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Sanja is an underground Japanese improv supergroup of sorts: Kan Mikami on vocals and guitar, Toshi Ishizuka on drums and percussion, and Masayoshi Urabe on alto saxophone, harmonica, bass blockfloten (?), accordion, piccolo and chains. Yes, chains, you can hear 'em. And we've gotta say: woah, not the most relaxing sounds we've ever heard! For non-Japanese speakers, even more difficult, because you won't be able to decipher the vocals of Kan Mikami, whose dramatic delivery comes across as a bit Muppet-like here to us Westerners. And Urabe's saxophone shrieks don't help matters. Nope, not always an easy listen. But that's not what they're going for, or what you're here for either, right? You're looking for some stark, intense improv a bit out of the ordinary. Well here you go. Free jazz for the wide-open spaces, avant-garde Japanese hobos camped around a fire trading hard knock life stories via vocals, drums, and sax. Even when relatively quiet, it's roiling.
Night Gallery 3 compilation alumni Sarumatakemitsuko (whose name might translate into something in English like "Monkey Crotch Mushroom Mituko"?? no that can't be right... we hope not!) bring us their debut full-length for Osaka's Alchemy label. They were also just on Alchemy's recently reviewed Tribute To Jojo Hiroshige, and both comp appearances whetted our appetite for this cd.
An all-female psych rock trio (vocals & guitar/guitar/bass... no drums!), Sarumatakemitsuko's album is often a haunting and beautiful thing, initally making quite effective use of eerie, lovely vocals and occasional stabs of guitar, eventually exploring chanting, fuzzed-out repetition, using slashing guitar chords percussively in lieu of drums. But it's not all downer drone-psych minimalism, as with track three "An An" the disc suddenly veers into sunny indie-pop jangle a la Maher Shalal Hash Baz or Nagisa Ni Te. Eventually things cloud over yet again, getting again all drifting and dreamy, especially on the disc's final 13 minute cut "Akai Butter", wherein emotive vocals and notes plucked out on one guitar are suspended over what builds into a droning bed of distortion...wandering, narcotic. Very nice indeed. Certainly something fans of Nagisa Ni Te, Angel 'In Heavy Syrup, Doodles, Eddie Marcon, etc. should hear!
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Apparently, a concept record about the children of the future and the terrible legacy we are leaving to them on this planet, with children's voices, jazz guitar, electronics, gamelan, record crackle, field recordings, etc. Japanese musician Sawada is kind of a "kitchen sink" style composer, heavily utilizing the sampler and the studio, but all his sounds are quite beautiful and/or intriguing.
While this might MEAN more to those who speak either Japanese or French, Sawada's music has plenty of charm on its own, without the context the narration provides. Some may remember his excellent and mysterious Base of Fiction cd from 1994, which was similiar but more "rock" (with members of underground Japanese bands like the Ruins joining in).
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Another new Alchemy title that we've imported from Japan, this one kind of an all-star Japanoise fest featuring noise guitarist Jojo (Alchemy boss and Hijokaidan mastermind), vocalist Miki Sawaguchi (of dubious "Big Boobs" fame), Masami Akita (aka Merzbow) on Macintosh computer, and Masahiko Ohno of noisicians Solmania playing one of his self-built electric guitar monsters (he's also responsible for the lovely graphic design, as he is for most all equally-keen looking Alchemy releases). Naoko Otani plays live drums. Three tracks, one "remix" (I think that's Merzbow's role with his Macintosh), one studio, one live. All pretty great, ranging from rumbling foghorn soundcapes with delicate female spoken vocals, to churning noise accompanied by Yoko Ono-inspired shrieking.
Originally from Tokyo and now living in the states, Sawako has a really nice and subtle touch in creating delicate sounds that drone, crackle and flow in such a beautiful way. Delicate but never too precious this is a record sure to catch the ears of fans of the Fennesz/Sakamato collaborations, Christopher Willits and the final track (the only one with vocals) reminded us a lot of the early sound of Mum that we've been missing.
Tokyo artist Sawako crafts her delicate, minimal ambient soundscapes from interwoven slivers of piano, voices, field recordings among other things.
The results are ultra ethereal and soothing. She would fit very well in either the Mort Aux Vaches or 20' to 2000 series. Hum also features additional instrumental contributions from Taylor Deupree, Aoki Hayato and Kenneth Kirschner. For fans of Deupree, William Basinski, Oval, Colleen and Pan Sonic.
Hey guess what? It's a sequel to the first Sax Ruins record, 2009's Yawiquo on Ipecac, which we had kind of assumed was a one-off. But nope, they're at it again, sax and drums to the max! In Sax Ruins, Japanese drummer extraordinare Tatsuya Yoshida, who (in Ruins) normally teams up with a bass player, is instead accompanied by the saxophone stylin's of Ryoko Ono. She's got a set of lungs on her, all right. Squealing and bopping like John Zorn hopped up on happy pills.
Of the 13 instrumentals here, four are improvs (all in a row at the end of the disc), two are brand new Yoshida compositions, and the rest are interpretations of pieces from previous 'real' Ruins releases, some of their most 'mathiest' in fact, the songs being mostly drawn from Vrresto, Pallaschtom, and Refusal Fossil, though our resident aQuarius Ruins nerd (Allan!) was particularly happy to hear a much older fave, "Bighead", from 1990's Stonehenge.
As before, hearing these Ruins tunes with saxophone rather than distorted bass, they are less heavy but no less intense. The complex structures remain, and the melodic content becomes more pronounced. Some of this is really lovely - but hectic hyperactivity is always, like, a nano-second away. Of course! So, if you forget what you're listening to, it's a little bit like the jazzy theme music to some old TV variety show GONE CRAZY. Or, as we said about their first effort, "Imagine a stripped down, pepped up marching band playing really wild Carl Stalling / Raymond Scott style cartoon music". Also, just think of the sort of sounds the saxophone/peacock collage creature on the back cover might make. Recommended to serious fans of Ruins, Zorn, and all crazy math/jazz crossovers.
By the way, we noticed that along with the array of saxophones Ono plays (alto, baritone, soprano, and tenor), she also is credited with flute. But not enough of it. That's what we want for their next album together, please - Flute Ruins!
FYI, Blimmguass vinyl version upcoming in January 2014.
Do you like sax? Do you like the Ruins? Then, hey, have we got a deal for you! Ruins drummer/mastermind Tatsuya Yoshida teams up with jazz improviser Ono Ryoko (alto sax) in this new unit, Sax Ruins (sorry, no idea what that name means, how did they come up with it?). The Japanese band Ruins has been Yoshida's vehicle for heavy duty, ultra mathy, Magmoid post-punk prog mania since 1985, and has pretty much always been a drums / bass two piece, Yoshida accompanied by several different insane bass players over the years. Their last album was 2002's Tzomborgha, also on Mike Patton's Ipecac label... and then in 2004 bassist number four (Sasaki Hisashi) left the band, yet to be replaced as far as we know. So Ruins is now defunct, or at least on an indeterminate hiatus, but that hasn't stopped Yoshida from performing Ruins songs, in a mindboggling one-man-band format called Ruins Alone. And now, in the Sax Ruins duo!
