Just as we expected, and certainly hoped, the fact that the Phoenix label reissued the freaky '70s Japanese psych artifact by Karuna Khyal (their album Alomoni 1985, highlighted here a few lists ago) meant that Brast Burn and their lone album Debon from 1975 was sure to follow. And now here it its, another rare record originally released on the extremely underground Voice label, the work of a mysterious avant-psych entity that may or may not have shared more of less the same membership as Karuna Khyal. Very similar to that band's record, this one also consists of two sprawling side-long tracks, that seem designed to demonstrate that Japanese hippies can could play primal "krautrock" too. Both tracks situate fairly mellow grooves amidst droning, heavily effected weirdness, with vocal chanting, ceremonial hand percussion, acid rock guitar spew, raw flute soloing, tape manipulated field recordings, rumbling drums, buzzing electronics, Twilight Zone melodies, and other good stuff making significant appearances in the freeform stew... it's very "Eastern", quite insane, and totally enjoyable.
If you liked the Karuna Khyal, you'll like this too. Also any fan of Acid Mothers Temple, Ghost, or other modern day Japanese psych would be remiss not check this out, we'd be surprised if it wasn't to be found in Kawabata Makoto and Masaki Batoh's record collections. Furthermore, without even checking, we're pretty sure this is the sort of thing that must be on the famous Nurse With Wound "list"... ok, we looked, it's there! Of course. And speaking of lists, it's #26 on Julian Cope's Japrocksampler Top 50, by the way (the Karuna Khyal was #19).
In the usual "wallet" style Phoenix cd packaging, limited to 1000 numbered copies.
Year 2000 improv meeting betwixt European free-jazz titan Brotzmann (reeds) and Japanese improv veterans Haino (guitar) and Hano (percussion).
To fans of energetic-improv-free-jazz-type music, neither of these guys should need an introduction. (If you DO need an introduction, there's probably other discs that would be better to start with.) Drummer Hano and sax-blaster Brotzmann have collaborated on many occasions -- this newly-released recording actually dates from 1991, it's a full concert from a live tour the duo did in Japan that year, previously only released on cassette by Hano. 72 wailin' minutes, turbulent yet elegant.
Kudos to Shadoks for searching this one out! We'd never have heard it otherwise, and we're glad we did. Dude from early '70s Japanese psychedelic proto-metallers Flied Egg (who sounded a bit like Blue Cheer, and recorded for Vertigo!), by the name of Masayoshi Takanaka, made his recording debut in 1971 (yup) with this rare rare rare album of underground hippy conceptual weirdness, called Brush!? (punctuation theirs, but deserved). Quite a few other Japanese psych scenesters of the day participated as well. Results? There's some truly freaked out shit here, and some really lovely, folky parts too. It's an eclectic mix of the following ingredients, and more: acid fuzz guitar rockin', atonal electronic experiments, gentle pop grandeur, organ drones, raga-like jamming, avantgarde piano improv, Velvets/Dylan balladry, and West Coast/Woodstock Nation psych. In other words, all over the place, and pretty darn tripped out!! Hearing reissues of interesting '70s Japanese psych acts like Brush!?, Flied Egg, Far Out, Foodbrain, Strawberry Path, Les Rallizes Denudes, etc. etc. it's clear that all the great psychedelic underground outfits active in Japan today, from Acid Mothers Temple to LSD-march to Green Milk From The Planet Orange to (of course) the Boredoms, are keeping alive a grand tradition begun some 30+ years ago!
Includes 20 page cd booklet full of all kinds of cool photos and drawings and lyrics (many of 'em in English). Seriously, we're pretty sure that if you could just take one look inside this cd booklet, you'd want to hear the album! On one of the tracks, in addition to musician credits for sitar and tabura [sic], we see this: "Lafing [sic]: Elf, Fairly [sic], Goblin." and "Effects: Crow, Raven, Fowl, Triton." WTF?? The song titles are good too: "All Most Cut Your Hair (including) I Did Cut My Hair", "Die A Dog's Death (In Vain)", and "Tomb Stone".
When we first heard about this, we had to check the calendar to make sure the release date wasn't April 1st. But no, this is real, the latest collaborative project undertaken by everyone's favorite Japanese psychedelic heavy rockers, Boris, wherein they team up with, yes, Ian Astbury of The Cult!! Seems like something out of an episode of Ripley's Believe It Or Not, does it not? Well believe it. BXI is Boris + Ian (or times Ian?), and the disc's blatant/redundant title makes the concept plain.
So... what do we think? Well what do YOU think? Basically, a lot depends on A) what you think of Ian's singing, which may or may not depend on how big of a Cult fan you are or once were, and B) how much of a hardcore devoted Boris fanboy (or girl) you are. If you like everything Boris and/or Ian Astbury, then this is for you. Otherwise, maybe check out the sound samples before reflexively "adding to cart" just 'cause it's a Boris (related) release.
This 20 minute, 4 track ep includes 3 songs newly written by the BXI unit, plus a version of The Cult's "Rain", from their 1985 album Love, sung by Boris guitarist Wata. The fairly dynamic first track, "Teeth And Claws", finds Astbury wailing about how "animals will save us... yeah, yeah they will, yeah they will, yes they will" over some sub-grunge, big-beat, quasi-heavy quasi-psych that wouldn't sound out of place on most modern rock stations. The next song, "We Are Witches", is much "tougher" and more metallic, with chunky distorted guitar chug. After that, comes "Rain", which is the best cut here in our opinion. Wata's gentle, dreamy vocals are a nice change from Astbury's overwrought rock dude yowl, and guest guitarist Michio Kurihara's stinging acid rock leads are glorious. Though, if they'd chosen to cover "Love Removal Machine" we'd have been into it too... The finale, "Magickal Child" is slow and majestic, with Astbury being dramatic but not ridiculous. Still, it's the closest Boris has ever come to U2 territory, that's all. Kurihara also plays guitar on this track too, again a plus. It's kinda funny he's on this disc with Astbury, in a six-degrees of separation way, since Kurihara was a member of Tokyo retro psych act White Heaven, who sounded a lot like The Doors, whose frontman Jim Morrison was of course famously portrayed by Val Kilmer in a movie, wait no that's not it, it's that The surviving Doors recently toured with Ian "The Lizard King II" Astbury as their singer, didn't they?
Really, not bad as long as you don't hate Astbury. But also, not what we were hoping for (well, had we ever envisioned this collaboration in the first place). Boris definitely seems to be meeting Astbury much more than halfway here, this coming off more like Astbury with Boris as a backing band (or Boris paying tribute to him for some reason) than Boris doing some weird and heavy Boris thing and then making it weirder by having the guy from The Cult sing on it. Oh well, we'll admit we're Boris (and/or Cult) fans enough to pick this up just for "Rain" alone, and then can enjoy the other tracks to varying degrees, or not...
NB. vinyl coming soon (within a couple weeks).
