is... he was an early member of the Boredoms, is a current member of Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno, and has served as KK Null's axe associate in Zeni Geva for many many years, among other activities. He's also made some brilliant solo albums, of which this is one (his third -- a fourth, on Utech, also just came out)!
Rather than making much use of the heavier guitar blurt that so many of his other projects feature, on this solo disc Tabata works with layers of lovely loops, quietly cycling 'round a spacey cosmos of his own invention... well for the most part, though the track "Annihilation" does sound appropriately amped up and ferocious. But most of these pieces are built from backwards tapes, shortwave drones, guitars and synths spinning out gentle folky melodies amidst soothingly tripped-out electronic effects. Abstract psychedelic lullabies, calm and spacious and really nice! Highly recommended, all Acid Mothers Temple fans should check this out -- and not just them!
The wonderful, surprise second album from this all-star Japanese outfit (with members of Ruins, Omoide Hatoba, Bondage Fruit, etc.) whose main songwriter is Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins. Musically this combines the manic, complex prog of his main band with elements of jazz, pop, cartoon music, and unclassifiable weirdness with instrumentation that includes guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, sampler, trumpet, violin, clarinet, sax, and of course lots of bizarre vocals. This is some of the most intensely strange, happy, lovely, beautiful, well-played "rock" music of 1998.
FINALLY BACK IN STOCK. THE ULTIMATE DRONE RECORD.
We love this record so much. The Taj Majal Travellers are so utterly mind blowing. This is a double cd reissue of this legendary Japanese psych ensemble's second lp which has been unavailable for several years now, but when we did have it in stock, if anyone asked about drones, this is the record we would always suggest. One of the most hallowed artifacts of the psych-rock collector scum scene (originals on vinyl could set you back more than $1000!), this album is an epic higher key improvised drone extravaganza, all performed live on beaches and deserted hills in Sweden, India, Iran and England. Slow, complex, irregular throbbing waves of sound, broadcast through distant loudspeakers and recaptured and reincorporated. Feedback, time-space lag, horns, echo machines, and primitive handmade electronic devices all contribute to the ever shifting clouds of sound. So unbearably awesome. And this is not electronic music, or studio based carefully constructed drone music, this is massive and organic, dreamy and natural, waves of sound drifting through sun and sky, rain and fog, trees and electrical wires, the shape of the earth, the temperature, the wind, all affecting the sound, changing the timbre ever so slightly, band members spaced out over hundreds of yards, improvising on an impossible grand scale, the earth as their stage, nature as their recording studio, a deliriously abstract sound world of subtle drones and drifting ambience. Imagine some long hairded seventies Japanese psych rock combo, but filtered through the Jewelled Antler Collective, jamming with Chris Watson, set up on sandy dunes, grassy knolls, forest glades, each not necessarily -playing- their instruments, but instead coaxing sounds from within the instruments, setting those sounds free and sending them skyward, watching it drift downwind, where a bandmate snatches the sounds and coaxes complimentary sounds from his instrument, sending a sonic respone, until these messages, these sounds weave into and around each other, the sky full of warm warbly mysterious sound. Psychedelic for sure, but more a sort of eyes closed, mind open dream drift drone psychedelia. ONE OF OUR ALL TIME FAVORITE RECORDS!!
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The Taj-Mahal Travellers double cd 'August 1974' has to be one of the most essential drone music documents of the 20th century. Our description of that record describes the Taj Mahal Travellers sound perfectly: "epic higher key improvised drone extravaganzas
Three extended tracks of sublime and transcendental musique concrete/drone. Sparse and spacious. With vocals and electronic trumpets augmenting the violin, contrabass, harmonica, sheet iron, castanet, vibraphone, guitar, percussion and radio oscillators. Dreamy and otherworldly, three epic tracks of hum and rumble, squeak and skree, clatter and tinkle envelop you in a completely new world of sound. So essential.
Yay! Another old favorite finally reissued and back in stock. We first listed this back in 2000, and we still love it more than ever. First we had a Drone Syndicate edition, then a more expensive one on Walhalla, and now the DS version has been repressed, at the same cheaper price (though it lacks the liner notes, photos, and overall fancier packaging of the Wahalla one).
In the AQ canon of all time essential artists, of groups who have shaped all the music that followed in their wake, somewhere very near the top spot would be Japan's Taj Mahal Travellers. This sprawling seventies psych drone unit led by Fluxus legend Takehisa Kosugi, were crafting gorgeous abstract drone drenched ambience long before most of the current crop of dronesters were even born.
The Taj Mahal Travellers were masters of the organic, of vibration, texture, timbre, utilizing bowed cymbals, violins, loudspeakers, tape loops and all sorts of unique source material, this collective created some of the most enduring and unique psychedelic music ever recorded. Their music and performances were the physical embodiment of a philosophy, a way of life more than just simple 'playing music.'