As you might expect, it's hyper frenetic and jumpy, but also... boppy. The buoyant saxophone helps make this duo's uber uptempo activity feel positively infectious, a joyful noise indeed. And it's not all frantic musical athletics, there's room here for some really lovely, melodic passages too, as on "Epigonen". Ono Ryoko really pulls out all the stops, drawing on her experience playing not only jazz but also funk/R&B, prog, and psych (the latter in collaboration with Acid Mothers Temple). She delves into extended techniques, circular breathing and such, and somehow is a match for Yoshida in the endless energy dep't. Together, what they unleash here is exciting stuff, way more complex and catchy than your average freakout. Imagine a stripped down, pepped up marching band playing really wild Carl Stalling / Raymond Scott style cartoon music. And wisely, Yoshida has kept this instrumental, none of his crazy vocals getting in the way of the sax blasts.
The 17 tracks here include saxified reinterpretations of classics from the Ruins' vast catalog, such as "Hyderomastgroningem" and "Pallaschtom", plus some new tunes too, including the album's title track and grand finale, that one a showstopper for sure.
So, again, definitely for fans of Ruins - who also like saxophone. And those into the likes of Zu, Flying Luttenbachers, 16-17, Alboth, and other exemplars of jazzprogcore craziness. Oh, and of course any John Zorn / Naked City fan ought to be ecstatic! Dunno if we'll really need any MORE albums from Sax Ruins though, 'cause as cool as this is, we're still keen for more Bass Ruins...
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Like a modern Switched On Bach, DJ Scotch Egg, armed with modified game boys, and a serious arsenal of 8 bit noisemakers, takes all your favorite Bach tunes and turns them inside out, tangles them all up, slathers them in overloaded electronic buzz and glitch and all sorts of squiggly video game music, and creates some glorious bastard classical gabber electronic classical knee-to-the-nuts techno. And it's a blast. Wild and goofy, funny and sort of funky, but completely brilliantly baffling.
Lots of the pieces are ones you'd recognize, but they are quickly transformed into blown out lo-fi blasts of damaged dance music. Some tracks feature garbled super distorted vocals, and end up sounding like some toy version of Atari Teenage Riot. Allan thinks a lot of this sounds like the video game version of the theme from Bad News Bears or maybe an 8-bit Virgil Fox trapped in a haunted video arcade. However it strikes you, odds are you won't hear a record this weird and this much fun anytime soon. Imagine playing some insane futuristic version of Dance Dance Revolution on a crappy old Atari 2600, but with the sound patched through 1,000 Marshall stacks. Fucking awesome!
If you're anything like us (at least two of us have the sounds of Rastan on our iPods and we have a full size Tron machine in the back room of AQ!) this is so deliriously damaged and absolutely essential!!
Yeah! a new Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her cd in our hands at last. Not really new (released in 2001), but finally here. This predominantly female band from Japan is so rad and the cds can be hard to come by. This record is more polished than No! No! No!, and a bit more tight and sassy. Whether that's good or bad is up to the beholder but this record is great. Tough guitar riffs, dynamic songs and smooth vocals. I've heard rumor that they are no longer an active band, sad if it's so cuz their songwriting is so strong and inventive, and with each record they develop their sound further and further.
Best band name ever? Well, I am having trouble thinking of a better one. This female led Japanese group has released several albums and assorted EPs; which are all sort of hard to obtain, so we up and contacted the band directly to get copies of No! No! No!, which was released in 2000 on Trattoria, Cornelius' label. This is very tight rock 'n roll that proudly wears its influences on its sleeve, cos they know it don't hurt the music none. Like a combination of the Runaways' wild abandon, the Breeders' precisely executed alt-rock, and just plain ole healthy rock energy, with vocals sung in English. Are you wary of all the hype the upcoming Breeders' album is getting? I am, cos y'know, 9 times out of 10, suspicious amounts of high-profile pre-release hype, means bad, bad record. Keep your expectations low on Kim Deal's deal and get this instead.
FUSHITSUSHA! No, that wasn't a sneeze. We're trying to get your attention, if you're into that band, Fushitsusha. Those of us here who are big Keiji Haino fans (and we're talking BIG fans), will readily admit that while we love all of the Tokyo psych shaman-in-shades' multi-instrumental solo outings (including solos for guitar, hurdy gurdy, percussion, and electronics) and various collaborative efforts (with Pan Sonic, KK Null, Boris, Sitaar Tah, Tatsuya Yoshida, Merzbow, etc.), it's really his best-known band, the legendary Fushitsusha, that got us into Keiji in the first place, and that we love the most. Avant-garde, free-rock, garage-psych heaviness taking off from obvious sonic/spiritual '70s inspirations Les Rallizes Denudes into the realms something even more experimental and "outsider", a la the Dead C. Unfortunately for us, Fushitsusha disbanded some years ago. But at long last, we've got these, the simultaneously released TWO debut albums from Haino's new "permanent band", Seijaku. Like Fushitsusha, an improvisational power trio, led by Haino's amped up guitar. He's also on "blues harp" on one of these discs, steel guitar on the other, and of course trademark anguished vocals (or should we borrow the metal term vokills?). Besides Dark Lord Haino, the Seijaku trio consists of Nasuno Mitsuru (Altered States, Korekoyjin, Sanhedolin) on bass, and Ichiraku Yoshimitsu (Acid Mothers Temple, Nishinihon, ISO) on drums.
And yes, the "blues harp" does mean that the idea here is Haino & Co. playing "the blues". Or what the label suggests is a fusion of Delta blues, and Noh theater. But electric, very electric. And, well, Haino sure sounds like he's got the blues, bluer blues than any blues EVER, judging from how his guttural cries sound like each word is being tortuously torn not just from his throat, but from his very soul, as if it's the last thing he's ever going to be able to say, or scream, in this world. A striking contrast to his relatively calm and trad harmonica playing. But quite in keeping with sheets of feedbacky guitar skree, utterly Fushitsusha style, that Haino often unleashes. At other times, his guitar is a chiming, slashing, distorted twang, part of the fractured "blues" vibe, along with the plodding percussion and low end rumble that gives this an apocalyptic atmosphere indeed. Would Robert Johnson recognize this stumbling, staggering, scrabbling music as the blues? Well, he knew about dealing with the devil, right, so the vocals wouldn't faze him, and yeah we think might well appreciate the improvisational and spiritual aspects of the Seijaku sound. But beyond that...
Of the two discs, Mail from FUSHITSUSHA (bless you!) (it really is all caps in the disc's title) is the one that, according the Haino, represents "21st century blues". The title obviously makes the connection clear to Haino's earlier outfit, they're apparently "adhering to the Fushitsusha method", and the back cover credits Haino as the "originator". There's ten tracks, with titles like "Forced To Think You Love" and "Please Send Me A New Heart"... this one has a sheet of lyrics provided, in Japanese though, but we think we might get already have gotten an idea of what Haino is so down about.