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Woah. Only previously available in the form of expensive Japanese imports, this is the first time we've been able to stock and list this amazing album, and we've wanted to for a long time. It's one that anyone into weird heavy '70s psych / prog, particularly of the Japanese variety, should add to their collections posthaste. Seriously. You perhaps have heard of J.A. Caesar (variously, J.A. Seazer, J.A. Ceaser), a Tokyo based playwright and composer, responsible for many wild, psychedelic theatrical productions that we can only imagine were utterly mindblowing to witness, judging by their soundtracks. This disc, reissuing a 1973 record, contains the highlights of his dramatic score for a 5-hour play called Kokkyou Junreika, here about 54 minutes of music. And it's an intense 54 minutes, this album being the best, and heaviest, J.A. Caesar release we've heard, with ceremonial-sounding Buddhist chant and fuzzed out guitars and doomy organ and heavy riffs and moody female vocals out the wazoo. Wow. Magical Power Mako meets Magma would be one good (if potentially puzzling) description. Or perhaps imagine Flower Travellin' Band participating in a freaked out rock opera / ritual, with the fate of mankind hanging in the balance. For krautrockier comparisons, Amon Duul II and Necronomicon are obvious ones, and should suffice as an excellent recommendation. Another would be that this album was highly rated by Julian Cope in his Japrocksampler book (ranking at number 5 of his top 50). This reissue says it's remastered, and is limited and numbered to boot, packaged in a gatefold sleeve.
By the way, one of the tracks here was later covered by druggy doomsters Solar Anus, you can hear it on their tUMULt double disc, Skull Alcoholic...
Halation is the debut release from Japanese dronologist Hiroshi Tanaka, aka Capricornus, and is two tracks and 41 minutes of gorgeously minimal, hazy, gauzy, ethereal, free floating, hushed ambient drift. Long tones are layered into gently undulating sonic swells woven into a blurred, meditative new age, melodies playing out over minutes instead of seconds, the overtones, creating subtly kaleidoscopic shades amidst the glacially unfolding drowsy tranquility, occasionally what sounds like guitars surface, but all the edges are worn away, transforming the chordal steel string whir into yet another layer of soft sound. The second track is a bit more moody, slightly darker, the sounds interacting similarly, muted and murmuring, drifting dreamily, but the tones have a melancholic cast, as if clouds had drifted over the opening track, still warm and lush and dreamlike, but more rainy day than sun dappled summer afternoon. Both equally lovely, a fantastic debut of washed out ambient dreamdronedrift.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
The adorable Acid Mothers Temple chanteuse steps out all on her own with this truly solo album (no guests, no sidemen). It's got a bold title, but hey, who doesn't love Cotton? Rather than try to demonstrate that she can match the mothership's psychedelic overload freakout intensity all by herself, she veers off into a more intimate, personal realm of J-pop inflected, melodic voice-and-synth tunesmithery. It's airy and breathy and embellished with the quietly burbling and swooshing sci-fi keyboard sounds she wields so effectively in AMT. Definitely very different from the general run of Acid Mothers side projects, that's for sure! Recommended, if you're in the mood for some gently psychedelic, spacy pop with a wistful feel and exotic ambience.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Six tracks in seventeen minutes from Japan's mysterious Cavo, who just happen to be labelmates of the amazing (and amazingly monickered) Bathtub Shitter, and feature a member of Corrupted! The first two tracks are a bit misleading, a hazy pagan ritual of gutteral almost-throat singing, temple bells and slow chants. Reminds us a bit of Ghost or Comus. But the ritual quickly grow in intensity until it's a chaotic swirl of tribal drums, shouted vocals, sludgy low end, repetitive riffs, and thick viscous ambience. Like a primitive mix of the Boredoms and Crash Worship. The tribal melee continues, interrupted briefly with one more ambient interlude, all low end rumble and groaning vocalisations, sounding like Keiji Haino with strep throat fronting Earth. Toward the end of the record the sludge coalesces into a weirdly catchy Viking style sing-a-long, lots of WOOOAH OOH OHHH's until things wind down in a truly creepy ritual of spoken female vocals, clapping, manic chanting, shouts, screams and whistles. Comus meets the Boredoms? The Wickerman performed by Corrupted? Boris covers the Incredible String Band? More amazing and baffling Japanese weirdness!
Dude from Speed Glue & Shinki goes solo circa '72 or so...great dumb Japanese stoner psych heaviness like his main band.
(From recent Forced Exposure update penned by the solemn J. Johnson): PSF debut by Chisato Yamada, the godfather of Tsugaru Jamisen (the traditional three-stringed folk instrument from the north of Japan -- also played by Zorn hero Michihiro Sato). Here Yamada's amazingly vibrant, percussive attack and spirit power are featured in two avant settings. Two tracks recorded late last year feature Keiji Haino on guitar and percussion, amply fulfilling Kan Mikami's prediction that these two masters would create create a fuckin' immense music if they ever met. The other three tracks are a suite for contemporary flute/percussion trio and tsugaru-jamisen, composed by Ken'ei Sasamori, recorded in 1978 and promptly lost for the next 17 years. Yamada is a true out-on-the-edge innovator, and these classic recordings prove that his experimental leanings have a long history. Yamada's age (he's now in his sixties) has only served to increase his unique power and authority. An essential, and too little known voice!
One of aQ's all-time steady-sellers is definitely the debut cd on Alchemy from Japanese super-psychedelic-space-synth instrumental groove outfit Christine 23 Onna, entitled Shiny Crystal Planet. It's been a big fave around here ever since we reviewed it on list #103 back in 2000. A duo featuring Maso Yamazaki (Masonna, Space Machine, Acid Eater) and Fusao Toda (Angel 'In Heavy Syrup), the wild analog electronics of Christine 23 Onna are a retro-delic delight. In 2002, as part of a special Maso Yamazaki "15th Anniversary Freakout Triplex" series (which also included a disc each from Masonna and Space Machine), Christine 23 Onna released their second album, Acid Eater (not to be confused with Maso's freakbeat garage band of the same name). It had ten new, energetic tracks with titles like "Acid Now!" and "Space Mondo Topless". We totally wanted to get some for the store, but had no luck at all finding import copies at any sort of reasonable wholesale price...
Well at long last we've finally got some -- and yeah, it's still pretty expensive. But that's Japanese imports for you. We trust that any fan of Shiny Crystal Planet cd would want this though, it's another monstrous onslaught of swirling '60s styled go-go disco and krautrocky kitsch, awash in FX, drenched in distortion, to the point that some of this is spaced-out enough to sound like Hawkwind and Klaus Schulze together playing funk at a LSD-party hosted by the Vampyros Lesbos and Austin Powers!! Or imagine taking tracks from one of the best old "library music" comps and running 'em all through a mad-scientist's laboratory full of synths! From fun and freaky dancefloor numbers to totally out there sci-fi soundtrackiness, we're lovin' this. Play it LOUD.
NB. We've also got the other two cds in the Freakout Triplex, and will be reviewing those soon too!
Christine 23 Onna is a collaborative effort between Fusao Toda and Maso Yamazaki, better known as Masonna. While the presence of one of Japan's most frightening noisicians should be enough the scare away all of the too-hip-and-too-stoned kids who only care about 'rare grooves,' Christine 23 Onna's "Shiny Chrystal Planet" is actually a pretty damn funky record. Yeah, it's noisy, but in a swirling, synth-overload, super psychedelic way, not like Masonna's usual electronic scream-skree. And really uptempo breakbeats set the rhythmic backbone for some awesome trance-rock much like the latest grooves from their countrymen the Boredoms (a la "Super Are" and "Vision Creation Newsun)". The phase shifting fuzz guitar and cosmic space dusted synthesizers get jammy, but fortunately never too wanky. Those of you familiar with the '60s spy thrillers of Jerry Van Rooyen may recognize one of his tempestous songs covered by Christine 23 Onna (we think we do, anyways, although it's not credited as such...). Wild, spacey groov-adelia. All around great stuff! Amazing cover art recreating Ash Ra Temple's "New Age Of Earth"!
