For fans of Janis Joplin and/or Flower Travellin' Band... a reissue of the 1968 album from this Japanese Sixties psychedelic act, who later morphed into Seventies hard rockers and massive AQ faves Flower Travellin Band. This early incarnation of the FTB had a mostly different lineup, including female vocalist Remi Aso who does her best Janis (and Grace Slick), singing in either a delicate waver or a screeching wail, wow. And The Flowers back her up like Big Brother, total pros. There's also a male singer, Chiba Hiroshi, who belts it out on such songs as "Hey Joe". Yup there's lots of then-contemporary covers on here, including stuff by Hendrix, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, and Janis Joplin. So you've gotta be into the classic rock - with a Japanese twist. Apparently Uchida had just returned from a trip to England, hanging out there with John Lennon, and this record was his first attempt to take the Japanese "Group Sounds" scene into a new, more psychedelic acid rock direction to emulate the hipness happenin' in London and San Francisco at the time. The band got attention for that - and for their naked album cover photo, the band loitering about in an idyllic meadow someplace, in the buff, though any band members (ahem) who happen to be facing toward the camera also happen to be reading newspapers or magazines for some reason... Of course, Uchida pulled this stunt again with the first FTB album that came out a few years later, with the naked band on the cover riding choppers down the highway.
Besides the cover, the first thing anyone would notice about this album is the charming intro skit, at the beginning of track one, wherein a guy tells a giggling girl about this great new band from Tokyo, "these six guys and this chick", who "do some really fantastic Big Brother And The Holding Company stuff". And he's not kidding, as the rest of the record proceeds to prove. And let's face it, these are great songs, you might not want to hear the versions played on your local classic rock radio station ever again but the Summer Of Love seems a lot cooler when we're tuning in via Tokyo.
Numbered, limited cd edition in the usual Phoenix manner.
The last AQ list was a good one for fans of Japanese prog maniacs the Ruins... there was the Vrresto reissue and their new split 7" with High On Fire. Keeping up the pace, this time 'round we've got another Ruins-related release...
This energetically, entertainingly exhausting double cd set sees sees Ruins mastermind Tatsuya Yoshida teamed up in an improv duo with Kazuhisa Uchihashi (of Altered States and Ground Zero fame). Hence the title, Improvisations. But these aren't improvs that only jazz-fanciers would like. Nope, this is ROCK improv. Prog rock to be precise, of course. Hectic and crazy and complicated. It's mind-scrabblin' stuff let me tell you. With so many musical ideas firing off in an ADD frenzy, for so long... 146 minutes, 25 tracks! And they're at a level of complexity and catchiness that makes it really hard for us to believe that these are improvs, and not carefully-thought-out compositions, actually!! But we're told thery're all improvised, all recorded live at several venues in Japan.
Chances are you're familiar with Ruins and already know Tatsuya Yoshida to be a monster drummer. Uchihashi is perhaps less-well known, but his guitar (and effects) prowess is prodigious, take it from us. Together these guys are a dream-team. If there was such a thing as gladitorial improv-rock combat, these guys would be unbeatable in the duo catagory. Very impressive, very insane. A veritable cornucopia of perplexing progged-out riffage and ridiculousness.
A word about the packaging -- it's aesthetically pleasing (with nice stone photos by Yoshida, who is skilled at graphics and layout) but, well, it's a two disc set with both cds stacked on top of one another, on the same little foam-rubber nub attached to a tri-fold cardstock sleeve. My discs haven't gotten scratched, yet, but still...probably not the best idea! The packaging police should issue these guys a ticket. Playing them this music though would be an adequate insanity defense...
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How do you follow a sprawling double cd of out-there guitar/drums improv? With a triple cd set of course! That is, if you've got the hyperactive musical genius of Japanese drum god Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, Koenjihyakkei, etc.) and his guitar-wielding partner here, Uchihashi Kazuhisa (Ground Zero, Altered States). No problem. Last year's amazing first volume of jagged live rock Improvisations from this duo was 146 minutes long. To accomplish the 214 minutes (42 tracks) of this second volume, they have brought in some help: there's guest appearances on portions of these three cds from Sato Kenji (bass), Umezu Kazutoki (reeds), Nasuno Mitsuru (bass), Komori Keiko (sax), and the Boredoms' Yamamoto Seiichi (guitar). With Yoshida's uninhibited vocals and use of sampler, and Kazuhisa's mastery of gtr fx as well, this is a veritable cornucopia of chaotic creativity -- intricate ADD prog, full-on freakouts, jazz flavored sketches, delicate melodies, spiky speedballs, fuzzy riffage, and many moods more. Ruins fans will be STOKED. Exhilarating -and- exhausting listening as you'd expect.
Nicely packaged in a tri-fold digi designed by Yoshida with his usual photos of ancient stones in vibrant color.
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This intense Japanese improv duo, featuring Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida and Altered States/Ground Zero guitarist Uchihashi Kazuhisa, has previously released a double cd (their debut, now out of print), and then a triple cd, and now their third release takes the form of a cd AND a dvd. And if you've got those other two documents, you know you want this too. On the cd, there's 21 more tracks of spasmodic drums vs. guitar interplay, as really only these two could do. On the (NTSC, all-region, pro shot/edited) dvd, you get to see as well as hear 'em doing what they do best, a complex improv collage of utter out-guitar grind, angular stabs and squibs and squiggles, snatches of Yoshida's trademark vocal warble, sudden shifts and synch-ups, syncopated rhythmic assaults, effects-freaked amp output, you want it, you got it!
Sure, on both discs here there's interludes of shimmering soothingness, and some sorta placid parts, but make no mistake, for the most part Improvisations 3 is nothing other than heavy and hectic, with crunching electric guitar doing contortions amidst the ridiculous rhythmic pummel the drums are dealing out. And as usual, hard to believe it's improv, it's got the energy and spontaneity but also so many cool riffs and runs how could they made it all up on the spot, and so telepathically too?! If Yoshida sounds like he's got like eight arms, and Uchihashi about fourteen fingers, as a duo it's like they share one brain. One very insane brain.
And another Kawabata team-up. Here the hairiest, hardest-working guitarist in the Acid Mothers universe goes into Pataphysical Overdrive with French instrumental post-rock outfit Ueh, whose now out of print double cd on the AMT label was much liked around these parts. Actually this is part split, part collaboration. Two tracks are just Ueh, one just Kawabata, and one finds 'em both inhabiting the same cosmos together. It's 56 minutes in length total though so it's no mere ep. Apparently these discs were issued for a Ueh tour of the US last summer, which we sadly missed out on, dang it.
Of the two Ueh tracks, one's an 18 minute mellow epic, and the other a perhaps uncharacteristically jangly, 3-4 minute poppy rock number that blasts into distorted washes of pataphysical overdrive midway. Meanwhile, the Ueh/Kawabata collab is a nice skitterish krauty droner, and then Kawabata takes over by himself to finish things up with a 23 minute track that combines floating, gossamer beauty with some slightly skronked, damaged primitive psych guitar soloing. No "overdrive" here, it's a lot more lazy and nod-like and plaintive sounding than that word would imply!
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Previously cd-only, here's the lovely picture-disc gatefold vinyl version of this, the only full-length recording by the incredible uber-Boredoms offshoot band UFO or Die (Yoshimi and Eye of Boredoms, plus the bassist from Leningrad Blues Machine), described by Eye as Blue Cheer meets the Shaggs. A feast for the eyes and ears, arguably better than the best Boredoms records!
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Repressed. Classic Boredoms side project stuff. Noisy as fuck, wild and wooly and chaotic.
Weird Japanese indie pop/electronica/jazz group, described as some impossible combination of salsa, beats, and Zappa, or something like that. Their brand of willful eclecticism is of the very brave (foolish?) variety, where they don't so much fuse genres as skip among them from track to track, making this sound almost more like a compilation than a band. For instance, track four is an interpretation of Ornette Coleman's "Skies of America", with saxophones a-plenty, but by track six we're experiencing a hip hop song featuring guest MC Mike Ladd. Other guests and musical approaches are introduced over the course of the album, but at least one unifying factor is the recurrence of saxophones, and another is the recurring vocals of Kyoko Brown, who manages to come as close as a Japanese (-American?) woman can to sounding like Mike Patton, appropriate since I'd imagine that Mr. Bungle fans looking for something in the electronica vein would go for this... Interesting!
