KOREKYOJINN Swan Dive (Magaibutsu) dvd + cd 17.98
Seeing is believing. Knowing that the music they make is pretty much mindboggling, perhaps that's why Japanese power-prog trio Korekyojinn elected to package their new album as a double disc set, one an audio cd, the other a live dvd, packaged in a slim, dvd-sized case. The dvd portion provides the visual proof of their ability to play like this live, if there were any doubt about it, while fans already convinced of their genius will enjoy watching it over and over while bowing down in front of the screen chanting "we're not worthy". And since this unit hasn't toured much outside of Japan, it's also the only way we can get to see 'em short of springing for a plane ticket to Tokyo!
The cd constitutes Korekyojinn's 5th album, Swan Dive, an album entirely, amazingly improvised by the trio of Mitsuru Nasuno (bass), Natsuki Kido (guitar), and linchpin Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins fame (drums) plus very special guests Uchihashi Kazuhisa and Hoppy Kamiyama, who contribute on guitar and keyboards/vocals, respectively, on two tracks each.
Of course it gets pretty wild, there's only six tracks but they're mostly all loooooong ones, up to 11, 17, and even 24 minutes in length... yet somehow they manage to keep it up, both the energy and creativity, their frenzied improvisations sometimes sounding rather more like the most complex COMPOSED prog rock music you could imagine (Orthrelm?), it's pretty insane. However, their convoluted chaotic outbursts are occasionally tempered by stretches of truly lovely, melodic, momentary mellowness. Melt-Banana meets Mahavishnu???
With herky jerk rhythms and heavy riffing, jazzy tinkling keys (when Hoppy sits in) contrasting with massively distorted electric bass, plus sheer avant-guitar textural shred-grind (the ante on that, upped by Uchihashi), this pretty much rules. As we had no doubt it would, considering who the heck this is (members of Ruins, Altered States, Bondage Fruit, etc.).
On the live dvd (70 minutes, NTSC, all region), they do a dozen songs, mostly from previous albums (though we think a couple, like the title track, are new), all of which we should mention are pieces in fact composed by mastermind Yoshida, NOT improvs. Again, total math-rock madness, very Ruins-esque, but with guitar. We are not worthy!
MPEG Stream: "Magnetic Pole"
MPEG Stream: "Vothqrassent"

KOSAKAI, FUMIO & TAKAHASHI IKURO ...Of Dogstarman (Pataphysique) cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Squealing drones make by electronics and processed reeds from this Japanese duo (members of psychededic rock group Overhang Party). Quite beautiful. Similar to Keiji Haino's hurdy-gurdy pieces or free saxophonist Evan Parker's recent electronically-enhanced works.

KOSMIC RENAISSANCE Live At Namba Hatch - Osaka, Japan (e22 / Isotope Records) cd-r 5.00
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
**LAST COPIES**
Anybody remember a Japanese hiphop artist named Shingo2? He was pretty rad, kind of in the DJ Shadow style. Shingo was based here in SF for a little while, that's how we encountered him, and probably how we ended up with these - we just discovered we had a bunch of copies of this cd-r, from 2005, documenting a live show by an instrumental, improvising band he was in called Kosmic Renaissance, which featured Shingo on mixer/sampler/synths (Vestax Faderboard, ARP Odyssey). The others in the KR trio were Sameer Gupta on drums & tabla, and David Boyce on saxophones, Microkorg, etc. It's pretty groovy, spaced-out stuff, heavy on the electronics and FX...
After a brief intro, they launch into the 25+ minute "Enter The Octagon" and get seriously deep and funky and out there - this is all improvised. "IO" and "Songs For Our Ancestors" follow in similarly sprawling, jammed out fashion. "IO" is nice and mellow, "Song For Our Ancestors" starts that way, then gets more intense, with some jittery digitally glitched-out Japanese vocal samples (?) towards the end. Pretty cool, spacey fusion improv with an Eastern inflection, presumably influenced by stuff like '70s Miles.
MPEG Stream: "Enter The Octagon"
MPEG Stream: "Song For Our Ancestors"

KOSUGI, TAKEHISA Catch Wave (Showboat / Sky Station) cd 28.00
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Man, do we at ever AQ love that Japanese '70s group the Taj Mahal Travellers! Masters of organic drone, utilising bowed cymbals, violins, loudspeakers, tape loops and all sorts of unique source material. And we've been blessed of late with the reissue of lots of fairly difficult to find TMT stuff. This disc is Taj Mahal main man Takehisa Kosugi (an influential member of the Fluxus movement) on solo violin, and unlike the truly organic natural sound of most of the Taj Mahal Travellers music, this piece is heavily processed, with all manner of effects, turning his violin into a buzzing squealing beast, sounding like some sort of otherworldly sitar. Gorgeous Eastern melodies drift in and out while tonal ripples spread out and slowly dissipate. Wild runs peter off into swooshing ambience, and sparse squeaks and warm tones tumble into each other creating all sorts of harmolodics. Definitely reminiscent of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Conrad Schnitzler and the like, but imbued with Kosugi's unique sense of melody and space. Totally essential.
RealAudio clip: "Mano-Dharma '74"