Fans of Japanese noise master Masonna might not be aware that he's fully into 70's cosmic rock music. This 12" is the proof, as "Maso" Yamazaki and friend pay homage to their krautrock faves of yore. There's even a track called "Space Hippie." Really great ambient/psych weirdness, and handsomely presented, from the colorful cover to the transparent blood-shot-cotton-candy colored vinyl, resplendent in a clear plastic sleeve.
Split cd from AQ faves Circle and Japan's Marble Sheep, recorded in 1996 (Circle) and 1989 (Marble Sheep) and released 1998. Circle contribute a stellar live set of their perfect cyclical drone rock including a haunting and breathtaking cover version of
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
This underground Japanese band surprised and delighted us with this crazy fuzzed-out stoner-rock meets grind metal release. Clotted Symmetric Sexual Organ (let's just call 'em CSSO) really kick 'em out, wallowing in total wahwah-happy heavy psych guitar overdrive. It's wild and distorted and super-energetic, a blend of '60s garage, '70s hard rock, and '90s noise-thrash. Forget Acid Mothers Temple, this is the real Japanese freak-beat! Indeed, CSSO could learn Kawabata Makoto a thing or two about over-the-top motorpsycho guitar. Imagine AMT or High Rise with a garagey Guitar Wolf edge, going nuts with that style of psychedelic freakout, then breaking into a speedy grind part with blast beats and cookie monster vocals! It's like a weird, wonderful mix of The Groundhogs and Napalm Death or something. When CSSO's stoner/grind rock attack isn't going full-tilt they throw in spacey sections of shoegazing drone tones, trippy electronics, and other cosmic krautrock inspired soundz -- sometimes sheer, blissful noise. Then it's back to the catchy rockin' stuff, like Hendrix gone grind. Like AMT or the Boredoms, they can be quite playful and confounding -- for instance, one song features what might be the world's longest fade-in, it's two minutes before you can really hear anything at all!
Partially 'cause this was so unexpected (we thought they might be a good but generic grindcore band) but also because it's so great, this just totally blew us away. A new favorite in the long line of genre-bending, rule-defying bands from Japan (Boredoms, Melt Banana, Boris, et. al.), and thus highly recommended!
All female drums/bass duo from Japan who tend to rock out more than they prog out (i.e. closer to godheadSilo territory than Ruins). Super distorted bass, heavy drumming, very harsh vocals - it's no surprise that these girls cover an Unsane tune (or that they're named Eddie and Bill...?)
Something we ordered, like 5 years ago from Japan. Never listed it. Just found we have a couple copies in the closet. That's right, TWO copies! But wait, don't get too excited. This isn't THE Coil. Nope, not the British industrial duo. This Coil is a Japanese band, led by guitarist Kido Natsuki, whom you might know as a member of Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida's ultra-tech Korekoyjinn unit. Kido was also integral to Magmoid proggers Bondage Fruit, and in the band Black Stage with Keiji Haino, amongst other musical endeavors. Like Korekojinn, Coil is a power trio, and all-instrumental. But, well, while they're certainly proggy and mathy and technically accomplished, they're also kinda, um, well, funky! As in funk music. Or at least, fusion. So check out the sound samples if you're curious.
One of the best album covers ever, for the Flower Travellin' Band's 1970 debut LP Anywhere, a photo of that band as naked Japanese hippy freak outlaw bikers ridin' free, adorns the cover of this book. Good choice! If that doesn't look cool to you, you don't need this volume. If it does, then queue up! The subtitle: "How The Post-War Japanese Blew Their Minds On Rock 'N' Roll" is perfectly illustrated by that cover picture.
Let's back up, though. British author Julian Cope, originally best-known as something of a rock star (with The Teardrop Explodes in the '80s and his subsequent solo career) has also long been entertaining and informing us all as a writer, an expert on the heavy and the ancient: both the stone circles of Megalithic Europe, and the stoned rock n' roll of the psychedelic/progressive variety, yesterday and today. His happenin' website, Head Heritage (www.headheritage.co.uk) should be bookmarked by everyone who looks at OUR site. Way back when, over a decade ago, Julian Cope published a slim little paperback volume called the Krautrocksampler, one fan's obsessive, opinionated look back at the wondrous krautrock scene of the '70s. If you've got one, you're lucky, they're out of print and hard to come by these days, going for $$$ on eBay (er, anyone with a spare copy, please contact Allan at the store, he foolishly never bought it when we used to sell 'em and has regretted it ever since, maybe we can work out a deal...). Another reason to pick up this new Japrocksampler while you can!
It's about the same approximate dimensions as the Krautrocksampler, but thicker (over 300 pages!) and hardcover, with color plates depicting various rare album covers in the center of the book, and black and white graphics throughout. Nicely done, the paper stock and binding bringing back memories of a particular type of book we used to have in school.
And, as you have probably figured out, it's the Japanese '70s rock companion to Cope's krautrock treatise. But because the Japanese underground music scene of the same era is comparatively a lot more obscure over here in the West, Cope had to do a lot more in-depth research to give us all a real history lesson, starting off all the way back in the aftermath of WWII. Moving forward, he devotes much attention to the experimental composers of the sixties, like Toshi Ichiyanagi, and (for a time) his wife, Yoko Ono. All sorts of radical "actions" and conceptual sound art get their due. Other early chapters include include investigations of the homegrown "Eleki" scene (Japanese surf music, sort of) and the "Group Sounds" phenomenon (Japan's reaction to the British Invasion). Then Heavy Rock hits, with freaks and festivals, and Cope digs with utmost detail into the behind-the-music stories of such artists as cover stars Flower Travellin Band, Speed, Glue & Shinki, and, perhaps most crucially ('cause they're so mysterious and influential), Les Rallizes Denudes. In all cases, he reveals lots of stuff we didn't know. Regarding Les Rallizes, ferinstance, apparently their original bass player was involved in a JAL jetliner highjacking back in 1970, which lead to innocent Rallizes leader Takeshi Mizutani being trailed by CIA agents, which may help explain his legendary reclusiveness!
The Japrocksampler also provides plenty of info about important intersection between the avant-garde theater scene and rock n' roll in the early '70s, with a chapter on the brilliant J.A. Caesar. There's also pages and pages on the Taj Mahal Travellers, Far East Family Band, the Tokyo Kid Brothers, and much much more. It's exhaustive, impressively connecting all kinds of dots. Probably equally obsessed fanboys will have facts to check and nits to pick (we're thinking of our pal JW in particular) but really, where else are you gonna find all this info in English?? And so entertainingly written? Nowhere. Anyone who's read the Krautrocksampler, or visited Head Heritage, knows that Cope's got a knack for writing that's both enthused and erudite, a bit like Lester Bangs with footnotes. You don't even really have to know (or have heard) what he's talking about to fall under his spell, which is helpful 'cause the one big drawback to reading the Japrocksampler is the frustration most folks are gonna have trying to track down and listen to a lot of the music being discussed. We do our best to stock a good selection of '70s Japanese psych/prog/experimental reissues, whatever we can get by bands like the Taj Mahal Travellers and Flower Travellin' Band, but even we had to cry when looking over the section of the book devoted to lengthy reviews of Cope's top 50 favorite Japrock albums. Some we've got, others... someday we hope! Maybe this book will spur some more reissue action.
Can't come up with too many criticisms, other than that he slams some records we like (Foodbrain!), seemingly omits Flied Egg, and we guess we're not sure exactly how politically correct the term "Japrock" is, though it's not any worse than saying "krautrock" when you think about it...