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Japanese jazz saxophonist "Doctor" Umezu with some downtown NYC stalwarts (Marc Ribot, Wayne Horvitz, Tom Cora, and Samm Bennett). Great stuff, full of fun. Recommended.
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Avant jazz from Japan featuring Kazutoki Umezu on sax.
The first release on Grindfreaks Records, the record label affiliated with the Grave record store in Osaka Japan, run by Takaho from Unholy Grave (but often manned by Chew, the drummer from Corrupted!) Grave only sells grind, grind and more grind (oh, and ok, a little hardcore and black metal), so what better way to launch the label than with the latest release from one of the longest running and most infamous Japanese grind bands of all time (and most prolific with nearly 70 releases, nearly all of them splits!!).
Unholy Grave are going on nearly 15 years of grinding destruction, and they still sound as fierce, and fucked up as ever. And even though it's 2007, in the world of Unholy Grave, it still sounds like it's 1987. Falling somewhere between Napalm Death's Scum and Carcass's Reek Of Putrefaction, but filtered through their own Japanese grind filter, the sound of Unholy Grave is gloriously guttural, furiously fast, and ultra distorted, with some of the most bad ass riffs EVER, and everything sooooooooo completely in the red, occasionally the band blasts into full on Japanoise territory. At their fiercest, it's like sticking your head in a dryer full of rusty nails, a relentless barrage of crusty sludge and blown out brutal blasts. But the band does slow down here and there, into weird moshy grooves, super intense doomy stomps and tangled mathy breakdowns, but never for long, always returning to a super fierce, face melting white hot rrrrroooooaaaar. The vocals are all over the shop too, from hysterical shriek, to growling gurgle, nimbly balancing on a musical bed of jagged glass, everything battered and bloodied and so gloriously kick ass and heavy. Some of us have been listening to this NONSTOP since we got it...
The booklet is awesome too, a full on old school punk rock collage of lyrics and slogans and clip art (including an obi of course!) and some seriously awesome art inside the tray card, a Russian leaflet, of which supposedly a million copies were distributed in 1941, with the legend: "GRINDCORE Against Terrorism" along side a Hitler moustachioed monkey behind bars, wearing an iron cross and a swastika armband... and in the corner the words "Gorilla Adolf", and in German: "Caution! Rabid!"�
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Super heavy metalcore, heavier on the 'core. New York via Japan style crossover.
We first heard of Japanese psych band Up-Tight back in 2004 when their Five Psychedelic Pieces cd came out Stateside, 'round about the same time we also discovered their quite similar countrymen LSD-march, and hailed 'em both as two of the best young bands in the "Tokyo flashback" tradition. But that wasn't actually Up-Tight's first album, the sensibly titled First Album, which has now been reissued (in typical deluxe and limited fashion) by the aRCHIVE label on this Early Years disc.
Originally released on cd-r back in 1999 (btw, remember when that seemed like such a futuristic date??), this too could have been called Five Psychedelic Pieces, as this 5-tracker sees Up-Tight fully launched into the slowburn shoegaze-'til-amplifier-fire trajectory you already know and love 'em for... some songs drift lazily by, with quietly melancholic atmospheres and morose echoed vox. Usually that's just a part of it though, before pedals are stomped, drums begin to pound, and storms of electric guitar overload are unleashed. Heck, you know what we're talking about if you're curious about this, you've heard Up-Tight before, or LSD-march, or their sunglasses-at-night grandaddies Les Rallizes Denudes.
In addition to the approx. 48 minutes of First Album, aRCHIVE has added on two previously unreleased bonus tracks, one studio, one live, dug up from even further back in the band's early daze, circa 1994... another 18 minutes or so of primal psychedelic pulsation and delicate dronefulness.
Everything's been "slightly remastered", it's packaged in folding glossy cardstock sleeve, and is indeed LIMITED to 600 copies and unlikely to be around for too long!!
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Like the LSD-march reviewed two list ago, here's another young Japanese psych outfit who first came to our attention on one of the Alchemy label's recent Night Gallery compilations (which we'll hopefully have stocked and reviewed in time for our next list, by the way). Up-tight are kinda similar to LSD-march: drugged, dark, hypnotic garage psych from folks who must have invested many hours of their life in listening to the Velvet Underground. As the no-nonsense title states, there's five tracks, three studio n' two live, all certainly very psychedelic in that night-soaked, black-cloaked, Tokyo Flashback/Fushitsusha/Les Rallizes Denudes/Kousokuya way. All are pretty long too, with lots of room for Up-Tight to stretch out with their mantric, rhythmic clatter, guitars fuzzed and scrabbling. As befits their name, they've got a rigid menace to their playing. So much of this is dark, distorto, doomy grinding that just wants to do your head in. But at least one of these 'pieces' is a bit more peaceful -- driftier, lighter, sadder. And even the harsher pieces have their melodic moments... Our verdict: really good, recommended to all lovers of guitar-squall and nod-worthy groove. What with all the recent releases from the likes of Up-Tight, DMBQ, Miminikoto, LSD-march, and Green Milk From The Planet Orange, it seems like ol' Acid Mothers Temple are this year getting some serious up-and-coming competition!
First dvd release from both Up-Tight and Last Visible Dog, sees (or allows us to see) one of our favorite heavy Japanese psych trios kicking out the jams live in Tokyo. There's 52 minutes of footage here, the band performing four songs: "Day Dream Believer", "Cool Eyes", "Never Come Morning", and "Sweet Sister".
Musically Up-Tight are their usual dark and distorto-delic selves, some of this an amped up assault, some of it achingly beauty displaying their softer side, all in all a pretty awesome performance from them. And visually this is very cool too, the raw video having been given a psychedelic special FX treatment done tastefully enough to enhance, rather than distract from, the experience.
And no matter where you live, this all-regions dvd should be compatible with your TV, as it's double-sided, PAL on one, NTSC on the other.
Dark, heavy Japanese guitar psych!! We love it. If you do too -- we're talking bands like Fushitsusha, White Heaven, Kousokuya, Shizuka, and grandaddies of 'em all, the deservedly-legendary, decades-old Les Rallizes Denudes -- then this new release on the Alchemy label by Tokyo's Up-Tight comes highly recommended. We reviewed their US debut release, the aptly titled Five Psychedelic Pieces, just a few months back, and have been looking forward to this new album, a Japanese import, ever since. It doesn't disappoint. If anything, a lot of this has got an even heavier, dronier edge than what we heard on the last one. Super fuzzed guitars, sad ballads, grinding distorto epics. Not to be messed with. Along with that other great up-and-coming Tokyo psych outfit with an admittedly better name whom you probably also dig, LSD-march, these guys are the heirs to Les Rallizes' black-clad, acid-fried, downer dirge throne. Drop the (figurative, laser) needle on this and soon you'll be transported to the cloudy peak of their majestic solid rock night-black mountain, where maybe you'll find a guru willing to show you how to conquer your fears and walk on those clouds... Five tracks, four in the 8-10 minute range, culminating in a final 23 minute tour de force.
The dark shadows cast by this underground Tokyo psych trio have been getting longer of late. We've had two cds from them, both of 'em well-received by the AQ community (the excellent US release Five Psychedelic Pieces on Static Records, and then the maybe even better Lucrezia on Japan's Alchemy label), and some of us here were also just lucky enough to get to witness the power and intensity of Up-Tight's live show when they played in San Francisco quite recently, bringing their melanchoic vox, mantric drum beating, rigid bass pulsations, and guitar-heavy sadness and squall to the tight confines of the Hemlock. As displayed there, Up-Tight's sunglasses-at-night music is aligned with the likes of current Tokyo scene brethren LSD-March in worship of '70s Japanese distorto-psych legends Les Rallizes Denudes, and that's nothin' but a good thing. So another new Up-Tight document is cause for excitement. That this one also features the guitar and drones of Acid Mothers Temple beardlord Kawabata Makoto, is only the icing on a rather heavy cake. Jamming together on such co-compositions as "The Scat Singer At The Gate Of Midnight" (?) and "Rainy Day Girl #12 & 35", the Up-Tight/Kawabata alliance turns in a particularily anguished, feedback-filled set. Demons being exorcised here for sure. It's noisy and droney and dark, and the presence of guest guru Kawabata only further stimulates the spirits of Les Rallizes that swirl about Up-Tight's amps. Sure Up-Tight have their softer side, but with Kawabata on board, it's the destructive jet engine guitar sound that gets emphasized! AMT fans who haven't heard Up-Tight (but like the harsher, "Electric Heavyland" side of Kawabata's output) will happily "Mellow Out" to this! Produced and mixed by Kawabata as well, for maximum void-dwelling clangor. It's a limited edition disc, too, we're told...