Meanwhile, the 2nd of the two discs (by catalog number), You Should Prepare To Survive Through Even Anything Happens, with the whiter/lighter cover, is dedicated to "Albert King, The Doors, and Steppenwolf"! It's meant as Haino's tribute to the SPIRIT (if not exactly the sound) of 20th century blues, and is the one with his occasional harp blowing. It features four (long) tracks, titles include "Keep On Fighting" and "Look Over Here From The Other Side".
While each is a bit different, Mail From... with more short sharp shocks, You Should... stretching out soulfully, rollin' but mostly tumblin' hard, we're pretty certain that if you want one, you'll also want the other! Both come in handsome digipacks, like all Doubtmusic releases, of course.
FUSHITSUSHA! No, that wasn't a sneeze. We're trying to get your attention, if you're into that band, Fushitsusha. Those of us here who are big Keiji Haino fans (and we're talking BIG fans), will readily admit that while we love all of the Tokyo psych shaman-in-shades' multi-instrumental solo outings (including solos for guitar, hurdy gurdy, percussion, and electronics) and various collaborative efforts (with Pan Sonic, KK Null, Boris, Sitaar Tah, Tatsuya Yoshida, Merzbow, etc.), it's really his best-known band, the legendary Fushitsusha, that got us into Keiji in the first place, and that we love the most. Avant-garde, free-rock, garage-psych heaviness taking off from obvious sonic/spiritual '70s inspirations Les Rallizes Denudes into the realms something even more experimental and "outsider", a la the Dead C. Unfortunately for us, Fushitsusha disbanded some years ago. But at long last, we've got these, the simultaneously released TWO debut albums from Haino's new "permanent band", Seijaku. Like Fushitsusha, an improvisational power trio, led by Haino's amped up guitar. He's also on "blues harp" on one of these discs, steel guitar on the other, and of course trademark anguished vocals (or should we borrow the metal term vokills?). Besides Dark Lord Haino, the Seijaku trio consists of Nasuno Mitsuru (Altered States, Korekoyjin, Sanhedolin) on bass, and Ichiraku Yoshimitsu (Acid Mothers Temple, Nishinihon, ISO) on drums.
And yes, the "blues harp" does mean that the idea here is Haino & Co. playing "the blues". Or what the label suggests is a fusion of Delta blues, and Noh theater. But electric, very electric. And, well, Haino sure sounds like he's got the blues, bluer blues than any blues EVER, judging from how his guttural cries sound like each word is being tortuously torn not just from his throat, but from his very soul, as if it's the last thing he's ever going to be able to say, or scream, in this world. A striking contrast to his relatively calm and trad harmonica playing. But quite in keeping with sheets of feedbacky guitar skree, utterly Fushitsusha style, that Haino often unleashes. At other times, his guitar is a chiming, slashing, distorted twang, part of the fractured "blues" vibe, along with the plodding percussion and low end rumble that gives this an apocalyptic atmosphere indeed. Would Robert Johnson recognize this stumbling, staggering, scrabbling music as the blues? Well, he knew about dealing with the devil, right, so the vocals wouldn't faze him, and yeah we think might well appreciate the improvisational and spiritual aspects of the Seijaku sound. But beyond that...
Of the two discs, Mail from FUSHITSUSHA (bless you!) (it really is all caps in the disc's title) is the one that, according the Haino, represents "21st century blues". The title obviously makes the connection clear to Haino's earlier outfit, they're apparently "adhering to the Fushitsusha method", and the back cover credits Haino as the "originator". There's ten tracks, with titles like "Forced To Think You Love" and "Please Send Me A New Heart"... this one has a sheet of lyrics provided, in Japanese though, but we think we might get already have gotten an idea of what Haino is so down about.
Meanwhile, the 2nd of the two discs (by catalog number), You Should Prepare To Survive Through Even Anything Happens, with the whiter/lighter cover, is dedicated to "Albert King, The Doors, and Steppenwolf"! It's meant as Haino's tribute to the SPIRIT (if not exactly the sound) of 20th century blues, and is the one with his occasional harp blowing. It features four (long) tracks, titles include "Keep On Fighting" and "Look Over Here From The Other Side".
While each is a bit different, Mail From... with more short sharp shocks, You Should... stretching out soulfully, rollin' but mostly tumblin' hard, we're pretty certain that if you want one, you'll also want the other! Both come in handsome digipacks, like all Doubtmusic releases, of course.
Japanophile AQ-customers may already be familiar with Seikazoku, or at least with work of the three individual musicians that make up this band: Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, Korekyojin, Koenji-hyakkei, Akaten, etc.), Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mothers Temple this, Acid Mothers Temple that, etc.), and Tsuyama Atsushi (Omoide Hatoba, Akaten, Acid Mothers Temple, Zoffy, etc.)! So you'll expect what you get here, psych-drone-freakout weirdness improvised on a multitude of instruments, live in Japan like it says. Some of the 13 tracks on this disc are drifting, mellow krauty jams with hippie hand-percussion, electronics, and fake throat-singing (courtesy of goofy vocal specialist Tsuyama we think, though we know Yoshida is capable of some fairly over-the-top vocals as well). But then there's also the other side of the Seikazoku coin: spazzy jazzy manic meltdowns at greater volume and velocity. It's all got a bit of an indulgent ADD vibe, and might be an easier listen if they stuck to one mood (if not the other). We'd say the primitive bliss of the mellower tracks would be the way to go. But there is indeed a lot of crazed chaos here, so those of you who share their silly, hairy mania should dig the whole set.
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The title is a bit misleading, as this Japanese psych-prog-improv fest was recorded in '96... Seikazoku consists of Tsuyama Atsushi (Omoide Hatoba, Akaten), Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, Akaten, Musica Transonic, Mainliner, etc.), and Kawabata Makoto (Musica Transonic, Mainliner, Toho Sara, Acid Mothers Temple).
There's been an onslaught of Ruins-related releases on Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida's Magaibutsu label this week, folks!! Here's one from a brand-new band formation we'd never heard of before, Sekkutsu Jean, an improvising duo featuring Yoshida on drums, keyboard and vocals, and Sato Kenji on bass, cello, and voice. The results are most often SUPER distorted and heavy and fierce. Some of this reminds us a bit of some real old Ruins stuff, when they went for the ultra-dirty fuzz bass sound on such albums as Infect and Stonehenge. Total blurting bass bludgeon. Other parts are more "jazz", or even "classical" oriented, with droning sawing strings battling Yoshida's drum battery, or accompanying his keyboard lines. And then there's things that we can't even begin to classify, like track six, "Wihytcujmo", which is based around a drum machine beat and vicious cello bowing. Overall, this is some seriously mean stuff, without the strain of goofiness that oftentimes shows up in other Yoshida-related improv projects. There's 19 slices of killer improv weirdness here, with easy-to-remember titles like "Ghijuhnkkumn" and "Qyxoichdbihm" and "Bysjiahvoskkn"!! Over the course of all these tracks, there's a lot of creativity and intensity. Recommended.