Basically, this is a fascinating read for anyone curious about the effects of rock n' roll on the artsy underbelly of an "alien" culture. A must have if you're already into this stuff, of course, but also totally recommended if you're just a little bit curious about this "secret history" 'cause of being exposed to all the wild, freaky sounds currently being made in Japan by bands like the Boredoms, Boris, and Acid Mothers Temple.
A lot has changed since we first listed Paso Inferior nearly a decade ago. Here's our very short review from way back then:
"Japanese crust-sludge band, super slow, super heavy. Their new disc. Some facts: 1) they just toured the States. 2) their lyrics are all sung in Spanish. 3) the drummer used to be in Omoide Hatoba, Boredoms guitarist Yamamoto's weird jazz/pop project, but he quit when Omoide signed to a major. 4) this album features only one song, it's 40+ minutes long... Great vegging-out music for fans of Earth, Sleep, Eyehategod, Swans, etc."
Well, all of that stuff still applies for sure, but this is not, as we thought, a vinyl reissue of the original cd. Instead this is a rerecorded version of Paso Inferior, recorded in 2002, utilizing the same themes and melodies, but a whole new song, the A side sonically similar to the original, the B side, a droney blissed out drift, which is in fact an 'ambient version' of the original Paso Inferior!!
Since the original release, the group has released several more records, each slower and more epic than the last, even incorporating piano and acoustic guitar. And you can hear that in the reimagined Paso. Their appeal spread way beyond the punk rockers and hardcore kids who held them so beloved. Metalheads are Corrupted obsessed nowadays, as are the new breed of dronedirgedoom fanatics. But back in the Paso Inferior days, they were the underground kings of sludge, sharing splits with pretty much every power violence band that was up for it. A band that was spoken of in hushed reverent tones, but whose actual recorded output, included only a single full length, Paso Inferior.
The spirit and power of the original are definitely present, but the sound is better, heavier, and weirdly pretty in that way only Corrupted seem to be able to pull off.
One sidelong doomsludge crawl, the guitars black and viscous, the track laced with squealing washed out feedback, the vocals a growled gurgle, the drums a loping lumbering pound, recent talk of a single 3 hour song don't seem at all far fetched when listening to the reimgined Paso Inferior, there's something magical and mysterious about the music of Corrupted, no matter how slow or sludgey or stripped down, it never gets boring, it sucks you in and soothes your spirit, while it crashes and pummels, mesmerizing, hypnotic, so heavy, but weirdly transcendental.
The other half of the new Paso Inferior is another sidelong epic, this one dark and ambient, all shimmery drones, haunting melodies, mysterious voices, a dreamy drift rife with long tones, layered chords, but all muted and blurred and stretched into something more dark and lovely than grim and ominous, perfectly balancing the sludgey sprawl on the flipside.
All new artwork to go with the music, black on black, shiny on matte, the band logo and flames or drips or streaks of some kind, inside a printed insert, pressed on nice thick vinyl, and of course CRAZY limited. In fact pretty sure this is out of print now and we might be one of the only places with copies. Which means, as always, these will go FAST.
Sadly, the legendary Japanese label HG Fact, longtime home to sludgelords Corrupted, closed up shop recently, rendering loads of amazing records gone for good, but Corrupted managed to acquire a handful of remaining copies of this otherwise out of print doom/sludge classic, and we got as many as we could from them - not many. So this is indeed available again, for what we're guessing will be a very, very limited time...
Here's our review from way back in 2004 when we first listed Se Hace Por Los Suenos Asesinos (and back when Boris were still a doom/sludge band as well):
It's time.
Be afraid.
Very afraid.
Or if you're a typical AQ customer and love your rock music glacier slow, tarpit thick and skull crushingly heavy, well then, in that case there's nothing to be afraid of!
Everyone may quake and tremble when the mighty Boris unleash a new slab of black hole mega dense heaviosity. And rightfully so. Few can keep up when it comes to slow motion riffage, tectonic pummel and massive planet destroying rock. But there is another....one who came before....one who resurfaces occasionally....to remind the world that this sleeping behemoth can rise at anytime and raze all that dare proclaim themselves HEAVY. That beast...is known as... the Corrupted. One of the few bands in Japan, nay the WORLD, that can go toe to toe with Boris and hope to survive, perhaps even triumph. Some of you may remember Corrupted's massive two disc set Llenandose de Gusanos, from 3 or 4 years back, one disc of minimal drones, one disc of crushing sonic sludge (and piano). Maybe the finest document of death/doom/drone/sludge ever recorded - except perhaps for the rumoured-to-exist triple disc (!) SINGLE SONG (!!) Corrupted epic that has yet to surface. But for now, we'll have to be happy with this new 35 minute monster. The disc opens with a 17 minute ambient folk dirge, just acoustic guitar and harshly whispered/grunted vocals. In Spanish (as always) and rumblingly hypnotic. Like a ultra grim, creepily acoustic Neurosis, all stripped down and stretched out. Never imagined just a voice and an acoustic guitar could be so fucking scary, but for almost twenty minutes, the low end folk sludge stretches on seemingly forever, narcoticizing and mesmerizing, before the second track drops like a ton of lead Marshall stacks. Massively loud and perplexingly heavy, HUGE slabs of downtuned guitars pour molten riffs down your willing throat, filling you with black tar melodies, jagged limb smashing drumming, and bass so low it seems to loosen the earth's crust around you. The final track picks up the pace, to barely midtempo, but certainly a breakneck speed for a lumbering behemoth like the Corrupted. Drummer Chew (formerly of Omoide Hatoba) gets to go all Animal on this track, smashing everything within reach, the only thing keeping him behind the kit is the impenetratable wall of mile-thick ocean-deep sonic sludge, like pouring a bucket of hot molasses on a porcupine. Or dropping a sea anenome in a vat of hot glue, or like listening to Black Sabbath with your ears full of mud. Where Boris is channelling all sort of seventies rock, and stoner riffage, albeit through their own slow motion filter, Corrupted are just really fucking scary. A huge uncontainable, slithering, squirming, unstoppable, slow-motion, crusty metallic black hole.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
3 songs in 20 minutes of festering brutal heavy sludgecore 'sung' in Spanish by this band from Osaka. Features Chew, ex-Omoide Hatoba on tambor/drums.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Japanese heavy psych supergroup, with Masaki Batoh and other Ghosts, guitarist Michio Kurihara of White Heaven/Ghost, and ex-Subvert Blaze drummer Okano.
Click, zap, bleep. Japanese miminalist electronic experimental music alert! The lovely cover art of this disc conceals some mighty difficult music. "Tears" consists of three long tracks from the duo of Sachiko M and Ami Yoshida. Sachiko M's "empty" tone generating sampler you've heard before, wreaking havoc (in a pure, Zen-like way) both solo and in collaboration with others, quite often with Otomo Yoshihide in such outfits as I.S.O., Filament, and Ground Zero. She's also a member of the electronic avant-pop trio Hoahio. In Cosmos, she's teamed up with Ami Yoshida, another Otomo collaborator, whose instrument is more ancient: her own voice. Of course, these are some quite abstract vocalizations indeed, rivaling the extremity of sound that Sachiko coaxes from the pulsing, piercing sine-waves of her electronics. Track one starts in with the fluttering, dog-whistle sampler sounds of Sachiko, in a strange duet with the kissy-kissy squeals and dying, whispery retching of Yoshida. Random machine bleeps punctuate the slowly unfolding action. It's like something's gone very very wrong in the hospital ward. The noise isn't enough to attract the doctors, however. By track two, you're wondering if Yoshida isn't actually employing a rubber balloon to make all her bizarre noises. But maybe that's Sachiko, who on this track is experimenting with contact mics. Track three was our favorite, with Sachiko's Ryoji Ikeda -like purrs and pulses coming to the fore, in a crinkly, calm cacophony of clicks and silence. Well, it might seem quiet, but try turning it up, we dare you.