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We've reviewed a few releases by freaking intense, seemingly unhinged, utterly nihilistic Japanese saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe in the past, stuff released on labels like PSF and Tiliqua, including a collaboration with veteran Tokyo Flashback act Kousokuya, saying in one of our reviews that Urabe is "is pretty far out there in the field of free improvisation", which if anything is an understatement. So out there that he's been quoted as saying "Improvisation can eat shit", apparently considering his music something else entirely. Well, if you're up for some of whatever Urabe's output is, here's a new one from the man via the reliable Utech label, who know their out there eat shit improv all right. Painful beauty, delicate brutality, noisy silence� These are the extremes with which Urabe both enraptures and unsettles the once-innocent listener. And it's not all his anguished alto sax, in fact, the very first nine-minute-plus track is more of an incredibly lo-fi, uber-distorted electric guitar feedback freakout full of raw, choppy riffage. Urabe on this album also makes use of harmonica, bird calls, and even metal chains, the ominous rattle of which we also remarked upon when heard on one of his previous PSF albums. Furthermore, Aural Fit's drummer Teruhisa Nanbu shows up on two of the (longest) tracks here, as well. The skitter and skree can be quite lonely and lovely, for sure...but beware, as Urabe has his bloodthirsty side, too, as alluded to above (and below)! Making music 'difficult listening' is his mission.
The usual nice, slim and oversized Utech packaging includes some, uh, motivational liner notes by Urabe ("If there's someone you want to kill, stop working out how you're going to do it and just do it"), in English translation by Alan Cummings.
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Tokyo's great psych/jazz/folk underground label PSF previous released this album by contemporary alto saxophonist Urabe on limited vinyl LP only. Now, thankfully, they've made it available on cd. Minimal but intense, unusual solo sax improv which explores, according to PSF English-language guru Alan Cummings, "the relationship between sound and silence, and all those mysterious spaces in between ('ma')." And he's right, this is all about momentary shimmering shards of saxophone whisper-skree, with plenty of that 'ma' goin' on.
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Japanese saxophonist Urabe Masayoshi is pretty far out there in the field of free improvisation. A former visual artist, he switched from painting to music because he wanted the process of creation itself, that activity, to be the whole of his art, for all to witness. In his improvisations, he is said to have developed "an extreme language, built on unbearable body positions and blocks of silence" (to quote Franck Stofer's Japanese Independent Music book). He has collaborated with Japanese avant-rock acts Kosokuya and Che-Shizu for albums on Tokyo psych label PSF, and as well has recorded solo for the same label.
Recorded in 2001, Urabe's music as documented on "Urklang" is slow and abstract, encompassing much emptiness, vast emptiness (with track one on this disc being an epic for solo alto, over fifty minutes in length) populated by lonely notes, hollow hoots from Urabe's sometimes barely-there horn. Urabe's breath and guttural exclamations are heard along with his sax. Fiercely physical shrieks erupt from his instrument without much warning, although much of his playing is gentle and not un-pretty. The second track, a seventeen minute soprano solo, equally invests both silence and shrieking with Urabe's intense, and delicate, feelings. "Urklang" is an emotional experimental saxophone improv set for those with both Arthur Doyle and Keiji Haino discs in their collections. The debut release from Belgian label Tiiqua, this cd comes packaged in a sturdy mini-LP style cardboard sleeve (like many a '60s/'70s psych or jazz reissue from Japan), with drawings by Urabe on the cover, perfectly conveying his music's timeless vibe.
Normally we don't like to quote too much from an album's press release or its liner notes, but we have to share this statement from Japanese improv saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe himself, which accompanies this release: "My joints ache so much that I walk weird. Improvisation?? Improvisation??!? I've never seen it, heard it, or played it. You say that you're uncomfortable. I felt so good that I stopped laughing. I love silence because I am so brutal, but because I breathe there can be no silence. I call it Rock 'n' Roll. Because I breathe -- because I have a mouth. Duo 1988, Ju/A Brute, Urklang, Soingyokusaiseyo -- Improvisation can eat shit, that's what I've always said. Musicians are the scum of the earth, and hell's a lie, that's what I've always said. Do you know a word that means both look at me and leave me alone? I'm so fuckin' glad that I've got no reasons, no dreams, nothing to believe in. I'm so fuckin' glad that I have no interest in the occult, in salvation, in playing my part, in meanings. I'm so fuckin' glad I met you and left you. I'm so fuckin' glad that I'm not you. What I really mean is that I'm so fuckin' glad that you're not beautiful. What I really mean is that I'm so fuckin' glad that you mean nothing to me."
Whoah, dude. And there he is on the album cover, a knife clenched in his teeth and a maniacal glint in his eyes. We've been fans of his lost-n-lonely sax scrape in the past, and with this album he brings that style of sparse improv into more sinister focus, also gettin' intense with metal joints (?), chains, harmonica, and electric guitar along with the alto sax. Recorded live in Japan and Belgium, Urabe's sax a death-breath, the man clanking those chains like a ghost, this disc is an ominous work, the silence found within seeming like the loudest thing in the world until our man lets loose with some rough-and-tumble, high-end shrieking guitar grind. You'll believe every word he said, above, and like it.
Apparently Urabe was accompanied by a dancer on these recordings, but you'll just have to use your imagination to see what sort of tortured moves he or she was making along to this music.
Adventurous British "stereo guitar" improviser Gary Smith has recorded with some interesting folks before (Hugh Hopper, Joe Gallivan, Nanjo Asahito, Shoji Hano, Aufgehoben No Process, Lou Ciccotelli, and Rhys Chatham among others) and here he teams up with stellar out-alto saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe to head in a new late-night improv direction. These two long tracks are more about the delicate, sometimes painful, yet beautiful style of Urabe (as evidenced on his recent solo set "Urklang" -- see that review for more words on him) than the noisy fusion jazz-rock of Smith's last few projects. Here Smith and Urabe interact like coughing, sputtering, swooping bats in a dripping cave...I mean, that's kind of what it sounds like if you use your imagination. Silence, sudden violence, shrill harmonica (Urabe), jazzy string-skree (Smith) -- it's all pretty dark and intense though not particularily loud n' heavy, which just makes you listen all that harder to this hard-to-listen-to (in a good way) music.
We've been huge fans of Urdog since we first heard them a couple years back. Their shambolic, rambling folky krautrockishness pretty much pushed every weird music button we posess! We raved about both of their full lengths on Secret Eye (one of which is out of print for now) and everyone was so into them we finally managed to track down their first cd-r, which flew out of here and has been out of print ever since. Well, when Andee and Allan were in NYC for CMJ, they ran into one of the Urdogs and he happened to mention that he had a stash of the very last 30 copies of the Urdog demo, we grabbed all of 'em and got 'em here for you, the VERY last copies ever. Here's our review from when we first had this in last September:
Everybody dug the Urdog record we listed a few lists back so when the band got in touch and let us know they had an earlier cd-r, we figured we oughta get that too. And we're glad we did 'cause it's just as good. Another rambling ramshackle collection of propulsive, fuzzed out psychedelic drone / krautrock. Super saturated keyboards, rumbling riffery and tribal drumming. A mix of Jewelled Antler foresty folk, Tarantula Hawk proggy pummel, and lots of druggy psychedelic filigree. Packged in a beautifully silkscreened sleeve with an extensive set of liner notes folded up and pacakged in a little hand stamped envelope. So nice.
Now this is a freakin' treat for all Japanophile music fans like ourselves!! Osaka's Alchemy label, home to so much great Japanese noise, punk, and psychedelic music over the years, has gone and put out a DVD collection for your enjoyment. It's pretty much all live stuff (with the notable exception of a strange MTV-style music video clip for a track from label boss's Jojo Hiroshige's most recent solo album!!) recorded at gigs dating all the way back to the '80s, up to this past year, depending on the band in question. So this covers a pretty good selection from the Alchemy label roster, new and old. Here's the line-up, in part: Masonna, Doodles, Up-Tight, Christine 23 Onna, Ultra Bide, Omoide Hatoba, Sekiri, The Genbaku Onanies, Angel'In Heavy Syrup, Subvert Blaze, Hoburakin, Hijokaidan, S.O.B. Kaidan, Incapacitants, and more... Something for everyone.