And as with all of this new batch of Magaibutsu discs, this comes packaged in a handsome tri-fold full-color cardboard cd sleeve.
Killer three way split, two parts Japanese, one part USA. Essential for Sludge doom fanatics, as this features a brand new unreleased track from Japan's mighty, unsung doomlords Dot [.]. Maybe it's the weird spelling, maybe it's the paucity of available material, but Dot [.] are every bit as cool and weird and heavy as Boris or Corrupted and this track proves that once again. But the big surprise here are the two bands we have never heard of before. both amazing, one quite possibly our new favorite band!
Up first are Japanese black thrash outfit Sete Star Sept who spew forth 4 tracks of super downtuned, blackened thrashing grind metal insanity, super low cookie monster growls, furious riffing, massive blown out production, thick swaths of shrieking white noise. Like a killer old school UK crust band super charged and run through some cracked Japanese blackgrind filter. So cool.
But holy fuck, Watch Me Burn just totally and completely knocked us on our asses. So heavy, so weird, so utterly damaged and freaked out. Imagine the Boredoms circa Vision Creation New Sun, mixed with later tripped out trancier spacerock Solar Anus (even though they're American), then imagine that band playing some super schizophrenic what-the-fuck grindcore, with tons of totally unhinged studio weirdness, random snatches of Swedish death metal guitar leads, swirling drifts of acoustic guitar and garbled beats, bizarre ambient stretches peppered with hand drums and guttural vocalizations, abstract percussion super tripped out malfunctioning studio FX, occasional plodding processed death metal chug, super spastic drum machine, bits of slowed down doom groove, weird jangly guitars, super processed slabs of rhythmic interference, blinding super brief blasts of Merzbowian face melting grind and too much other confusional fucked up randomness to even begin describing. Like Soilent Green or Brutal Truth chopped up and reassembled by a very high jungle DJ with two broken turntables. So fucking amazing.
And finally Dot [.], who give us just what we need, an absolutely crushing slow motion stoned doom drone groovescape. Starting out more Church Of Misery than Corrupted, the band sways and swings before stumbling into a druggy glacial lurch, a sick Eyehategod dirge, that crawls and slithers, wrapped in thick peals of feedback, a harsh, rasped super demonic vocal over gloriously murky downtuned sludge. Absolutely essential.
*Acid Mothers Temple Alert*
Seven That Spells is a psych rock outfit from Croatia. But they sound a heckuva lot like Japanese kraut-channellers Acid Mothers Temple. And guess what? They've got AMT guitar guru Makoto Kawabata on hand as a special guest! He obviously feels right at home jamming with these Croatian freaks, together stirring up billowing smoke-clouds of droning space rock, the babbled and chanted vocals giving this the feel of some sort of medieval folk ritual, zapped with swirling electronic FX. And when it comes time for the guitar solo (and that time comes often) Kawabata and co. hold nothin' back. Spaced OUUUUUUT maaaaaan.
Packaging is sorta swank: the cd rests on a foam numb affixed to the inside of a heavy-duty gatefold kind of sleeve, adorned with busty, naked hippie ladies (again, in the Acid Mothers Temple tradition!).
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Cool Japanese hiphop with unexpected twists and turns, so it will appeal to fans of DJ Shadow, Mo'Wax, and the Future Primitive series. Double LP, cd any day now.
From our favorite hip hopper from Japan comes this new 12". Six tracks of one piece, My Nation, all flavored with reggae, due to the collaboration between Shingo and the Japanese dub duo Dry & Heavy. While the modern dub is light and bouncy on Dry & Heavy's
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Super good Japanese hip hop with unexpected twists and turns. Will appeal to fans of DJ Shadow, Mo'Wax, and the Future Primitive series. Comes in a beautiful book-like package. Recommended.
Not the Speed, not the Glue - it's just the Shinki, here. After reissuing the two classics of drugged out early '70s Japanese heavy psych by proto-metal power trio Speed, Glue and Shinki, makes sense that the Phoenix label would turn their attentions to the solo effort by that band's guitarist, Shinki Chen, originally released in 1972, also featuring Hiro Yanagida on keys, and George Yanagi from Flied Egg / Strawberry Path on bass and vocals. For those keeping score at home, this doesn't get nearly the love from Julian Cope's Japrocksampler as do Shinki's albums with Speed and Glue, but we still figure any Speed Glue & Shinki fan will certainly wanna check it out, 'cause it's pretty cool in our book. Truth is, as far as STONER rock goes, its hard to imagine music much more stoned than this comfortably numb slab of swirling, psychedelic blooze rawk. Just look at the album cover... crazy long hair, red eyes, puffing on a joint... that's this album, all right.
It starts off with a weird, semi-ambient opening track, "The Dark Sea Dream", five fairly abstract minutes of tinkling piano, barely-there percussion, distant voices (?), amp buzz and feedback drone which would fit right in on a current Miasmah label release, say. After that, the "regular" (though quite relaxed) rock n' roll kicks in, on melodic blues-based songs with such wonderful titles as "Freedom Of A Mad Paper Lantern", "Gloomy Reflections", and "Corpse". Shinki's guitar gently weeps, his riffage more slumbering than lumbering, the rhythms lazy and loping, everything often overwhelmed by blissed out layers of synth shimmer. And it's all quite enjoyable in fact, with a vibe sorta similar to the California dreamin' of Captain Beyond's Sufficiently Breathless (though without the jazziness of that album, which we just realized we've never reviewed!). And definitely of interest to fans of Too Much, Far Out, and of course SG&S.
In any case, Shinki and friends fuzz it up nicely here, and remarkably enough, on the album's last cut, the nearly 13 minute long "Farewell To Hypocrites", they suddenly start to display some energy, the drummer at last bestirring himself, making for a rousing finale to a record that otherwise often sorta sounds like heavy Hendrix on 'ludes. Nothing wrong with that, though, if you're in the mood! Hmm, maybe they recorded this last track first, who knows?
Limited, numbered, mini-LP sleeve styled gatefold packaging.