Yep, noisy!
Fans of freaky free improv exploration, particularily skronk of Japanese origin, may remember a disc a called Dare Devil released some years back featuring saxophonist Peter Brotzman and drummer Shoji Hano. Jazz drummer Hano -- who has also played in 'rock' contexts with Mainliner and Keiji Haino -- reactivated the Dare Devil name for this new PSF project, for which he's enlisted the talents of Mainliner and Acid Mothers Temple guitarist Makoto Kawabata (no chance of an Aquarius list going by without at least one or two appearances somewhere by ol' Kawabata!) and bassist/vocalist Atsushi Tsuyama (also of AMT, Omoide Hatoba, Akaten, and many others). Together, the trio stir up a mess o' psychedelic improv trouble, a bit along the lines of Musica Transonic. Freeform skronk chaos, very "out" there indeed. AMT fans will feel at home, and Tsuyama's unusual vocals give this a silliness factor that much clattery free improv lacks. Meanwhile Kawabata's guitar spazzes endlessly, almost Ginn-like, and Hano provides a strong, propulsive foundation.
Nice packaging, btw, in a gatefold mini-LP styled cd sleeve.
The Dark Revolution Collective was the first musical group formed by Kawabata Makoto, who has since earned considerable notoriety in the incredibly prolific Acid Mother's Temple. Recorded back in 1978, Kawabata with Tetsushi Kawagishi and Yasuo Iwaki had no
While these recordings are not as good as the recent flurry of AMT activities, you should realise that the mean age of the Dark Revolution Collective at the time of this recording was 13!!! Some of the Acid Mothers Temple freaks here think it's worth it, yet also some of us think you could save your money and get Andee's upcoming tUMULt label AMT picture disc "41st Century Splendid Man" instead.
Not sure how many of you know the Japanese punk band Crow, a kick ass crusty Amebix style crew. Who would have thought that underneath all that leather and denim and spikes lurked a bona fide spaced out, drugged out, hippified psychedelic space rock band. Certainly not us. But here we are, with record number two from Death Comes Along. Not sure how we managed to miss the first one, cuz this one is a killer. Another one of those records that we were basically sold on before we even heard it. The front cover features a photo of a greying-haired Japanese hippy / rocker with a big old medallion and a sparkly flowered shirt. The back side features purple, scythe wielding ghostly grim reapers, on a pink background. Then there's the inset photos of the rest of the band, all appropriately long haired and surly, and song titles like "Death Death Death", "Children Of The Death", and of course "Psychedelic Inferno I", "Psychedelic Inferno II" and "Psychedelic Inferno III". And their last record listed Amebix, Antisect, Crude SS, Flower Travellin' Band, Diamanda Galas, Ash Ra Tempel, Bodkin, Amon Duul and German Oak as influences. How could you NOT be sold?
And this record is no disappointment. In fact, it's way weirder than we could have possibly expected. Simple repetitive, crunchy riffing, with sort of spoken disembodied vocals, loose tribal drumming, the whole thing smothered in layer after layer of acid fried space rock synths and sound effects, swoops and swirls and bleeps and bloops and trills, like all the random abstract parts from every Acid Mothers Temple song piled atop these hazy repetitive space jams. The guitar playing is very metal, but stretched out and repeated so it becomes a droney circular psych workout. The final track on side one is vocals only and is really scary and weird, all heavily affected creepy distorted whispers. The entirety of side two is taken up by "Psychedelic Inferno II" and "Psychedelic Inferno III" a massive psychedelic suite that has more in common with Sunroof! or Vibracathedral Orchestra than it does with Hawkwind. Faux throat singing over an extended wash of floating synthesizers, stretched out guitar feedback, plenty of spaced out swoosh, and distant barely there percussion, very abstract and quite hypnotic. We only managed to get about 20 copies of this record (when Crow were in town recently, they left a box behind with a friend) and it's super limited and hand numbered. Only 444 pressed, and the copies we have are in the 400's, so you know what that means....
First heard these guys (and girl, it appears) on Tokyo Flashback Vol. 7, now here's their PSF full-length, packaged in a nice miniature-lp style gatefold sleeve. Very little information is available about 'em. So we'll just make do with describing the music. Avant garde free jazz improv, kinda, but also psychedelic free rock too, from a quartet consisting of alto sax, guitar, drums, and bass. Sometimes super heavy distorted bass! Definitely a lot of electricity to this unit. Along with plenty of human-powered pounding and screaming... PSF compares 'em to Borbetomagus, but that's not quite right. They're wild, but not -quite- that dense and noisy. PSF's own Ahousen would be a better comparison, if you liked that, you should check out Derakushi too. Sax honking and squealing, bass shuddering, guitar stabbing, the pipe fighting percussion sometimes skittery, sometimes straight up rocking, right through the freakout, and it's not at all wall-to-wall freakout, there's dynamics and stop and go and sudden silence... Emotional, mayhemic, yet controlled. Derakushi know how to do it, or they wouldn't be on PSF. The dark psych guitar rock elements that bleed into their freeform "jazz" are what grabs us about this, and that's also a definite PSF specialty.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
As we've no doubt mentioned in the past, we're not really all that into 'noise music', especially the ultra brutal white noise face melting Merzbowian sort of noise music. But when noise is used as a tool, or as an instrument, or when it's twisted into all sorts of strange shapes and atypical sounds, well, that's when we really get interested.� So when someone takes noise and blackens it, and turns it into some super intense grinding industrial doom metal juggernaut, we're pretty much completely sold.�
Such is the case with Awake In Hell from legendary Japanese outfit Dissecting Table, aka one man noise metal machine Ichiro Tsuji, who here has unleashed four loooooooooooong, slow motion, ultra distorted jams, huge bass heavy riffs that slither and crawl over a field of broken glass production and a mine field of pounding percussion. Everything is harsh and jagged, sheets of stinging feedback and walls of crumbling distortion, maybe there are guitars, even vocals, but they're pulled apart into their constituent atomic particles and sent careening like pinballs made from liquid nitrogen and Marshall amps melted down into some caustic black buzz. Occasionally, the blown out blasts abate, leaving weird muted throbs and skittering synthesized loops, but blink and they're gone, replaced by a snarling black doom behemoth, fangs bared ready to swallow you whole.�
Holy shit this stuff is intense, it's like grindcore by way of Japanoise by way of ultradoom. Or that lost Pitchshifter record recorded by Masami Akita, of Godflesh backing up Masonna, or... oh fuck it, you know what we're getting at. This is devastatingly ultra destructive, noise drenched, grinding industrial doooooooooooooooom that KILLS. And makes bands like Bunkur and Khanate sound downright tame by comparison.�
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES, each one hand numbered and housed in a mini dvd style clamshell case with full color cover. Only got a handful of these, not sure we'll be able to get more.....