It's hard to imagine the Skaters or Birchville Cat Motel or the Yellow Swans or even Wolf Eyes without the Taj Mahal Travellers. Often referred to by the press as "La Monte Young on acid", in a review of another, unfortunately out of print TMT album, we described their sound as "epic higher key improvised drone extravaganzas performed on beaches, deserted hills in Sweden, India, Iran and England. Slow, complex, irregular throbbing waves of sound, broadcast through distant loudspeakers and recaptured and reincorporated into the sound. Feedback, time-space lag, echo machines, and primitive handmade electronic devices all contribute to the ever shifting clouds of sound."
The music of the Taj Mahal Travellers thought is stubbornly indescribable. No words can possibly do justice to the spirits they were able to invoke, the atmosphere they were able to create, dark and dense and mysterious and ominous, but at the same time beautiful and brilliant and epic and spacious.
This double cd features nearly 100 minutes of improvised droning captured live in Stockholm, Sweden in 1971, the group (minus Kosugi for some reason) run stand-up bass, tuba, trumpet, select percussion, violin, flutes, mandolin, harmonica and synthesizer through primitive tape loops and delay effects for an awesome ritualistic performance, predating the likes of Zoviet France and about a million others by decades!
The live sound is just as amazing as their records, which makes sense since their albums were essentially documents of live aktions.
The first disc is a single nearly hour long low end ritual, strings buzz and reverberate, as do voices, and bits of bowed metals, all beating against each other and creating all manner of cosmic vibrations, all accompanied by simple bells, or a single plucked note repeated over and over. Near the end, the vocals are soaring, and the tones have become long buzzing streaks, with plenty of spacey echo and strange damaged FX, it's hard to hear this and not wonder where in the hell Sunburned Hand and No Neck get off, these guys were creating the same sort of primitive primeval sounds, nearly 4 decades earlier, and with so much more depth and emotion. The fact that a music so minimal and abstract can be so utterly moving is testament to the Travellers' unparalleled skill.
Disc two is much less low end rumble, and more a dizzying swirl of strange sonic events, here the horns are in full affect, sounding like a herd of alien elephants, moaning and bleating, the tones stretched out and draped across all manner of lower register rumbles and whirs. Percussion surfacing now and again like an angry rattlesnake roused from a midday nap, or a swirling cloud of tiny buzzing insects. Vocals drift in and out, shamanistic and chant like, moaning out strange melodies, mostly low and throaty but sometimes like curious feline mewling, all intertwined with the various other drawn out sounds. An incredibly intense organic ritual, purified by its intransitive nature, the improvisation guaranteeing that each performance belonged to the time and the place as much as the players. Absolutely and utterly breathtaking.
Absolutely essential, and probably more recommended than nearly any record we've ever reviewed!
In the AQ canon of all time essential artists, of groups who have shaped all the music that followed in their wake, somewhere very near the top spot would be Japan's Taj Mahal Travellers. This sprawling seventies psych drone unit led by Fluxus legend Takehisa Kosugi, were crafting gorgeous abstract drone drenched ambience long before most of the current crop of dronesters were even born.
The Taj Mahal Travellers were masters of the organic, of vibration, texture, timbre, utilizing bowed cymbals, violins, loudspeakers, tape loops and all sorts of unique source material, this collective created some of the most enduring and unique psychedelic music ever recorded. Their music and performances were the physical embodiment of a philosophy, a way of life more than just simple 'playing music.'
It's hard to imagine the Skaters or Birchville Cat Motel or the Yellow Swans or even Wolf Eyes without the Taj Mahal Travellers. Often referred to by the press as "La Monte Young on acid", in a review of another, unfortunately out of print TMT album, we described their sound as "epic higher key improvised drone extravaganzas performed on beaches, deserted hills in Sweden, India, Iran and England. Slow, complex, irregular throbbing waves of sound, broadcast through distant loudspeakers and recaptured and reincorporated into the sound. Feedback, time-space lag, echo machines, and primitive handmade electronic devices all contribute to the ever shifting clouds of sound."
The music of the Taj Mahal Travellers thought is stubbornly indescribable. No words can possibly do justice to the spirits they were able to invoke, the atmosphere they were able to create, dark and dense and mysterious and ominous, but at the same time beautiful and brilliant and epic and spacious.
This double cd features nearly 100 minutes of improvised droning captured live in Stockholm, Sweden in 1971, the group run stand-up bass, tuba, trumpet. select percussion, violin, flutes, mandolin, harmonica and synthesizer through primitive tape loops and delay effects for an awesome ritualistic performance, predating the likes of Zoviet France and about a million others by decades!
The live sound is just as amazing as their records, which makes sense since their albums were essentially documents of live aktions.