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Part field recording, part free jazz improv. As the title indicates, solo sax in the subway, that's what this is. But definitely not your usual "busker" fare! Beautiful, but also definitely dog-whistle intense. Japanese saxophonist Tamio Shiraishi has been active since the '70s, and played in an early incarnation of Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha, we're told. He been living in New York City for at least a decade, collaborating with NNCK among others, and apparently likes to haunt the subway in Queens, with his sax, when he's in a pensive mood. The sax he blows here generates a thin, piercing, upper-register "whistling" sound, sometimes a subtle squeal, sometimes a haunting soul-cry, that we'd think would be lost in the clangor of the subway system. But, instead it sounds like he's playing in an abandoned area of the subway, it seems often almost totally silent, but for the saxophone. And except, now and then, for the sounds of a passing train. Clearly it's a lonely stop, late at night or very early in the morning... or maybe the sine-wave like tone of his saxophone has chased all the commuters away. When a train does "run though" the station where Shiraishi is playing, a whole 'nother dimension is added, the ambient, field recording character of this disc becomes apparent, that's definitely what makes this most interesting to us, as listeners. Rumbling, clanking, hissing, rhythmically choo-chooing in its subway way, first in the distance softly, then louder, then receding again to be replaced by the sax it didn't quite drown out... The loneliness of the delicately shrill saxophone soloing is accentuated as the train fades away, each a drone of its own, for moments in brief duet. More than the sum of its parts, we'd definitely rather hear Shiraishi in this subway setting than in a studio - and at the same time, it's NOT quite what you might have thought a subway platform saxophone recording would sound like. So, move over DJ Shadow, David Shire, and Charles Gayle... this is the new sound of the NYC subway system!
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Live in '95. Hmm, I think maybe that was right about when some of us here at AQ saw this Japanese psych band, they came to SF and played an amazing show at the Kilowatt, back when they had shows there. Tokyo's Shizuka, with their haunting female vocals drifting ahead of an inevitable onslaught of noisy, billowing, distorto-delic electric guitar murk, were one of the '90s precursors to such current bands as LSD-march, Suishou No Fune, and Up-Tight. At the time, we compared 'em to Angel 'In Heavy Syrup and Slapp Happy Humphrey, the latter especially 'cause of Shizuka's extreme mix of delicacy and destructiveness, of melancholic melody and sheer, feedback-laden guitar/amp/earhole abuse. Not abuse, though, not really... it's loud, sculpted sound that's actually quite beautiful. As with so many Japanese bands from the PSF/Tokyo Flashback scene, it's like a cotton candy dream of the most out there Neil Young & Crazy Horse amplifier meltdowns (a la Arc). This raw (but not to Rallizes-like levels of low fidelity) 52 minute live set is Shizuka in their element, and even if you've never heard 'em before wouldn't be a bad place to start, at all. The first song alone should make you a believer if you're at all open to this sort of thing (i.e. maybe already a fan of some of the other bands mentioned above). And it is 26 and a half minutes long! That's the biggest blow-out on the disc, the other three tracks trafficking more in the tranquil side of Shizuka, with long slow-moving stretches of sweet vocals backed by echo and hum and hiss as the shoegazing guitar bides its time before finally erupting into full flight.
And of course, those already into Shizuka know they're one of the best, unique within the pantheon, and should be pleased have another rare document of their sad dark mystery.
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Japan's Shizuka were once (and maybe are again) an up-and-coming four-piece Tokyo psych outfit, you might know 'em from their contributions to PSF's Tokyo Flashback compilation series, or their studio album on that same label, or their amazing but now sadly out of print live cd on Persona Non Grata. They even played a great show here in San Francisco at the Kilowatt some years ago that some of us were lucky enough to witness. The prime elements of Shizuka's sound are the Keiji Haino-esque guitar storms of ex-Fushitsusha man Maki, combined with the haunting, sad female vocals of the band's namesake Shizuka (Japanophiles reading this probably also have seen her beautiful and spooky handmade dolls, on the cover of a Land of the Rising Noise comp and elsewhere). This band broke up a while ago, but have apparently recently reunited. No new material has been forthcoming, however, but they have released this live cd-r (recorded in 1995, before the break-up), which will be some consolation to fans. It's a 40-minute long live performance (complete with a fragment of the music being played through the PA prior to their set!) from a club in Tokyo. The recording is great, and their songs are phenomenal. Gorgeous, melancholic stuff, with the gently lulling singing of Shizuka being heartbreaking enough by itself, but also setting the listener up to be destroyed by the fantastic heavy psych controlled-noise outbursts of the guitar when they begin (usually a few minutes into each song). If you're already a Shizuka fan, you'll want this, and if you're into bands like Nagisa Ni Te, Slap Happy Humphrey, and Fushitsusha, you probably do too. Those with less expertise in modern underground Japanese psych -- but who dig the Velvets, Neil Young, or even an imaginary mix of Mazzy Star and Mogwai -- could do a lot worse for an introduction as well.
Whoa! We were taken by surprise (in several ways) by the sudden appearance of a new album from Japanese black metal mavericks Sigh. We all loved the avant garde, psychedelic, stoner rock horror show of their 2001 disc Imaginary Sonicscape but we hadn't heard much about them since. Well, the press release for Gallows Gallery explains that this sixth Sigh opus was recorded last year but Century Media, previous label, refused to release it because it allegedly makes use of experimental, illegal "sonic weapon techniques" developed during World War II! Warning is given that this album could be hazardous to the listener's health -- in fact, supposedly one of the members of Sigh was hospitalized during the recording sessions due to the effects of this sonic weapon stuff. But... we're having a hard time believing all that! If you're expecting some sort of bowel-rupturing, flesh-decaying subsonic rumble you'll have to get a different cd (I'm sure we can find you something). Listening to this record is more likely to leave one puzzled rather than sickened.
Having heard it, our guess is that the REAL reason that Century Media dropped Sigh is that, even by Sigh's previous standards, this is just so darn eccentric, confusing, and (to us) amusing. We're thinking that if this "sonic weapon" stuff exists, it operates in the realm of psychological warfare, 'cause it does seem possible that this music could drive a person insane. IT certainly is! Kind of like the way a catchy jingle might drive you crazy. They've definitely upped the pop element of their sound here. That's right, POP. But not normal pop that could ever be, uh, popular. No this is weird...weird....weird. And it's still metal of course. Just not black metal really, more like European "power metal" with speedy drums and hooky choruses. But their voices are kind of chipmunky, and there's weird effects, psychedelic organ jamming, throat singing, sitars and saxophones... Yup, their genre-fuckery is still in full effect. This might sound like Dag Nasty punk one second, Iron Maiden metal the next, with a schmaltzy lounge-jazz interlude following that! And the James Bond theme gets hinted at as well. Totally the sort of thing that should be on Trey Spruance's Mimicry label, though it's on Baphomet instead.
Apparently whatever Japanese insane asylum wherein the guys in Sigh reside allows visitors, as this album features members of the Meads Of Asphodel (who are about the only band in the world that we'd say are all that similar to Sigh!), Necrophagia, The Red Chord, Yakuza, Dark Tranquility, Firewind, and Thine, helping out with the shredding guitar runs, dramatic narration, saxophone solos, and things like that. Someone else also contributes a trancey techno remix of one of the album's songs at the end of the disc, preceeded by the untitled electronic noises of track ten, which we suspect might be the "weaponized" one. So...be careful, especially since it's gonna require repeated exposure to ever figure this album out.
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Want weird? Watch out for this Japanese black metal band that tries to combine New Wave of British Heavy Metal guitar licks with Schoenbergian classical chamber music--it's like Venom sitting in with Bernard Herrmann to score a horror flick. One guy in the band is credited with, among other things of course, playing the triangle! See the quote at end of this month's AQ-L for more info!