Highlights for us include the intense fuzz guitar psych dealt out by Up-Tight, the hippy metal of Subvert Blaze, the absurd noise-fest of Hijokaidan's 25th anniversary performance, the wonderful delicate psych-pop of all-girl duo Doodles, and the guitar-smashing, cymbal-chucking noise trance tantrum of the infamous S.O.B Kaidan performance (noise mongers Hijokaidan joining forces with the ledgendary Japanese thrash-metal outfit S.O.B. in 1989). And special mention must be made of Christine 23 Onna's punked-out, super-distorted '60s psych groove assault, which culminates with Maso Yamazaki jumping on, and knocking over his synthesizer before taking a dive into the crowd!
Since we'd guess that only a few AQ-customers have been lucky enough to attend very many shows at clubs like Osaka's Eggplant or the Shinjuku Loft in Tokyo over the past two decades, this is even more essential if you're at all a fan of this scene... 117 minutes, NTSC, all regions. ----* ----* In Stock, Not Yet Reviewed : ----* If you want to order one of these, just cut and paste the info into the comments area on the order form, or just email mailorder@aquariusrecords.org. AESOP ROCK "Fast Cars, Danger, Fire And Knives" (Definitive Jax) cd 17.98 AKIYAMA, TETUZI "Route 13 To the Gates of Hell" (DAT-3 / Fader) cd 19.98 AKIYAMA, TETUZI / TOSHIMARU NAKAMURA / OTOMO YOSHIHIDE / TAKU UNAMI "Compositions for Guitar Vol. 2" (A Bruit Secret) cd 17.98 AKRON / FAMILY "s/t" (Young God) cd 13.98 ALIAS "All Things Fixable" (Goodwithmoney) cd 14.98 ANDEREGG, BRENDON "Falling Air" (Psych-O-Path) cd 13.98 ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO "Certain Blacks" (Free America) cd 17.98 ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO "Phase One" (Free America) cd 17.98 ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO "With Fontenella Bass" (Free America) cd 17.98 AUBE "Chain[Re]Action" (Blossoming Noise) cd 14.98 AXOLOTL / YELLOW SWANS / GERRITT "split" (Jyrk) cd 5.98 AYLER, ALBERT "Live On The Riviera" (ESP-Disk) cd 14.98 BEANIE SIGEL "The B. Coming" (Roc-A-Fella) cd 14.98 BECK "Guero" (Interscope) cd 15.98 BEYOND SENSORY EXPERIENCE "Korrelations" (Old Europa Cafe) cd 15.98 BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL / BRUCE RUSSELL "s/t" (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd 16.98 BLACK LEOTARD FRONT "Casual Friday" (DFA) 12" 6.98 BRAIN DONOR "s/t" (Mister E) cd 13.98 BRAXTON, ANTHONY "Saxphone Improvisation Series F" (Free America) 2cd 25.00 BUDD, HAROLD "Avalon Sutra" (Samadhisound) cd 17.98 BURTON, JAMES & RALPH MOONEY "Corn Pickin' & Slick Slidin'" (Sundazed) cd 13.98 BUSDRIVER "Fear of a Black Tangent" (Mush) cd 14.98 BY THE END OF TONIGHT "A Tribute To Tigers" (Temporary Res) cd 14.98 CALIBOS "Me And The Window" (Handheld) cd 11.98 CARIBOU "Yeti" (Domino) cd ep 6.98 CEPHALIC CARNAGE "Anomalies" (Relapse) cd 14.98 CHARALAMBIDES "Our Bed Is Green" (Kranky) 2cd 16.98 CHICKS ON SPEED AND THE NO HEADS "Press The Space Bar" (Chicks On Speed) cd 14.98 CLARINETTE "Transmuting Fall" (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 14.98 COH "0397post-pop" (Mego) 2cd 24.00 COLD BLEAK HEAT "It's Magnificent, But It Isn't War" (Family Vineyard) cd 14.98 COMETS ON FIRE / BURNING STAR CORE (Yik Yak) lp 14.98 COPE, JULIAN "Citizen Cain'd" (Head Heritage) 2cd 24.00 COTTEN, ELIZABETH AND JESSE FULLER "Masters Of The Country Blues" (Yazoo) dvd 16.98 CRISTINA "Doll In The Box" (Ze Records) cd 16.98 CRISTINA "Sleep It Off" (Ze Records) cd 16.98 CURRAN, ALVIN "Canti Illuminati" (Fringes Archive) cd 21.00 DAEDELUS "Exquisite Corpse" (Mush) cd 14.98 DAFT PUNK "Human After All" (Virgin) cd 17.98 DALE, JON "Son D'Air" (Rhizome) cd-r DAREDIABLO "Twenty Paces" (Southern) cd 14.98 DARK TRANQUILITY "Character" (Century Media) cd 12.98 DAVENPORT "Marble Seed" (Jyrk Collective) cd-r 5.98 DILLOWAY, AARON "Boggs, Volume 2" (Hanson) cd 14.98 DJ QBERT "Demolition Pumpkin Squeeze Musik" (Gurakutiku Batto Heaa) cd 14.98 DROP THE LIME "This Means Forever" (Tigerbeat 6) cd 14.98 DUNGEN "s/t" (Subliminal Sounds) cd 16.98 EGLIN, FABRICE & JEROME NOETINGER "Psychotic Reactions & Lightnin' Rag" (A Bruit Secret) cd 17.98 ERICKSON, ROKY "I Have Always Been Here Before" (Shout! Factory) 2cd 31.00 EVOL "Magia Potagia" (Mego) cd 16.98 FOG "10th Anniversary Freakout" (Lex) cd 15.98 GANG GANG DANCE "God's Money" (Social Registry) cd 14.98 GHOST "Metamorphosis" (Drag City) cd + dvd 17.98 GRUBBS, DAVID & NIKOS VELIOTIS "The Harmless Dust" (Headz / Fader) cd 19.98 HAFLER TRIO "Being A Firefighter Isn't About Squirting Water" (Important) cd 10.98 HAINO, KEIJI "Uchu Ni Karamitsuiteru" (PSF) cd 19.98 HALF-HANDED CLOUD "Thy Is A Word + Feet Need Lamps" (Asthmatic Kitty) cd 14.98 HALL, ARCH JR "Wild Guitar!" (Norton Records) cd 14.98 HARMONIC 33 "Music For Film, Television & Radio Volume One" (Warp) cd 16.98 HELLA "Church Gone Wild / Chirpin Hard" (Suicide Squeeze) 2cd 15.98 HORTICULTURAL COMPASS "The Apparition Of Bees" (Jewelled Antler) cd-r 9.98 KAMMERFLIMMER KOLLEKTIEF "Absencen" (Staubgold) cd/lp 15.98/14.98 KARKOWSKI, ZBIGNIEW "One And Many" (Sub Rosa) cd 14.98 KASABIAN "s/t" (RCA) cd 12.98 KIRKEGAARD, JACOB "Eldfjall" (Touch) cd 15.98 KOICHI, MAKIGAMI "Koedarake" (Tzadik) cd 15.98 KUTI, FELA "The Best Of Fela Kuti: Music Is The Weapon" (Wrasse) 2cd + dvd 33.00 KYLESA "To Walk A Middle Course" (Prosthetic) cd 11.98 LACY, STEVE "The Gap" (America) cd 17.98 LAST OF THE JUANITAS "In The Dirt" (Wantage) cd 13.98 LAVAGNINO, ANGELO "Gamma 1 Quadrilogy" (Dagored) cd 16.98 LCD SOUNDSYSTEM "Yr City's A Sucker" (DFA) 12" 6.98 MACLEAN, JUAN "I Robot / Less Than Human" (DFA) 10" 6.98 MADLIB "Mind Fusion Vol. 1" (Madlib) cd 16.98 MADLIB "Mind Fusion Vol. 2" (Madlib) cd 16.98 MAEROR TRI "Hypnobasia / Ultimate Time" (Old Europa Cafe) cd-r 25.00 MAGICK MARKERS "I Trust My Guitar, etc." (Ecstatic Peace) lp 16.98 MARSUPILAMI "s/t" (Breathless) cd 15.98 MATHIEU, STEPHAN "The Sad Mac" (Headz / Fader) cd 19.98 MATTHEWS, ERIC "Six Kinds Of Passion Looking For An Exit" (451) cd 14.98 MENCHE, DANIEL "Sirocco" (Important) cd 14.98 MERZBOW "Bariken" (Blossoming Noise) cd 14.98 MF DOOM "Live From Planet X" (Nature Sounds) cd 12.98 MIKAMI, KAN "Bachi" (Abruit Secret) cd 17.98 MILTON, ANTONY "'Sirens' & 'And Where The Coloured Planes Are Rafts" (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98 MOBY "Hotel" (V2) 2cd 16.98 MORRICONE, ENNIO "La Califfa (OST)" (Dagored) cd 15.98 MOUNTAIN GOATS "Nothing For Juice" (3 Beads of Sweat) cd 14.98 MOUNTAIN GOATS "Zopilote Machine" (3 Beads of Sweat) cd/lp 14.98/14.98 MOUNTAINS "s/t" (Staartje) cd 14.98 MOUTHUS "s/t" (Psych-O-Path) cd 13.98 MU "Out Of Breach (Manchester's Revenge)" (Output) cd 16.98 MULCAHY, MARK "In Pursuit Of Your Happiness" (Mezzotint) cd 15.98 NULL, KK "Prime Radiant" (Blossoming Noise) cd 12.98 OCS "3" (Yik Yak) lp 14.98 OKAY "High Road" (Absolutely Kosher) cd 14.98 OKAY "Low Road" (Absolutely Kosher) cd 14.98 OS MUTANTES "Everything Is Possible!: The Best Of Os Mutantes" (Luaka Bop) cd 12.98 OSBOURNE, OZZY "Prince Of Darkness" (Epic) 4cd boxset 42.00 OUT HUD "Let Us Never Speak Of It Again" (Kranky) cd 14.98 PATTON, CHARLIE "Primeval Blues, Rags, and Gospel Songs" (Yazoo) cd 16.98 PLAIN RIDE "On The Flow" (Ektro) cd 14.98 PREFUSE 73 "Surrounded By Silence" (Warp) cd 15.98 PRINCE PO & RAEKWON "Bump Bump" (Lex) 12" 5.98 QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE "Lullabies To Paralyze" (Interscope) cd 16.98 RAMONES "End Of The Century, The Story Of The Ramones" (Rhino) dvd 23.00 RODEN, STEVE "Ear(th)" (Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery) cd 13.98 RUDD, ROSWELL "Roswell Rudd" (Free America) cd 17.98 RUNEMAGICK "Envenom" (Aftermath) cd 14.98 SECTION 25 "So Far" (LTM) dvd 32.00 SEHT "The Voice Of The Taniwha" (Last Visible Dog) cd 11.98 SHEPP, ARCHIE "Black Gipsy" (Free America) cd 17.98 SHIFLET, MIKE "The City Is All In Your Head" (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) cd-r 14.98 SHINING IV "The Eerie Cold" (Avantgarde Music) cd 14.98 SHIPPING NEWS "Flies The Fields" (Quarterstick) cd/lp 14.98/14.98 SHORTER, ALAN "Tes Esat" (Free America) cd 17.98 SILVER MT. ZION MEMORIAL ORCHESTRA, A "Horse In The Sky" (Constellation) cd/2lp 14.98/19.98 SMEGMA "Rumblings" (Hanson) cd 14.98 SNOW PATROL "The Trip" (Fiction) 2cd 28.00 SPOONBENDER 1.1.1 "Stereo Telepathy Academy - Live In San Francisco 2004" (Seismic Seance Recordings) cd-r 11.98 TAAKE "Doedskvad" (Karisma) cd 14.98 TARWATER "The Needle Was Travelling" (Morr Music) cd 16.98 TERRESTRIAL TONES "Blasted" (Psych-o-path) cd 13.98 TETREAULT, MARTIN & OTOMO YOSHIHIDE "2.Tok" (Dame) cd 15.98 THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND "Philadelphia Folk Festival 1969" (Tallulah) cd 13.98 THORNTON, CLIFFORD "The Panther And The Lash" (Free America) cd 17.98 THUNDERBIRDS ARE NOW! "Justamustache" (Frenchkiss) cd 14.98 TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI "Itsuka, Toky Mite Ita" (PSF) cd 21.00 TOMOKAWA, KAZUKI "Pistol - Shibuya Apia Live" (PSF) dvd 26.00 TWEET "It's Me Again" (Goldmind) cd 16.98 V/A "12" / 80s" (Family Recordings) 3cd 28.00 V/A "Cold Heat: Heavy Funk Rarities 1968-1974 Vol. 1" (Now-Again) cd/lp 14.98/16.98 V/A "Counter Culture 04: Best of 2004" (Rough Trade) 2cd 24.00 V/A "Definitive Jux Teaser 2005" (Definitive Jux) cd 5.98 V/A "Essential Afrobeat: The Very Best of Afrobeat" (Family Recordings) 3cd 28.00 V/A "Everything Comes & Goes - Black Sabbath Tribute" (Temporary Residence Ltd.) cd/lp 14.98/14.98 V/A "Rio Baile Funk: Favela Booty Beats" (Essay) cd/12" 16.98/9.98 V/A "The Joe South Tribute Record" (Jackpine) cd 14.98 V/A "World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's A Real Thing" (Luaka Bop) cd 16.98 VANDER, CHRISTIAN "Un Homme... Une Batterie" (Seventh Records) dvd 27.00 VITAMINS FOR YOU "Desole... Monsieur Soleil, C'est Le Neige Qui Va Me Liberer" (Intr.Version) cd ep 10.98 VOLCANO THE BEAR "The Idea Of Wood" (Textile) cd 16.98 WALDRON, MAL & STEVE LACY "Mal Waldron With The Steve Lacy Quintet" (Free America) cd 17.98 WEST, SPEEDY "Steel Guitar" (Sundazed) cd 13.98 WICKHAM-SMITH, SIMON "Buckminsterfullerene / Pange Lingua Gloriosi" (Celebrate Psi Phenomenon) 2 cd-r 16.98 WORKS, THE "s/t" (Subliminal Sounds) cd 16.98 WRIGHT, FRANK "Uhuru Na Umoja" (Free America) cd 17.98 ZORN, JOHN "Rituals" (Tzadik) cd 15.98 _______________________________________________________________________ ABOUT MAILORDER
From mind-expanding psych drone to extended folk meditations to (opium-)poppy songcraft, "Amaterasu" is all you need for at least a few evenings, nights, and/or mornings of audio-induced bliss. Subtitled, somewhat misleadingly, "A Musical Panorama of Japan", this compilation is hardly an overview of everything from Taiko drumming to J-pop. Not at all. Rather, it's a collection of stuff from the psych-pop-folk-drone underground in Japan, in keeping with Fractal's previous releases of Japanese origin like Acid Mothers Temple -- and many AMT-types appear here as you might expect! It's a really fine collection indeed, well worth the 32 bucks to anyone enamored, as we are, of the retro-psych scene that's currently so vibrant in Japan, as previously documented by PSF's Tokyo Flashback compilation series for instance. There's sixteen tracks in total here, many of them pushing ten minutes in length, and thus spread over two discs. The fragile melodicism of Mineko Itakura, singing solo backed only by her own acoustic guitar, is for us the gorgeous highlight of disc 1, though there's plenty else on here quite worthy as well: Overhang Party, Mitsuru Tabata, Space Machine, Makoto Kawabata, Seiji Nagai (ex-Taj Mahal Travellers), and Kengo Iuchi. Disc two is also packed with cosmic-calibre talent, featuring Chie Mukai, Masayoshi Urabe, Kousokuya, Totsuzen Danball, Miminokoto, Jun Kuriyama, Naoaki Miyamoto, and more Mineko Itakura (yay!). Almost everything is exclusive to this compilation, which comes complete with English language liner notes by the knowledgable Alan Cummings, who explains the concept behind the compilation -- Amaterasu is the Shinto sun-goddess, and her mythology was the inspiration for these songs. Quite recommended.