As if it wasn't confusing enough that a band from France went around calling themselves Acid Mothers Temple & The Pink Ladies Blues, now they've gone and changed their name to Diza Star & The Pink Ladies Blues. We guess in the long run it will be less confusing. It's still guitarist Magic Aum Gigi (who runs the Fractal label), and Japanese expats Tsuchy and Mai Mai. But on this disc the trio are joined by a very special guest -- Mani Neumeier, master percussionist from krautrock legends Guru Guru!! He's totally in his element here (or they in his), on these ten spaced-out tracks of psychedelic jamming, a few of which make overt Guru Guru references titlewise ("Mani-festly Immer Lustig", "Ooga Booga Rock"). Sprawled about the place, there's chanting vocals and droning Jew's harp, percussive freakouts, and of course extended distorto-guitar grinds -- though overall this disc seems a bit cleaner and mellower than earlier whomever & The Pink Ladies Blues offerings. Regardless of the name change, definitely still one for AMT fans! Minus Mani, these guys and gal also have another new album, the vinyl only 3, which we also have in stock but haven't had a chance to hear just yet...
All right! Esoteric Black Hair was originally cd-r sampler release put together for this great Japanese band's US West Coast tour this past summer. We were stoked to carry it, but a bit bummed it was just a cd-r. Now, it's being properly pressed on cd, and the label is being super awesome and has arranged for anyone who got the cd-r version to get a free cd replacement. Cool, eh? More details on that are to be found at the end of this review, but first let's recap what we said about the original release, for all of you who didn't get it yet ('cause you should!):
From Japan...DMBQ!! (Formerly known as the Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet.) Damn, did you see these guys (and gal) play last year?? If not, don't miss 'em this time... If you DID see 'em last time, of course you'll be at their shows again this time too. One of the ultimate over-the-top rock experiences... a spectacle of backbends, stagedives, sweat, awesome polyester outfits, and let's not forget heavy psych-rock chops!! An AWESOME live band -- they had rock moves I've never seen before. Are DMBQ tongue in cheek fantasy? Or totally sincere love of rock n' roll overload? Probably both. It's a blend of Hendrix and Blue Cheer played with the attitude of Guitar Wolf or the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. What The Darkness would be if they were Japanese and inspired by '70s acid riff-rock instead of '80s hair metal, perhaps. I've been a BIG fan of this band for a long time, and was always super frustrated not to be able to get any of their recent cd output to sell here at Aquarius. They're on a major label in Japan, and it's just impossible to get their discs for any reasonable price. But now, we've got this, their first and only domestic US release, a thirty minute selection of choice cuts from some of their Japanese albums. There's seven songs here, each crazier and heavier and more rockin' than the last. If you liked Boris' Heavy Rocks or Akuma No Uta albums, you'll like this!! (And Acid Mothers Temple, you'd better get out of the way.) It's too bad we can't get their 'actual' albums, but for now this will have to do, and it makes for a nice, budget priced sampler/intro to the band's brand of bellbottomed insanity. I bet some smart label will pick 'em up and we'll have more domestically released DMBQ to look forward to soon [recent news flash: expect an album in March 2005 on Estrus!]. So get this, and don't miss their shows, if you've got a rock bone in your body. They have a new drummer (China-Mana from Shonen Knife) and tell us in an email about playing with her: "It is VERY fun! We can show you more crazy show surely. I feel we could get more EVIL musical power through her...! We are very excited." So are we!
If you missed 'em, they will be back...and yes they DID get more EVIL musical power by the way. So keep an eye out for them to return. Ok, now here's more about what do if you already purchased the previous cd-r of Esoteric Black Hair and want to upgrade to the cd. Fake Chapter sez: "Earlier this year, Japan's DBMQ toured the West Coast bringing with them a tour souvenir EP Esoteric Black Hair. Now due to their enormous success, Fake Chapter Records (who partnered with them for the tour) has commercially released the EP. For those of you bought the original CD-R, don't feel ripped off! Fake Chapter and Aquarius Records have made a special arrangement for you. Simply leave your information with Aquarius or email your mailing address directly to dmbq@fakechapter.com and we'll send you a copy of the new version for FREE. That's right, no sending the old EP back, no paying for postage, no being forced to buy the same thing twice, just let us know who you are and it will be in your mailbox! Please note: Both versions include the SAME track listing and artwork. The only difference is CD-R vs. CD duplication quality. Please email dmbq@fakechapter.com for any questions."
These guys and gal from Japan should need no introduction, eh? I mean, I think we've done our best to already familiarize AQ customers with the rock n' roll awesomeness of the Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet, right? We've certainly sold a ton of their Esoteric Black Hair ep, that's for sure! Plus, they've been on a stateside touring assault recently that is clearly pulling more and more fans into their orbit. In our review of EBH, we predicted that sooner rather than later some clever American label would pick this band up...and lo, Estrus has done the deed. They're a label perhaps known for a retro sound more garagey than these guys, but it's definitely a good fit with DMBQ's brand of wild rock n' roll abandon.
On The Essential Sounds From the Far East (terrible title, although no falsehood), DMBQ's Boredoms-playing-Blue Cheer attack continues unabated. Tons and tons of guitar with tons and tons of effects. Swooshing sizzling wah-wah mayhem. Howling, raucous vox. Groovy drumming. Exuberant energetic explosions of sound. Sonic starbursts and brightly coloured visuals absolutely must accompany rock that's kicking out the jams this hard. Imagine the most in-your-face elements of Hendrix and Led Zep I taken to absurd extremes by some extroverted Japanese freaks, right now, today, in your town if you're lucky. Anyone who likes Acid Mothers Temple when they pay a visit to "electric heavyland", or digs the psychedelic, '70s rawk side of Boris, will love cranking this up.
As mentioned, they've been touring more in the US. DO NOT MISS SEEING THEM. Their showmanship has to be seen to be believed. They're always upping the ante. They were just here last month, and the crowd at the Hemlock got to witness frontman Shinji pass the drum kit into the audience, piece by piece, assemble it there, then grab DMBQ's new drummer China (ex-Shonen Knife) and hand *her* into the crowd, from where she picked up the beat and finished the song, drumming in the midst of the sweaty multitude. Wow. But as good live as they are, they don't slack in the studio either.
You can tell they mean to impress with this, their first-ever US album release (EBH being both an ep and a collection of previously released tunage). This does include a version of "Are You Satisfied?", a song that's also on EBH... but everything else is new. It's one loud pounding, swirling, throbbing psych-out after another, with only the spaced out six and a half minute "Dm" providing a bit of relaxation. Damn we love this band. Now if only all their other, also-excellent previous Japanese releases would get reissued over here...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here is, quite literally, a "warehouse find"... the first two cds by Japanese mega-psych-mongers DMBQ aka Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet, the only two actual DMBQ albums that were ever really available in the USA before, and barely, on the seemingly-now-defunct Japanese indie label Less Than TV. Allan was visiting one of our suppliers and dug these up, they happened to have about a dozen copies each of these cds stuck in a dark and dusty corner of their warehouse. So we grabbed 'em all, knowing that a bunch of you out there would be stoked to get yr hands on these, seeing as how we sold so frickin' many of the DMBQ's Esoteric Black Hair EP. That cd-r compiled some of their more recent material, and if you liked those cuts we imagine you'll dig this earlier material too. It's rawer and maybe even wilder. The usual "act fast since we've only got a few" warning applies of course!