Japan's best black metal band (along with Sabbat) are back with their first US domestic release, having just been signed by big metal label Century Media. We've always been fans of their fucked-up genre-mangling horror movie soundtrack metal, and this might
Japan's Sigh are back again with more of their batshit bonkers symphonic black metal as only they can do it. If you liked their previous dizzying disc Scenes From Hell, or most of the ones before that, then In Somniphobia is a no brainer. More of their over the top orchestrated million mile an hour eccentricity, that can stop on a dime to veer from prog-power metal bombast to classical soundtrack atmospherics to frenzied oompah action to, uh, "Baker Street" style sax soloing. With buzzing synths and sound FX, widdly guitars and filthy vokills, jagged industrial beats and loungey jazz interludes, there's a LOT crammed into each of these eleven tracks. Unusual (for metal) instruments used include sitar, jaw harp, shortwave, sarangi, accordion, glockenspiel, etc. etc. And one thing they don't neglect (along with the kitchen sink) is a large dose of MELODY. Some of it's kinda cheesy, to be sure, but in chaotic juxtaposition with everything else, that melodiousness comes off as crazed and creepy as well. And makes their avant-garde metal surprisingly listenable. Sigh fans already know more or less what to expect... for everyone else, it's kinda like Cradle Of Filth as if conducted by John Zorn, or Mike Patton!
Guests include Metatron from likeminded loons Meads Of Asphodel and Kam Lee of Death/Massacre fame. And the cover art is again by Eliran Kantor, who has come up with an amazing painting here.
By the way, we just figured out that Sigh's studio albums have a special naming convention to 'em, kinda like how Morbid Angel's are arranged alphabetically (Altars of Madness, Blessed Are The Sick, Covenant, Domination, etc.). The first letter of the title of each Sigh album is either an S, I, G, or H, and chronologically in order, they've spelled out S-I-G-H-S-I-G-H-S-I so far...
Japan's strangest black metal band returns with another mind-boggling rock 'n roll horror flick soundtrack-styled disc that surpasses their previous efforts in the genre-bending department. As enamored of John Zorn as they are of Venom, this trio combine catchy metal licks with 20th century classical. At one point in their the song "Black Curse" the band lurches into a country western vamp that'll make you think you've wandered into a Jim O'Rourke record! Such curious shifts though are executed so smoothly though that this comes across much better than the sort of Satanic Mr. Bungle you might imagine. The "metal" pick of the month, next to Satyricon.
Ready to return to the bizarre black metal (and beyond) world of Japan's Sigh? You'd better be, since that's where we're going, straight to, well, HELL. Hell for those who would prefer to listen to something simple and straightforward, that is! Scenes From Hell, Sigh's eighth studio full-length, is again an idiosyncratic mix of metallic symphonics and cartoonish chaos, complex and careening. If you liked both their last couple of albums, Gallows Gallery and Hangman's Hymn, you should be happy with this ('cause it's sorta like a blend of the two). In other words, it's for folks who like their metal ornate and over-stimulating. There's A LOT going on here. Piano, horns, thrash guitars, piano, classical string quartet, rasping vox, vocoder, even the sex appeal saxophone of new co-vocalist Dr. Mikannibal (not a medical doctor, she has a PhD in physics apparently). Whew! Sigh's unusual brand of orchestral metal is compositionally eccentric and utterly grandiose to say the least, like an over the top mash up of Cradle Of Filth, Carl Stalling, Ennio Morricone, Finntroll, Devil Doll, Arcturus, Dragonforce, Uz Jsme Doma, Hammers Of Misfortune - or imagine a black metal Koenjihyakkei, if you can - it's THAT hyperactive, heavy and heretical. Not to mention, performed to perfection.
The eight busy tracks here race through twists and turns, sounding both vicious and mournful, cinematic and circus-y, and very very Japanese. Even when they've got a horn section tooting away more like an oompah band than black metal, it's still freakin' hellish. So dizzying we're STILL trying to take it all in, but this review should suffice for now...
Oh, but maybe we should mention the guest spoken word appearance by Current 93's David Tibet?! And there's also a vokill cameo by Kam Lee from '80s Florida death metal pioneers Mantas and Massacre. Huh, David Tibet and Kam Lee on the same album, wow.
The Silence is the new band formed by Masaki Batoh and a few other ex-members of longtime Japanese psych faves Ghost (not to be confused with the Swedish metal Ghost). Drag City released their self-titled debut earlier this year, we slept on it then somehow, but now that the band's 2nd album is already out we're listing 'em both together, 'cause they're both great!
Making up for lost time we guess (the last Ghost album, In Stormy Nights, came out eight years ago), these two records by The Silence are solidly in the Ghost tradition - that is, underground '70s psych-kraut-prog-folk stylings with chamber music chops, timeless and tight, able to veer from smoothly poppy pleasures to sudden freakout weirdness in the course of a single track. Gentle vocals, lovely melodies, hypnotic windups, sweeping symphonics, spacey synths, flute flutter, grandiose organ... there's all sorts of proggy psych-y goodness all over both of these, equally recommended albums. For the record, the s/t debut has their intriguing interpretations of the traditional "Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Hair" and Can's "Tango Whiskeyman" that fit right in with the surrounding, trippily varied originals; while Hark The Silence may be the more ambitious of the two albums, with mostly longer, jazz-inflected compositions, including the three part "Ancient Wind" and the propulsive "Fireball" (12+ minutes of motorik minimalism that sounds like Ariel Pink meets Acid Mothers Temple).
Sorry, the cd of the s/t is currently out of stock, so we're just listing the vinyl for now, but they should be back...
The Silence is the new band formed by Masaki Batoh and a few other ex-members of longtime Japanese psych faves Ghost (not to be confused with the Swedish metal Ghost). Drag City released their self-titled debut earlier this year, we slept on it then somehow, but now that the band's 2nd album is already out we're listing 'em both together, 'cause they're both great!
Making up for lost time we guess (the last Ghost album, In Stormy Nights, came out eight years ago), these two records by The Silence are solidly in the Ghost tradition - that is, underground '70s psych-kraut-prog-folk stylings with chamber music chops, timeless and tight, able to veer from smoothly poppy pleasures to sudden freakout weirdness in the course of a single track. Gentle vocals, lovely melodies, hypnotic windups, sweeping symphonics, spacey synths, flute flutter, grandiose organ... there's all sorts of proggy psych-y goodness all over both of these, equally recommended albums. For the record, the s/t debut has their intriguing interpretations of the traditional "Black Is The Colour Of My True Love's Hair" and Can's "Tango Whiskeyman" that fit right in with the surrounding, trippily varied originals; while Hark The Silence may be the more ambitious of the two albums, with mostly longer, jazz-inflected compositions, including the three part "Ancient Wind" and the propulsive "Fireball" (12+ minutes of motorik minimalism that sounds like Ariel Pink meets Acid Mothers Temple).
Sorry, the cd of the s/t is currently out of stock, so we're just listing the vinyl for now, but they should be back...