This is really gorgeous and it's taking a lot of self control to keep us from all taking one of these home. And as Christmas draws near, self control seems to matter less and less. Whether it's a gift for some music freak you love, or a sneaky gift for yourself amidst the rest of your shopping, you couldn't do much better than this. A super fancy, slip cased box set documenting the 2000 Erstwhile festival in Tokyo, put on annually by the label of the same name. Seven discs of some of the best improv/abstract/free jazz/noise you'll ever hear. Most of the recordings are from the actual festival, but two discs are from club shows around the actual festival, while one disc is a performance by an all-star guitar septet made up of Keith Rowe, Tetuzi Akiyama, Oren Ambarchi, Toshimaru Nakamura, Otomo Yoshihide, Burkhard Stangl and Taku Sugimoto and another is a studio recording by the duo of Gánter Máller and Toshimaru Nakamura. Wow! There's also a DVD document of the festival by filmmaker Jonas Leddington and a huge booklet with photos and twenty essays! Ready to buy it now? Well here's the track listing:
CD 1 (outside festival shows): 1. Thomas Lehn/Toshimaru Nakamura, 2. Gánter Máller/Tetuzi Akiyama/Nakamura, 3. Christof Kurzmann/Nakamura, 4. Lehn/Nakamura/Taku Sugimoto. CD 2 (studio sessions): Gánter Máller/Toshimaru Nakamura-tint. CD 3 (festival): 1. Cosmos (Sachiko M/Ami Yoshida), 2. Keith Rowe/Lehn/Marcus Schmickler. CD 4 (festival): 1. Máller/Otomo Yoshihide, 2. Lehn/Schmickler. CD 5 (festival): 1. Burkhard Stangl/Kurzmann/Sugimoto, 2. Rowe/Nakamura. CD 6 (festival): 1. Stangl/Máller, 2. Nakamura/Sachiko. CD 7: (seven guitars): 1. seven guitarists: Rowe/Akiyama/Oren Ambarchi/Nakamura/Otomo/Stangl/Sugimoto (Cornelius Cardew-Treatise, pp. 82-84), 2. seven guitarists (improvisation).
Okay, how about now?!?!? C'mon...you know you want it. I sure do!! No sound samples cuz we're all still trying to fight the need to own this so we haven't even cracked one open yet!
Since 1991, Japanese label PSF has brought us six volumes in their essential underground psych-rock-noise-improv sampler series Tokyo Flashback. Now they've released a new compilation that's similarly cool, but broadens its geographic scope to include artists from Korea and China as well as Japan, most of whom we'd never been exposed to before. Some of the only familiar folks appear on the very first track, a live-in-Tokyo "improvised trio showdown" featuring Chinese guitarist Li Jianhong (of the noise band D!O!D!O!D! who have a disc out on PSF, and who also had his own awesome solo cd on aRCHIVE recently) teamed up with free jazz drummer Shoji Hano and High Rise guitarist Narita Munehiro, both from Japan. That's an amped-up freakout as you might expect. There's also a noisy D!O!D!O!D! track on here too, but beyond those, it's all new names to us. From Korea: Mustangs, Kim Young Jin, Amature Amplifier, and Soonie. From China: Mafeisan, Xiao He, Li Daiguo. From Japan: Kiyasu Orchestra, Sato Yukie, Yoshiteru Koga Jizo. Also there's a boy-girl Japanese-Korean project called 10, whose track "U-A-U" is a hissing, droning, throbbing backdrop to bizarre vocal expression.
All the tracks are interesting, it's an eclectic mix of experimental/underground styles, from full-on noise chaos to mellow, minimal acoustic guitar balladry, all sorts of stuff... ferinstance the energetic squawk of Kiyasu Orchestra's psychedelic free jazz exotica sits side-by-side here with the Mustangs' sixties style garage psych rock. And perhaps most surprisingly, there's even a dreamy, indie-folk cover of John Lennon's "Imagine" by Korean chanteuse Soonie at the very end of the disc.
The booklet boasts brief liner notes about each contributor, in four languages (English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese). Let's hope that this Asian Flashback is just the start of another series! PSF's antidote to all the mass market J-pop, K-pop, and HK-pop karaoke blandness out there.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Believe it or not, there's now a tiny pub somewhere in Osaka where you can enjoy a beer and listen to nothing but noise music. They even have live shows every Sunday (when the neighboring establishments are closed). This cd collects a bunch of those performances for those of us who can afford a beer but not the flight to Osaka. It's mostly young, unknown (yet) noise artists, who have yet to make the pages of "Bananafish", such as New Mexico, Mutant, and Anglers - although the more notorious Solmania closes the disc with a fine, twelve minute guitar feedback contribution, and also Kevin Sharp of New York's Brutal Truth stops in for some screaming...
Electronic soundscapes from a host of Japanese experimenters, including noise-names Aube and MSBR, although much of the sound tends towards the ambient and interesting, rather than the harsh. The theme is sounds from the earth, whether that be stones, seismic activity, contact-mic'd streams, or Akira Yamamichi's "sand dust limestone cave dead mine crystal frequency magnetic field". Excellent comp! (This is the first in a series, with European and American artists to appear in future installents.)
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All pretty great early 1970s psychedelic rock music from Japan, ranging from the heavy blues (such as the almost-Sabbathy Blues Creation's "Atomic Bombs Away") to folky pop sounds (the lovely Yamauchi Tetsu) and plain weirdness (like Bread & Butter's ridiculous & manic version of "I Wanna Be Your Man"). Includes tracks from obsure hippy wonders like the Flower Travellin' Band, Far East Family Band, Mizutani Kimio, Cosmos Factory, April Fool, Narita Ken, and others, all from mosty not-as-yet-reissued albums. A nice smorgasbord of far-out trippiness to explore!
Not a new release, but a new arrival, at the recommendation of AQ's Jeff. This comp collects of singles tracks from the following mid-60s Japanese garage groups, in the "Group Sound" genre: The Napoleon, D'Swooner's, The Hi-Lo's, The Unicorns, The Gallopers,
Total demonic freakbeat garage rock heaven! This disc has had everyone at AQ bouncing and bopping. We're all gonna go out and get skull and crossbones tattoos, shag haircuts and Voxx guitars. Seriously. This is a super wild garage fuzz blowout. Lots of customers in the store assumed this was some old old reissue, but figured it couldn't be cuz it sounded so good. But that should give you an idea of how great this comp is. Classic and old school sounding but at the same time super modern and rocking. We originally wanted to track this comp down when we discovered that Japanoise legend Masonna had a garage rock band ACID Eater, a sort-of spin off of his psychedelic noise combo Christine 23 Onna, but once we finally did get these in, we ended up digging all the bands equally.
ACID Eater is probably the heaviest of the bunch, a fuzzed out outer space graveyard blast of super blown out fuzz guitar, chaotic caveman drumming, killer Fuzztones style organ and superdistorted vocals, all wrapped in some freaked out far-out FX, a freakfuzz reverb that occasionally spin the vocals into oblivion like some weird garage dub, but other than that, this is surprisingly un-NOISEY and sort of straight ahead, but still super fierce and in-the-red. All four tracks are recorded ultra hot, so it feels like you're in some tiny sweaty underground club, pressed right up against the P.A. getting drenched in sweat and beer and getting blasted with a thick wall of full on garage RAWK!
Then there's The Go-Devils, an all female garage rock combo, with murky buzzy riffing, droning organs, and lazy drawled vocals, with some sixties girl group background vocals, super fuzzy with tribal drumming and some seriously catchy hooks, we even hear a little Redd Kross in there, must be the sort of psychedelic sixties vibe.
Finally there's the Bai Tones or the Bait Ones, sort of hard to tell from the album art, who are definitely the weirdest of the three, whose sound is sort of lazy and laid back, droney and midtempo. A sort of slithery stomp, with plenty of strange guitars, abstract riffs, wild harmonica, drawled distorted vocals and some super weird, distinctly un-garage rock-like droney buzzy parts, each song is dripping with dirgey swampy buzzy garage rock murk...SO KILLER. Makes us feel like it's 1982 and we're in some sleazy little dive, bouncing and dancing and sweating and going completely and gloriously deaf.
We're not always huge into garage rock, but all three of these bands totally and completely knocked us on our asses!! SO RECOMMENDED.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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So lovely, a disc apiece from international drone-meisters Paul Schutze, Pauline Oliveros & Randy Raine-Reusch, Thomas Koner, and Nijiumu (Keiji Haino).