The first disc is a single nearly hour long low end ritual, strings buzz and reverberate, as do voices, and bits of bowed metals, all beating against each other and creating all manner of cosmic vibrations, all accompanied by simple bells, or a single plucked note repeated over and over. Near the end, the vocals are soaring, and the tones have become long buzzing streaks, with plenty of spacey echo and strange damaged FX, it's hard to hear this and not wonder where in the hell Sunburned Hand and No Neck get off, these guys were creating the same sort of primitive primeval sounds, nearly 4 decades earlier, and with so much more depth and emotion. The fact that a music so minimal and abstract can be so utterly moving is testament to the Travellers' unparalleled skill.
Disc two is much less low end rumble, and more a dizzying swirl of strange sonic events, here the horns are in full affect, sounding like a herd of alien elephants, moaning and bleating, the tones stretched out and draped across all manner of lower register rumbles and whirs. Percussion surfacing now and again like an angry rattlesnake roused from a midday nap, or a swirling cloud of tiny buzzing insects. Vocals drift in and out, shamanistic and chant like, moaning out strange melodies, mostly low and throaty but sometimes like curious feline mewling, all intertwined with the various other drawn out sounds. An incredibly intense organic ritual, purified by it's intransitive nature, the improvisation guaranteeing that each performance belonged to the time and the place as much as the players. Absolutely and utterly breathtaking.
A really nice reissue of this long out of print two disc set, with liner notes, a history of the band, the story of this recording as well as amazing photos. Not sure how long we'll be able to keep these in stock, so please be patient if we run out, and it takes us a while to track down more.
Absolutely essential, and probably more recommended that nearly any record we've ever reviewed!
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.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The packaging here is real nice and maybe should be mentioned even before the music: the cd is nestled between two white cards screenprinted in silver-and-black with someone's intricate, abstract artwork (a fine-lined tangle of grass? or bones?). These cards and cd come in a plastic sleeve, inserted into a slot in a slender wooden box. The box is itself painted/printed in dark grey and white with identical artwork. Yup, very nice! This is a limited edition, of course.
What manner of music is deserving of such special packaging? Well, Japan's Ikuro Takahashi is a percussionist who has played in or with all sorts of amazing bands from the Tokyo psych-rock underground, including Fushitsusha, High Rise, Kosukuya, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Nagisa Ni Te, Overhang Party and LSD-march. As a solo music-maker, though, he also experiments with electronics. So this release is quite different from most of those bands, though sharing a "darkness" that several of them possess! Domori To Sanshu consists of two long tracks (27 and 31 minutes apiece), one of 'em live, the other rendered on a computer. The live track comes first, immersing you in what (you might imagine) could be the night sounds from outside a rural temple...a high-pitched insectoid flutter and hum, in fact produced by the keening of Ikuro's oscillators and electronic effects. Subtle and strange. Eventually the echoing rattle and clatter of percussion enters the sound-field, but emptiness and hum are still the main attraction. This track builds in drone-ful intensity, with long notes drawn out into abstract mystery. Abstraction that continues with additional density on the second, computer-composed track, which is basically one seemly unchanging but in truth slowly undulating drone... both cuts provide some serious meditative 'music' for drone-heads to get lost in.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Tabletop guitar noise from the legendary late Japanese jazz guitar god, recorded 1985.
We have precisely ONE of these (although, we may be able to order more, eventually). So no big review, you (YOU?) either want this or you don't, several hours of archival live performances full of squealing, squeaking, squalling skronk by this Japanese improv jazz guitar legend and his New Direction Unit from the late '70s. Five separate shows, on five cds in individual slimline jewel cases packaged in a plastic sleeve/box with booklet (in Japanese): Regular Concert no.35 1977.6.2, Regular Concert no.36 1977.8.4, Another Situation First Concert 1977.9.4, Regular Concert no.39 1978.2.10, and Regular Concert no.43 1978.10.6, to use the formulations they do. Not sure what's so "Regular" about these concerts, exactly... Most of the discs/concerts consist of 2-5 lengthy pieces, the NDU improvising in various instrumental combinations, Takayanagi playing electric guitar or "gut guitar" (acoustic), others in the outfit variously on flute, clarinet, saxophone, bass, percussion. Sometimes it's the full ensemble, sometimes trios, duos, few solo tracks too. Obviously if you're a Takayanagi fan, and only if you're a Takayanagi fan, you just might be interested in this, to get some more "Mass Projection" into your life. "Gradually Projection" too! Good stuff as you'd expect, from quiet textural moodiness to utter gurgling frenzy.
Limited edition of 500 copies. And, the one we have happens to come shrinkwrapped with a free bonus dvd disc, footage of Takayanagi performing in Tokyo, 1990. (Any further copies we might order, if we even can, won't have that.)
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.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