The always interestin' Japanese label Doubtmusic has three new releases out, we'll get to the enka-sax-solos one by Kazutoki Umezu and the jazz-improv-with-flourescent-light-instrument one by the Kazuo Imai Trio on a upcoming list soon, but we picked this disc to highlight first, this time, 'cause we know how many eager Otomo Yoshihide fans there are out there, and this disc features Otomo teaming up with a hitherto unknown to us rhythmic progwave unit called Sim, a trio comprising Oshima Teruyuki on guitar, Ootani Yosio on electronics/computer, and Ground Zero drummer Uemura Mashiro. Together they encode an alien, mechanical glitch-funk, definitely something special for fans of This Heat, Starfuckers/Sinistri, Radian, and the like.
Fried and fractured, the mutant grooves of Sim are further gunked with grit and glitch spinning from the seemingly warped turntable action of maestro Otomo, who is also credited with the use (and abuse?) of a "self-made synthesizer". Otomo's turntables are also presumably the source of the cut-up vocal loops heard on this otherwise instrumental set, garbled transmissions of chatter and mumble from unknown entities.
But it's Uemura's percussive percolations that utterly underpin this futuristic FX laden fantasmagoria. With each frayed nerve beat seemingly counting down to some terminal fate for the listener, his drumming interlocks with chicken scratch guitar and throbbing (temple) low end pulsations, amidst a miasma of electronic noise textures: blips and bleeps, crackle and feedback, eerie squeak and creak. It's maddening and mesmerizing, music for some discombobulating no-wave-by-way-of-onkyo dance club. This Sim+Otomo network is dense and distorted, displaying staggered rhythmic freakishness that seems off, then on, speeding up and slowing down and phasing in and out of "grooves" with precise imprecision.
The packaging is perfect for this, a striking digipack design as is usual for Doubtmusic, featuring not one but two circular die cut holes, a big one offset on the front through which you can see the cd, a smaller one in the back right in the center of the clear cd-tray, both to go along with the artwork, elliptical orbits echoing the way the music on this disc syncs and spins.
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We first heard Sitaar Tah!, Tokyo's amazing 22-piece all-sitar "orchestra", a couple years back on another limited (and now out of print) aRCHIVE release, the sprawling, droning two cd set Animamima on which they collaborated with Japanese dark psych lord Keiji Haino! And we've been eager to hear more from 'em ever since. Now aRCHIVE presents a Semimimimimin, a 43-minute studio recording from the group. Sitars are GO!
So.... You like dense drone. You like exotic, Eastern raga-like stuff. You like psychedelic, pulsing, shimmering beauty. You like ghostly Phillip Jeck-like lo-fi surface hiss. Well what more need we say? You're gonna like this!
One long, trance-inducing track that weaves the sound so many massed sitars into complex patterns of rhythm and melody, modulating and building to more abstract and organic, swarm-of-insects levels... absolutely as soothingly nice as you could imagine.
Beautifully presented in the aRCHIVE tradition, in their usual oversized format, with art by SUNNO)))'s Stephen O'Malley, 4-color silkscreened cover, LIMITED TO 700 COPIES ONLY!
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Sixteen Horsepower are the masters of apocalyptic swamp folk, a dark and dolorous bluegrass infused with fire and brimstone, tales of Biblical damnation, and spiritual salvation, set to fiddle and accordion, banjo and mandolin, lit by a cresent moon and the dying embers of a campfire, delivered with the vitriol fury of a rivivalist preacher trying desperately to save our souls. Sixteen Horsepower (along with 16HP frontman David Eugene Edwards' side project Woven Hand) have been responsible for some of our favorite records of the last few years. The above description should tell you enough to know that these guys push all our buttons. So we were pretty excited to get this double DVD. The first, is a series of interviews, one a super arty, black and white, with the band by the railroad, among creepy mannequins, beautifully edited and gorgeously shot. The second is a standard sit down interview. The third is interviews with the various band members tracing the timeline of the band. All very interesting, especially to hear Edwards speak so unabashedly about his faith and growing up in the church. All evident in the music of 16HP but still sort of cool to hear explained in greater detail. Disc two is all the videos and some live footage. The videos, if you haven't already seen them, are perfect visual representations of the band's take on the dusty road to damnation, lots of grainy shots of desert, and leafless trees, plenty of high contrast black and white. The highlight being the 16HP video directed by the none other than the Brothers Quay, with animated white and black chalk in some alien battle between light and dark, good and evil, as a backdrop to the band performing!! Never having seen the band, the live footage was amazing. And they are just as intense live as you might imagine. And finally on disc 2 is a European behind the scenes documentary following the band around on tour, lots of backstage footage, travelling, soundchecks, and all that kind of stuff. Intimate and really interesting. This whole collection is a welcome glimpse into the minds and music of one of our favorite bands, which is especially exciting since in the past 16HP have been less than gregarious and hardly forthcoming in terms of interviews and such.
It's hard to believe, but it's true. SOLAR ANUS IS HERE! It took almost 5 years, but it was well worth it! But what exactly is Solar Anus? An essay by French writer/philosopher Georges Bataille... a burst of plodding pummel from UK freedrone outfit Skullflower... but also, and as far as we're concerned more importantly, a band whose music conjures up a mysterious land of legendary monsters, ancient customs, cult beliefs and ritualized incest, all hidden just below the surface of our everyday world, a place only accessible through Matsuri, a group trance during which music and sound, lights and pictures help transport participants back to those mysterious other worlds and ancient times.
Such is the strange world of Japan's mighty tranced-out psychedelic doomlords Solar Anus, whose sound most definitely exists as Matsuri, a music designed to lull us into a trance and carry us off...Ô mesmeric, hypnotic and HEAVY.
Here, for the first time ever readily available outside of Japan, is the entire recorded output of the legendary Solar Anus, all collected into one massive head crushing, mind melting double cd.
Skull Alcoholic chronicles the band's dizzying trajectory, from stumbling, buzzing, bloody-stumped, sludge doom behemoths to druggy, tranced out psychedelic outer space visionaries, swinging wildly toward both extremes the whole time. An impossible blend of Black Sabbath, Hawkwind and the Boredoms, Flower Travellin' band, Pink Floyd, Boris and the Melvins.
Beginning life as a dizzy and druggy, slow motion stoner doom outfit, with their 1997 album On, Solar Anus channeled both the garagey spacestomp of old Monster Magnet, the epic miserablist doomscapes of Candlemass, and the purposefully obtuse sludge riffery of the Melvins, taking all of these disparate but distinctly heavy sounds and incorporating all manner of primitive percussive rituals, drifting dronescapes, 16 rpm Krautrock groove, dreamy angelic female vocals, massive fuzzed out guitars, huge in-the-red monster drums and swirls of creepy crawly dirge into a truly epic dronedriftdoomgroove sound.
The band's blend of propulsive tripped out krautrock, dizzying drum jams and glacial stoner sludge is at once ominous and swoonsome, crushing and psychedelic, lurching wildly from tripped out tribal Can worship to massive bulldozing metal grooves to super abstract druggy dreamscapes, often within the same song.