EXP is their second album, from 1996. Every track on EXP has the words "EXP" in the title, from "A House EXPosed To Every Wind" to "Everybody Got Something To Hide EXPect Me And My Monkey" (yes, that's what it says, and yes it is a rather demented rave-up cover version of the Beatles tune with the not-quite-the-same title). And you can EXPect that DMBQ are at their distorto-blues-psych best here, total rock n' roll mayhem and big-riff heaviness bustin' out all over this disc. Definitely for fans of both Blue Cheer and Boris. A lot of the tracks sound like "Dazed And Confused" bathed in sludge, while the last track "EXPlosion" brings in some free-blowin' horns for a Funhouse effect. And it comes with a sticker.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Here is, quite literally, a "warehouse find"... the first two cds by Japanese mega-psych-mongers DMBQ aka Dynamite Masters Blues Quartet, the only two actual DMBQ albums that were ever really available in the USA before, and barely, on the seemingly-now-defunct Japanese indie label Less Than TV. Allan was visiting one of our suppliers and dug these up, they happened to have about a dozen copies each of these cds stuck in a dark and dusty corner of their warehouse. So we grabbed 'em all, knowing that a bunch of you out there would be stoked to get yr hands on these, seeing as how we sold so frickin' many of the DMBQ's Esoteric Black Hair EP. That cd-r compiled some of their more recent material, and if you liked those cuts we imagine you'll dig this earlier material too. It's rawer and maybe even wilder. The usual "act fast since we've only got a few" warning applies of course!
Their self-titled 1995 debut cd really throws down the dirty distorted heavy-psych garage rock gauntlet. It's just a massive blow-out of raucous, stomping, fuzz and feedback-filled punk blooze rockin' freakiness that'd give Hendrix a headache. Basically imagine the Boredoms playing Blue Cheer and you've got the idea. They get into some cool '60s surf stuff on here too. Hopefully some day we'll be able to stock their newer albums but in the meantime fans of DMBQ and/or their brand of mayhem ought to be happy to score one of these while they last...which won't be long we're pretty sure.
Now here is indeed a deliberately odd release... from the French/Japanese label that last brought us that Tabata und Guilty Connector collaboration comes an even more absurd team-up, a three-way remix-and-mismatch conjunction of the following international audio fiends: Chris Dodge (guitarist from the goofy American "fastcore" band Spazz), Solmania (Japanese noisician who builds his own mutant guitars), and the UK's DJ Speedranch (of Phantomsmasher and Speedranch & Jansky Noise). Three artists, from three continents (or islands near continents), all sharing a "what the heck, let's make some noise!" aesthetic.
Chris Dodge's dozen tracks are a blend of punk/metal and electronically-assisted, noisy chaos. Something along the lines of Melt Banana comes to mind. Then, Solmania's 11-minute "Ice Cream" is a crunkly, lurching, seasick soundscape of dirge, distortion and feedback. Lastly, Speedranch wraps things up with three tracks of distorted beat mayhem whose source material derives from both Chris Dodge's stuff earlier on the disc, and the Solmania album Trembling Tongues. Chaotic and crazed as you might imagine, Speedranch samples various spoken non-sequiturs and sci-fi fx into something along the lines of what we used to call "industrial" music before the rise of the DJ.
For some (the more serious-minded?), the more textural Solmania track will be the stand-out, for others who love low-attention-span-spazz the Dodge and Speedranch constructions will be the real ear-ticklers. A pleasantly maddening experience for fans of all forms of severe noise-fuckery.
One of two very different new PSF releases from our favorite dark lord of Japanese psychedelic improv (Haino's "Mazu Wa Iro O Nakuso Ka" being the other, reviewed last list). This one's actually an archival release, recorded way back in 1981. As per the title, it's a "free rock" jam merging the talents of Haino with a bunch of dudes from pioneering weird-music collective the Los Angeles Free Music Society! With Haino and Rick Potts both on guitar, plus the Doo-Dooettes trio of Dennis Duck (drums), Fredrik Nilsen (bass), and Tom Recchion (on his home-made instruments the "mock cello" and "strungaphone"), this group really whips up a wild and woolly storm of avant-rock insanity. It's one single thirty-five minute long track which actually has its own title -- we'll repeat it here 'cause it's so evocative: "Blueprint For The Shimmering Quivers Of The Deep Purple Ultraviolet Tuning Fork". Pretty much says it all. You can definitely hear Haino's distinctive guitar in there, but the LAFMS guys hold their end up too. And as messy as it may at first seem, it does go somewhere musically. Verdict: Worth hearing for sure, if you're into alien noise-rock skree at all. An unusual entry in Haino's discography, like his Fushitsusha jamming with the Magic Band or something. Glad they dug this one out of the vaults...
NB. We're told (by a friend who reads Japanese) that Keiji Haino's liner notes for this describe how he visited Aquarius Records on a 1979 trip to San Francisco! He apparently bought a LAFMS LP here and that led him into contact with Potts et. al. and thus to the creation of this very recording. Cool.
Ok, we imagine that some of you might be kind of skeptical about this band, seeing as they're called, ahem, Doodles. Not exactly an awe-inspiring, heavy-psych kinda moniker is it? And with a name like that, and because of the fact that it's an all-girl outfit, you might expect some kind of cutesy "chick band from Japan" (as someone we know who shall remain nameless put it). But this ain't no Puffy Ami Yumi. Or even Shonen Knife. And their music is quite a bit different from the (also great) but much more robustly silly mayhem unleashed by the other all-girl Japanese psych duo reviewed on this week's list, Afrirampo. No, Doodles are a more serious sort of band, despite the name. Far from silly or fluffy. More roughly hewn and melancholic. These ladies (Akiko Terashima on vocals/guitar/piano and Nao Shibata on drums/chorus) play plodding, haunted psych-rock, with storms of guitar distortion hovering on the horizon, and sweet, sad vocals quivering deeply soul-ward. Ringing, reverby chords, jagged strum, staggering drums. Japanese psych-scene fans will understand if we compare 'em to Angel' In Heavy Syrup, Shizuka, and Nagisa Ni Te. But for a (sort of) non-Japanese comparison, we think maybe Blonde Redhead would be a slight parallel. Uh, Blonde Redhead meets Codeine, maybe. They've also drawn comparisons to other punkish/naive Western acts like the Smashachords and Swell Maps. And then there's some Neil Young and VU too. They're definitely a band that we think should appeal to indie-rock lovin' AQ customers beyond just those with Japanocentric tastes! And the Japan-psych fans among you ought to be already into 'em, thanks to their appearance on first volume of Alchemy's great The Night Gallery: 21st Century Psychedelic Underground compilations. Also Akikio plays on the two Jojo Hiroshige discs we've recommended recently. And in fact this is their 2nd or 3rd album after one on Gyuune and at least one cd-r release before that, though it's the first we've managed to stock. But we'll definitely keep Doodles on our list of bands to watch out for more from in the future!
First in a super limited series of lp-only releases from everyone's favorite Japanese doom-drone-psych-rock overachievers Boris! For this limited double lp, they've teamed up with Boston's Doomriders, which just so happens to feature members of Converge, Old Man Gloom, There Were Wires and more...
These records capture live shows recorded back in 2006 when the two bands toured together.�
The Doomriders for those who don't know, are a straight up Motorheady rock and roll band, they even start their set with a bellowing roar: "We are the Doomriders from Boston, and WE PLAY ROCK AND ROLL!!!" And they do, pounding and simple, not thrashing or blasting just riff heavy big drum blasts of kick ass RAWK. The perfect sonic match up for the more rock side of Boris.�
The first track, though, on one of Boris' two lp sides had us fooled, a massive churning droned out low end sludge, the heaviest thing we've heard from them since Flood (not counting the Altar collab with SUNN) but after that it's back to the full blown, in the red, ultra distorted pedal to the metal blasting Pink-style wild psychedelic garage rock stomp that have become their modern sound. And it sounds great. Super saturated production, amazing sound, loud Loud LOUD!!! Obviously essential for all you Boris freeks...