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Manuel Gottsching, founder of legendary Kraut pioneers Ash Ra Temple, recorded a few records in the eighties under his own name. "E2-E4", the first among them and recorded in 1981, is hailed as a classic and is a great influence for early Detroit techno artists like Derrick May and Carl Craig. The resonant timelessness of said record has extended beyond and has continuously popped up within more recent minimalist techno circles -- most noticeably within the Cologne scene. And this collection reveals that Japan has obviously been listening too. Disc one collects reinterpretations by the likes of Rovo, Sugar Plant, Buffalo Daughter, Dub Squad, Hi Speed & Star Light Express, and two other indecipherable acts (sorry, nobody here can read Japanese!) Disc two is an extended mix by the mighty EYE of the Boredoms! You probably already know if you need this based on the presence of the contributing artists, but let it be said that none of these tracks are representative of any of their 'normal' works. And there's always the theory that if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Check out "E2-E4" by Gottsching for the real deal!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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New Michigan based label with a strange name, and stranger music on this compilation--noise, electronic, & experimental sounds from some obscure and more-than-obsure artists (Crawl Unit, Rampoon, Tabata of Zeni Geva with Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins, Totemplow and Brume being among the better-known). An excellent collection that causes us to look forward to more from this label (such as an upcoming Tabata solo disc).
The first "extreme music" compilation from Susan Lawly, released in 1994. Along with collections like Come Again II (Vanilla / Furnace) and World Record (Alchemy), Extreme Music From Japan is an indispensible document of noise and power electronics from the
We can't remember the last time a compilation so captivated everybody here, but this collection is really something else. A gorgeously compiled cd-r of tracks sourced from Japanese lps circa the years 1980-1986, featuring at least a few names we'd heard, like Yellow Magic Orchestra, Ryuchi Sakamoto, Inoyamo Land, but so so many we hadn't: Mkwaju Ensemble, Yasuaki Shimizu, Seigen Ono, Masahide Sakuma, Geinoh Yamashirogumi, Danceries, Dip In the Pool, we could go on, but we're guessing these are all new to you too. It's a single 74 minute continuous mix, that slips dreamily from synth and percussion minimalism, to mysterious electronic laced rhythms, from new agey krautrock to dreamy clouds of percussive melodies, from playful childlike toy piano melodies to synthy sci-fi drones, haunting electronic flecked Asian ballads to fluttery flute folk, from mesmerizing vibraphone melodies underpinned by haunting drones to loping jazzy almost prog, from hazy washed out kosmische electronics to lush layered chorales and on and on and on.
The tracks are so perfectly combined, and so seamlessly mixed, it almost sounds like it could be the coolest, weirdest record ever by some impossibly brilliant single artist, who somehow crafted one epic sprawling sonic exploration, a series of sounds that manage to be at once warm and familiar, yet also strange and mysterious, strange looped birdsong lays atop distant choir like vocals, and a strangely mechanical rhythm peppered with strange symphonic bursts melts into soaring strings, chamber music devolves into some fantastically dada-ish assemblage of voices and sound effects, thick sitar like buzz underpins deep foghorn like melodies, the vibe strangely melancholic, deep, dense new age swirls hover above a super minimal dripping faucet rhythm, warm, muted melodies unfurl over distant bells and deep reverberating tones, vibraphone melodies are layered atop a groovy, almost jazzy rhythm, and a mournful brass melody before gradually disappearing in a washed out woozy sonic haze
So fantastic, and so cheap too! Besides being just about the best mix/comp/collection we've heard in forever, odds are it'll have you trying to track down records by all the artists, which is always the sign of a good mix. The entire list of artists (some with more than one track): Yellow Magic Orchestra, Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mkwaju Ensemble, Mariah, Yasuaki Shimizu, Mkwaju Ensemble, Seigen Ono, Masahide Sakuma, Geinoh Yamashirogumi, Yasuaki Shimizu, Danceries, Yukihio Takahoshi, Dip in the Pool, YMO.
So great! And so utterly and unequivocally and whole heartedly RECOMMENDED!!
LIMITED TO JUST 100 COPIES. Each one hand numbered. Packaged with full color covers in plastic mini dvd-style sleeves. And nicely priced! We're one of only two places in the whole world where you can get these, and we're guessing they're gonna go fast, so grab one quick before they're gone.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Super low priced sampler of Howling Bull's wares, from grindcore, to speed metal, to funky silly pop. Yellow Machine Gun, United, Taiho, Hellchild, Space Combine, Garlic Boys, Force, and more.
BORIS BORIS BORIS BORIS BORIS. Okay. Just wanted to get the attention of all you freaks who can't get enough of Japan's mighty Boris (and we know there's a lot of you, since we can't seem to keep any Boris in stock for more than two seconds!!) And since
What the hell am I listening to? That's the reaction to a few minutes spent with this comp in the cd player. It's a very weird mix of stuff! Fujirekodsu is a new label set up by Tokyo's Cha-Bashira and Cologne's A-Musik labels to release unknown and unusual music from Japan and Europe (and all the artists on here, Japanese or not, either live or have spent time in Japan). This new label/project has received some assistance from the Tokyo record shop Los Apson, who some might recall released a bizarre compilation of their own back in '96 or so. We are told that this is sort of part II of that, and it is equally crazed. Don't get the idea that this is your typical Japanese noise thing, as it's not particularily noisy in the Merzbow sense; rather, there's a lot of different musical styles on here, including electronic groove, installation sounds, "actionism", lo-fi pop, and odd glitch-works. Nothing remotely ordinary however. Some of the names involved (a few that folks might know, but not many!): Why Sheep?, Smurf Otoko Gumi, Susumu Yokota, Christophe Charles/Brandon Labelle/Steve Roden, Q of Q, Noise Ramones (Eye and Yoshimi of Boredoms), Evil Moisture, Hair Stylistics, AOA, Rudolpf Eb.er, Nagata Kazunao, Tennessees, American Cherry, Tapes Klar!, L?K?O?, Vagamoron, many more. There's 29 tracks of this insanity. Pretty cool!
Where to begin with a review of a cd-rom that includes over 1,500 articles and reviews? Well, this is what I can tell you upon first examination of this disc, but many many hours could be spent exploring the material to be found here. Basically, this is an cross-platform (Mac and PC) cd-rom archive of every issue of Archie Patterson's Eurock fanzine, from 1973 to today, 45 issues worth. Eurock, as you might guess, specializes in European progressive rock sounds (although you'll also find coverage of scenes in Japan, Mexico, and other non-European places). Beginning in '73, it was initially focused on the contemporary krautrock scene (with features on Can, Amon Duul, Tangerine Dream in issue #1!), but as you browse through the issues you'll find stuff on Magma, Kraftwerk, RIO, Guru Guru, and then soon you'll be reading about Franco Battiato, Nektar, Lars Hollmer...it's endless. The Wire review of this of course bagged on the exclusion of much UK prog-rock (as if you'd rather read about Gentle Giant than Le Orme), but Patterson could hardly go back in a time machine and add stuff to the old issues of his zine -- what they wrote then is what you get now, and that's the beauty of it, the sense of "being there", of discovery, and all that...I almost wish that the magazine had been archived PDF fashion, so that you could actually see the original page layout and funky fonts. At least there's a gallery of cover art (unfortunately not viewable at full-size), for fans of the '70 underground press aesthetic.
Oh, and there's some bonus video material as well, an Urban Sax concert (sorry, haven't investigated that yet...) and a cut each from Amon Dull II ("Eye-Shaking King", goddamn!) and Popul Vuh from German TV. Very cool! Oh, and then the regular audio portion of this cd is some inoffensive New Agey symphonic music from one Hiro Kawahara, which might have its uses when trying to relax after several hours of computer-screen staring eyestrain that this cd-rom will surely cause. A fantastic item for folks interested in this sort of stuff (you know who you are)!
With a title like Grind Bastards, you can safely assume that this comp is indeed directly targeted at you, the grind bastards. And we know there are some serious grind bastards among the aQ faithful. Anyone who has gone nuts in the past for Agoraphobic Nosebleed, or Pig Destroyer, or Discordance Axis, or Last Days Of Humanity, we could go on and on and on, so yeah, dig a little deeper and discover a whole world of grind going on UNDER the underground. Grind Bastards collects some of the best Japanese grind from mostly bands you've never heard of, but NEED to.
Heavy, buzzing, blasting, frenzied, frenetic, pummeling, crushing, a dizzying swirl of metal riffage, furious blast beats, grunted cookie monster vocals, inhuman blackened shrieks, hooks all over the place, and some of the heaviest catchiest under a minute shit you'll ever hear.