Album number two, 1999's Trance!! found the band trudging even more resolutely into a bleak and blown out world of dark doom, sounding more and more like classic doomsters, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost and Cathedral, but completely tweaked of course, and confusingly blended with epic stretches of lurching lo-fi psychedelic Krautrock blow outs a la Amon Duul II.
By the release of their final album, 2000's Next World News, the band had stretched out yet again, dragging their druggy doom into a head spinning world of cracked skull outerspace trance, spinning even further into the void, not so much heavy as blissed out and psychedelic. Lots of abstract rhythmic workouts, like a more demented, damaged version of Finnish dronerockers Circle, a swirl of confusionally dense and relentless FX drenched Krautrock spacejams rife with belching foghorn brass, squawking birds, dizzyingly dense tangles of hippy drum freakouts, chanted vocals, as well as all sorts of studio fuckery, chopped up tape loops, warbly pitch shifts and layer after layer of fuzz and buzz and psychdrone blur.
Each languorous stretch of fuzzed out metallic groove is swathed in blown out clouds of Hawkwind bongsmoke, but broken up by bleary expanses of chilled out 4am trancemusic, but instead of a post-rave laid back Ecstasy come down, it's like crashing and burning in some dirty back alley from an all night PCP binge, silvery streaks of electronic glitch laid over a pulsing techno throb, surrounded by thick washes of processed tribal drums, the whole thing a very Boredoms like primitive percussive ritual, hypnotic and heavy, sprinkled with all kinds of sparkling sonic twinkles and drifting chimes, and underpinned by a wasted moody muted sixties psychedelia.
A quick look at the band's convoluted thanks/inspiration list gives another glimpse into their twisted musical world: German Oak, Crash Worship, Twink, The Electric Prunes, Stooges, Nebula, Pungent Stench, Timothy Leary, Monster Magnet, Ash Ra Tempel, Sodom, Sleep, Amon Duul II, Exit-13, Cathedral, Joel Peter Witkin, Saint Vitus, Church Of Misery, Corrosion Of Conformity, Romain Slocombe, Jimi Hendrix, Gong, Funkadelic, Budgie, Guru Guru, Electric Wizard, Brutal Truth, the Beatles and more. Phew.
And for all you Asian psychrock obsessives: The Solar Anus track "Dear Mother Coral" is actually a cover of a classic tune by Japanese psych legends JA Ceasar!
One of the weirdest, wildest, heaviest collections of druggy, dreamy, dirge-drone-doom-kraut-space-noise-sludge rock EVER!
Mind blowing psychedelic collage cover art, housed in a super deluxe die-cut 'solar anus' slip cover. Includes a massive 12 page booklet, with the original album art and liner notes. These two discs contain every single bit of Solar Anus ever, including their final recording, the previously unreleased nine minute title track, "Skull Alcoholic"!
2006 truly is the year of the anus! SOLAR ANUS!!!!
ONE TIME PRESSING OF 2000 COPIES!!!
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A super fuzzed out, drug addled psychedelic 25 minute blast of flower power stoner rock from Japan. Huge riffs that groove and slither like the best sun baked stoner rock you've heard (Kyuss, Nebula, Fu Manchu). Not super original, but who cares when it's this groovy and this heavy and this rocking. All instrumental, so there's no vocals to muck up the works. Features members of serial killer obsessed Japanese stoner-sludge lords Church of Misery. One of those rare metal records that everybody here at AQ seems to dig.
Like the Onna above, here's another release from Japan's PSF label that we've been meaning to highlight for a while (they put out too much good stuff!). Finally we have enough of 'em in stock to list (for months we've been selling these steadily just by playing it in the store, actually). As the evocative/informative subtitle indicates, this is an archival collection of recordings by one Satoshi Sonoda... who he? A guitarist and composer in the realm of post-progressive rock, and new music avant-garde, part of the late '70s Japanese university scene, with connections to both psychedelic drone minimalists East Bionic Symphonia and noisepunks Gaseneta.
From the subtitle, you'll also note that this release is dedicated to the late bassist Yasushi Ozawa, best known perhaps as a member of Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha. He apparently had quite an impact on Sonoda both artistically and personally. The seven tracks here find Sonoda performing with several different lineups/projects/units, several of which feature the presence of Ozawa. The first three tracks are all credited as Sonoda compositions, though they seem just as likely to be group improvisations, and are variously designated as by Free Music Space ("1") or Free Music Revolt ("rehearsal" and "session"). The very first piece, eleven minutes long, reminds us a lot of the oldest Onna stuff, dreamy and spacey, freaky and folky, a combo of raw wandering psychedelic jamming with majestic melancholic vocal balladry. Beautiful. The second track is even longer, over 24 minutes, and encompasses enthusiastic violin string scrape, somnolently nodding grooves, and free form freakout action. Very cool, as is the shorter but similar (sans violin) track 3. Next, tracks 4-6 are by a band called ANARkISS, performing live, and are more punky, with angular raucous jagged guitar, as well as some shakuhachi and sax and what they call "scratch noise"... one of the songs is a Kan Mikami cover, "Piss-Soaked Lake", which figures. The disc then finishes up with the sounds of Free Music Space 6, a large ensemble improv blow-out entitled, "Bound, Opened".
The cd booklet contains super personal and detailed liner notes in tiny, tiny type from Sonoda himself, with his recollections of the era, discussion of various personalities including of course Ozawa, and track-by-track commentary on the material included herein. Interesting as that all is, you definitely don't need to know what's in the liner notes, or even what we've mentioned in this review, in terms of historical context or whatever, to enjoy the sounds on this disc. Like we said, just playing it in the store got people plenty intrigued. The unique vibrations from far away and long ago documented here still resonate and compel.
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This all time favorite, a primo slab of WTF weirdness, available again, and a bit cheaper too, but who knows for how long...
From Faithways, the label what brought us that extreme example of American religious fuckery The Church Universal And Triumphant, comes two songs from the leader of the Japanese Cult Aum Shinri Kyo. The cult made history in 1995 when they set off sarin nerve-gas in a crowded Tokyo subway, killing 11 people and injuring 5000 (they were later charged for the murder of another 14 people -- some quite gruesomely, as described within the accompanying booklet.) The nearly blind leader Shoko Asahara fancied himself a bit of a singer / songwriter, much like fellow cult leaders Charles Manson, David Koresh (whose rock band is featured on the label's first release) and even the lovable Anton LaVey. Musically, Shoko's songs most resemble the latter cultist's works, but with an even greater whimsy that he could be jokingly referred to as Casiotone For The Pathologically Deranged. Better yet, take Nagisa Ni Te, drop the vocals a couple octaves, change the instrumental accompaniment to casio keyboards, throw in melodic hints to "It's A Small World After All" and you can almost hear the weird world of Shoko Asahara.
Comes with a 6 page booklet detailing the cult's history.