And of course super elaborate packaging as always. Deluxe metallic gold gatefold, super thick stock, killer Screaming For Vengeance Judas Priest homage artwork, clear yellow vinyl...
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, half red, half yellow, the copies we have are yellow, and this is ALREADY SOLD OUT and selling for crazy $$$ on eBay. We tried to get 100 copies, and got less than half that. Needless to say these will be gone before you know it. ONE PER CUSTOMER.�
Part Les Rallizes Denudes, part Maher Shalal Hash Baz, this Japanese super group do a sort of droney, jangley garage psych pop, that over the course of Old Punks slips from woozy indie rock to brooding looped psych rock, playful power pop, to reverby almost ballads to Velvets-y minimal lope. The band is super laid back, the songs are weary and ragged and drawly and shambling, the guitars loose and detuned sounding, the drums spare and simple, the vocals, which might make or break DG for most folks, are sort of flat and tuneless, mumbled and moaned, sometimes crooned, but usually buried in the mix, just another layer of whirling sonic warmth.
Occasionally, things do get weird, some crunchy surf guitars, some strange jumbled group vocals, all tangled and chaotic, and of course bursts of psychedelic solo guitar squall, but for the most part Old Punks traffics in simple stripped down psychedelic rock, laced with bits of folk and pop, and of course shadows of both Maher and Les Rallizes.
Comes with a download card so you can grab yourself a digital copy of the record too!
We managed to get the last 40 or so copies of the third and (supposedly) final pressing of only 175 copies of this massive slab of Japanese heaviness. So act fast.
BORIS! CORRUPTED! EYEHATEGOD! JAPANESE DOOM SLUDGE! If those words mean anything to you, drop everything you're doing RIGHT NOW and order yourself up one of these massive slabs of earth flattening, face melting downtuned dirge. Slow slow slow like their sludgy countrymen Boris and Corrupted, Dot [.] focus less on the drone, and more on the riff, sounding much more raw and aggressive, aligning themselves a bit more with Eyehategod, Bongzilla, Grief and the rest of the US slow motion doom contingent. Huge riffs, pounding relentless drumming, hellish shrieking vocals, amps until forever, everything (even the drums?) tuned as low as they will go, a soul sucking metallic black hole of sound. Four lengthy tracks, only one of which even comes close to almost breaking the midtempo mark.
AGAIN, SUPER LIMITED!!!!! To only 175 copies, and we got about 40, most likely never to get more again. You have been warned.
Another odd Ormolycka tape here, one of the more mysterious in their current crazy batch of releases. This band we know is from Japan, and that's about it. Could be new, or from the '80s or '90s, we don't know. Ok, wait, we think we found a Japanese-language Tumblr page for them. Hmm, looks like they're a currently active band, from the photos we saw consisting of young dudes with colorful hair, wearing baseball caps, who like to jump up and down and drop their pants. Maybe sorta Boredoms-y.
And listening to the tape, what do we hear? Chaotic, trash-can-clattering industrial-noise-punk jams and lo-fi confusional sound collage. With gobs of distortion, violently shouted chanting, random voices, and an overall very agitated vibe, like the perpetrators were into breaking things and trying to arouse their audience to do the same. Some fairly WTF? shit, noisy and nifty and all over the place. One song will sound sorta like skanking ska, the next a parody (?) of cheesy synth-pop. At one point, they do a completely over-the-top, distortodelic destruction of "Tequila"!
Weird that Ormolycka provides NO info about them (or any other release, really) on their website, how do they expect to sell their tapes? Oh, maybe 'cause every Ormolyka tape so far has been great, maybe that's it. This one too!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Dumb Type is a performance / conceptual art group comprised of Ryoji Ikeda and Toru Yamanaka and has been active since 1984, producing a number of multi-media spectacles. "Memorandum" combines their audiovisual architechtronics to explore memory as the semiotic sum of the elliptical orbits of emotion, instinct, and intellect, utilising dance, translucent scrims, and rapid fire video collages. Dumb Type saw fit to release just the audio from "Memorandum", and it's certainly strong enough to stand on its own, even without all of the visuals. In working with Yamanaka, Ikeda's clinical pulses of pure sinewave tones are flushed out with extended drones, making this simultaneously sound like early Klaus Schulze or Pan Sonic. Dumb Type breaks up the piece with snippets of spoken texts that are accompanied by delicate synth patterns, emulating the sappiness of daytime soap operas. While the intent of these musical interludes is unclear, it is the only flaw in an otherwise fantastic post-techno score.
Eagle Keys (which is probably just the name of the record, not the name of the band, but since it's on the spine we're calling 'em Eagle Keys) is two dudes, one whom we know and one whom we don't. Respectively, there's electric bassist Tim Olive, who we most recently heard in the Supernatural Hot Rug And Not Used duo recording from EM Records. He's been in some other bands over the years, including Nimrod and Soap-Jo Henshi, best known to Japanese-music nerds like ourselves. The other fella is Francisco Meirino, responsible here for "computer and acoustics". Together they have produced two long tracks, "Eagle Keys Part One" and "Eagle Keys Part Two", about 50 minutes total of crinkly-crankly improvised soundscapes, littered with abstract, atmospheric detail. Part One begins with shuffling clicks and whirring hum and rattling gurgle, sounding a bit like some sort of shaggy electronic beast snuffling through its dinner. Long quiet drones and sizzling hissing and ominous creakings and chaotic clankings occur as this duo rummage about with their instruments and and objects and microphones, the whole process finally building into a dense, satisfying distorted drone-howl at almost the very end of its 34 minutes. Then, the 15 and a half minute Part Two is more about gentle flutter and whispered feedback. It's spooky and hissy and whistle-y (enough so that at points, dogs might not like it!). It comes to an end with a sudden, satisfying "clunkgluntch"!
Originally released as a super limited colored vinyl 12", for sale only on a 2003 European tour (and limited to, depending on who you ask, either 330, or 660 copies) this amazing and amazingly limited record finally gets a proper release on cd. Which is also great considering the label that released the 12" apparently never paid the bands ANY money and actually ditched said European tour taking lots of the bands' money with them. Hopefully this will help set things right on that front, and at the same time it's a chance for those of you who missed out on the vinyl to finally check this out. KK Null, guitarist for Japanese sludge metal outfit Zeni Geva offers up a lengthy free noise exploration, guitars and electronics, abstract space-y weirdness, that gradually builds and builds into full on squalls of guitarnoise and ultra distorted electronic freakout. The cd also includes a twenty minute bonus track from Null, a sort of part two addendum to his original 12" track, and it's appropriately enough another extensive blooping swooshing analog space-out psych-free-noise epic, equal parts Merzbow and Space Machine (Masonna's space-y analog analog synth project). The Earth tracks is a single twenty minute long track recorded live at the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle in 2003 and was one of the first (if not THE first) recordings to introduce the new sound of Earth, owed in no small part to the addition of Adrienne Davies on drums. A lot less sludgey and droney than old Earth, and a lot more hypnotic and melodic that later Earth, a very minimal post rock almost, with slow motion distorted arpeggiated melodies and woozy droned out riffs, all sort of pulsing and throbbing supported by simple shuffling, drumming and lots and lots of space. As hypnotic as ever, but definitely more rocking, and certainly the first hint of Earth's slow directional sonic shift.