Little Bastards, Magnicide, Mortalized, Butcher ABC, Cortecuellos, Brob, Mangirl, Fortitude, Bleeding Humanity, D.I.E., Kutsujoku, Deadly Spawn, Zagio Evha Dilegj and of course Unholy Grave, whose label Grind Freaks released this (and who also run the amazing all black metal and grind and doom record store Grave in Japan). Dense and dizzyingly complex, next level heaviness for sure, fast and crusty enough for punk rockers, riffy and brutal enough for metalheads, and definitely a rad grind primer for the newbies.
BTW: We also have a few copies of Grind Bastards 2, which besides totally ruling as well, just so happens to feature one of our favorite grind jams ever, a 51 second grindpop gem by Mortalized (who have 2 songs here) covering pop punkers Propaghandi.
Okay grind bastards, time for round 4, another awesome collection of some of the best grind that Japan, and the rest of the world, has to offer. But like on past installments, this is not the grind you know and love, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Last Days Of Humanity, Discordance Axis, Hayaino Daisuki, Brutal Truth, Pig Destroyer, Nasum, that's all mainstream by comparison, this is the grind underground, some names you might know, you might even have records by Unholy Grave, whose label Grind Freaks is responsible for this mayhem, or Total Fucking Destruction, and then there's a bunch of bands you probably only know from past installments of Grind Bastards like Mortalized, Fortitude, Little Bastards, and in addition this time around a there's whole new crop of bands we'd never heard 'til now: Vulgaroyal Bloodhill, Zomba Green, Disgunder, Diborce, Ada Max, Black Ganion, and more more more.
This isn't really for dabblers though, this is sort of the grind version of grim, kvlt, true, the sounds here insane and ultra aggressive, over the top, a relentless assault on the senses, a crushing barrage of grinding buzzsaw riffage, blasting hyperspeed drumming, crazed vocals that yelp, howl, grunt, screech, the songs ultra proggy, a million parts and tempos crammed into the space of a minute or two, the sounds vary from blasts of blacknoise, to groovy almost classic metal, to white hot blasts of old school grind, to twisted effects drenched grinding avant metal freakouts, to galloping fastcore, to helping almost Melt-Banana sounding hypergrind, to epic war grind, to some almost poppy grind, some seriously gurgling goregrind, a few tracks get into 3 and 4 even 5 minutes, while others blow by in seconds, furious and frenzied and frantic and fantastically fucked up, this is some of the raddest, heaviest, most brutal and inventive grind you'll hear, anyone into fast and heavy, blasting brutality, this will kick your ass big time, and like past volumes, this would be a pretty epic grind primer, and like those volumes, this couldn't be more recommended.
Killer packaging too, a massive fold out punk rock poster, with each band getting their own little panel of liner notes...
Once again, this one is for all the Grind Bastards out there, the fifth in this long running series of Japanese comps, collecting the best of (mostly) Japanese grind, released on the Grind Freaks label, run by legendary Japanese grinders Unholy Grave, who are present here, along with some other longtime faves: Mortalized, Agothocles and some others. But the best part of these comps is discovering all the weird ultra underground grind outfits you'd most likely not hear anywhere else: Red Ran Amber, Ada Max, Extreme Noise Destroyer, Hell And Hell, Easies, Fortitude, Midnight Resurrector, Naqro, Parasite and more!
Obviously, this comp is called Grind Bastards, on a label called Grind Freaks, so odds are if you made it this far you know what you're getting into, fast and furious, blasting, churning, chugging, GRINDing heaviness, frenzied beats, insane riffing, howled and screeched vox, total metallic chaos, blurry punk mayhem, short sharp blasts of super complex, downtuned intricate metallic grind. We're digging Red Ran Amber, who if all was fair would be getting the same love as say Wormrot, Pig Destroyer or any of the other grind outfits on Relapse, Mortalized offer up another minute long epic, further convincing us that they might have the potential to be our favorite grinders if they only had more material out and it was a lot easier to track down, Extreme Noise Destroyer offer up some sort of distortion drenched bit of acoustic guitar weirdness before launching into some serious downtuned devastation, the Easies spit out blasts of super blown out and in-the-red chaos, Brob offer up some seriously old school powerviolence fastcore grind, their sound thick and caustic, Parasite are almost straight up classic eighties metal, complete with super melodic harmonized guitar leads, while Naqro might be a new favorite, their super raw lo-fi sound impossibly dense and heavy, their sound swinging wildly from frantic grind to swinging almost groovy metallic churn, and Midnight Resurrector kick out the straight up hip hop, not sure if they're normally a grind band or they just have some grind cred (they do infuse their sound with some fat fuzzy bass, and some Hawd Gangstah style bellowed rapping). Already can't wait for volume six! Comes in a cool fold out punk rock poster style sleeve.
This actually came out in 1996, but we're listing it for the first time 'cause we've been on a big Alchemy restock kick. This is the first in Alchemy's "Guitar" compilations and features tracks by Seiichi Yamamoto (Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba, ROVO), Jojo Hiroshige (Hijokaidan), Sisho, and Kyoichi Tokuyama (Auschwitz).
Maybe only John Zorn's Tzadik label devotes as many releases as the Japanese (Kansai region) Alchemy label does to stuff to do specifically with the activity of the label-boss! It seems like almost every recent Alchemy disc has been a Jojo Hiroshige project of some sort, whether it be a solo DVD or a best-of or the current series of reissues of his seminal noise band Hijokaidan. Of course, we're all for it, we love his stuff, diverse as it is, from full-on noise assault to spacey drone to folky melodiousness...
So, perhaps no surprise that this latest Alchemy release is a various artists TRIBUTE compilation to the "King Of Noise", the very same Jojo Hiroshige. And no surprise (or maybe a little bit of one) that it's so very diverse too! These ten cover tracks by ten different artists range from shambolic pop to frenzied punk to blissed out psych to harsh industrial mayhem. Several familiar faces from the Alchemy roster show up -- "Love Love Love" as performed by female psychsters Doodles is particularly lovely, while Solmania's contribution of psychedelic guitar drone is uncharacteristically calm and beautiful. And as an appropriate finale, Masonna chimes in with some full-on noise as is his trademark, the first new recording from the hopping one in a long, long time. A lot of the contributors seem to be making a definite Kansai / Kraut konnection here in paying tribute to the admittedly Krautrock influenced oeuvre of Alchemy bossman Jojo. Recommended to all fans of out-there Japanese psych, rock, and noise action.
Oh boy, this is nice. A roughly 6"x6"x2" wooden box, housing a thick booklet and five beautiful colored cardboard double cd sleeves, containing ten cds amongst them. On the cds (and described in print in the booklet): work by 34 Japan-based improvising
These folks do everything from improvising on tradtional instruments (Michihiro Sato's shamisen, Michiyo Yagi's koto) to full on electronic noise (Incapacitants) to avant-pop (Hoahio) to jazz to minimalist experimentation (Yoshimitsu Ichiraku's "Cymbal Orchestra"). Some tracks are long enough to be full releases in and of themselves.
We could provide further description, but figure that either those names mean something to you or they don't, and if they don't, you probably aren't curious enough to blow $160 for a crash course in the world of underground Japanese jazz/electronic improv music (or are you?). And if you have this box in your future, you probably know it already. We'll just say, it really is pretty nice package, worth the investment of time and money if you already have and enjoy more than a few discs by any of the artists documented. Three of us here at AQ bought copies!
But, be warned, we only have TWO of these...no wait, ack, damn, someone just bought one. We now have ONE copy! And we won't be getting any more (it's limited to 500, and these are are last we were able to get). So, the customer who stops by or gets their order in first will be in luck.
Before you go get goin' too excited about this new issue of IMFJ, we gotta tell you a couple things. First the good news, yes this does come with not one but two full cds crammed with cutting edge music for you to check out. Lots of cool avant-garde experimentation. But, none of it's by Japanese artists. This is the "Special Issue: Berlin" and so it focusses on that European scene, including folks like Axel Dorner, Christof Kurzmann, Annette Krebs, Phillip Sollmann, F.S. Blumm, Tony Buck, Jason Forrest, Joe Williamson, Andrea Neumann, and many others (Germans, Italians, Americans, etc... just no Japanese!). Japanophiles thereby be warned. People who like minimal electronics and out-there improvised music in general though should still be quite interested! But (another but), also a bit frustrated, unless fluent in Japanese. Because unlike previous issues of IMFJ, this one has no English text -- the interviews, articles and reviews are all in Japanese. Kind of a bummer for us, eh? But, you still get the two discs of music, and some pictures and stuff to look at, so it might still be worth it if you're interested in hearing what these cats are up to in Berlin.