KOSUGI, TAKEHISA Catch Wave (World Psychedelia Ltd.) cd 17.98
Finally back in print, and way way cheaper. An essential document of godlike ur-drone from one of the all time masters, Takehisa Kosugi of the legendary seventies Japanese drone collective the Taj Mahal Travellers. And by now we shouldn't have to tell you how much we love the Taj Mahal Travellers! But we will. WE LOVE the Taj Mahal Travellers, and pretty much every cd-r drone band out there owes these guys royalties big time. And while we love a lot of that stuff, no one does it better. Masters of the organic drone, TMT utilized bowed cymbals, violins, loudspeakers, tape loops and all sorts of unique source material. And we've been blessed of late with another wave of reissues, making lots of fairly difficult to find TMT stuff available again. This disc is Taj Mahal main man Takehisa Kosugi (an influential member of the Fluxus movement) on solo violin, and unlike the truly organic natural sound of most of the Taj Mahal Travellers music, this piece is heavily processed, with all manner of effects, turning his violin into a buzzing squealing beast, sounding like some sort of otherworldly sitar. Gorgeous Eastern melodies drift in and out while tonal ripples spread out and slowly dissipate. Wild runs peter off into swooshing ambience, and sparse squeaks and warm tones tumble into each other creating all sorts of harmolodics. Definitely reminiscent of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Conrad Schnitzler and the like, but imbued with Kosugi's unique sense of melody and space. Totally essential.
MPEG Stream: "Mano Dharma '74 (Excerpt)"
MPEG Stream: "Wave Code #e-1 (Excerpt)"

KOSUGI, TAKEHISA Studio Improvisations, Tokyo, 16th and 17th September, 1974 (BB) lp 30.00
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KOSUGI, TAKEHISA Violin Solo 1980 (P-Vine) cd 25.00
Killer violin ur-drone from Taj Mahal Travellers mainman. Long drawn out high end screech / scrape / skree. Hypnotic and gorgeous.
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"

KOUGEZAN KOUKIJI The Live [11th] Final Hyakusenmansyuuraku (Horen) 2cd 19.98
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The day we first got this in stock, it was pouring rain -- appropriately enough, because playing this made it seem like it was raining in the store as well as outside, quite a lovely effect we thought. Truly, this is a stunningly beautiful concert/field recording, the culmination of a series of concerts held at (the very rainy) Koukiji temple in Japan. The concerts were organized by Yasushi Utsunomia -- whose claim to fame was as recording engineer for art rockers After Dinner. According to Utsunomia, his initial efforts were unsuccessful due in part to demanding and flaky performers (apparently all rock bands) and a crappy sound reinforcement system supplied by the temple. In the end, the first problem was solved by turning to traditional musicians and the second by constructing a sound reinforcement system worthy of such a space (a detailed diagram of the performance space and speaker locations is included on the back of the booklet's cover.) The performances heard here are on shakuhachi, ryuteki (both Japanese bamboo flutes), sitar and stone flute (played by the legendary shamanistic composer Akio Suzuki). All are accompanied by rain, from soft patter to heavy downpour. At times the rain is so loud it completely drowns out the soft playing of the instruments, essentially being an instrument itself -- and as a warning to those who would say otherwise, says Suzuki: "I'll tear out the ears of whoever says this is just rain." For its part, the electro-acoustic elements added via DSP and Utsunomia's custom built horn loaded speaker array are all but completely transparent for much of the concert. During Korei Deguchi's ryuteki performance is when the processing is most noticeable, with what sounds like the work of a harmonizer. Aside from that, the musicians' playing, the space, the rain and Utsunomia's equipment are seamlessly wedded and, if nothing else, you'll feel drenched by the time you finish listening. This numbered edition comes beautifully packaged with a nicely printed cover drawing (some thick rubbery ink that feels nice to pass ones fingers over) of a couple of cats performing for an audience of felines, and is hand-stamped on the inside. Also it includes a printed fold out with liner notes in Japanese and English. The whole thing -- package, idea, music -- is simply beautiful. Several of us here (Andee, Byram, Allan, at least) have already taken copies home...
MPEG Stream: AKIO SUZUKI "Stone Flute"
MPEG Stream: YASUHIRO MINAMIZAWA "Sitar"
MPEG Stream: KOUREI DEGUCHI "Ryuteki"

KOUSOKUYA Echoes From The Deep Underground (aRCHIVE) cd+dvd 23.00
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Japanese psych nerds alert! Here's a cd AND dvd package from aRCHIVE of anguished, punishing, distorto psychblurtblowouts to the max from these legendary dwellers in the darkness, Kousokuya. They were Tokyo psych scene stalwarts for many, many years (from the '70s, until the recent passing of guitarist Jutok Janeko), part of the Rallizes-worshipping, sunglasses at night posse along with Keiji Hanio's Fushitsusha and High Rise and more recent torchbearers Up-Tight and LSD-march, amongst other flashbackers. They've never been that heavily documented, so it's a red letter day for fans to get this 42 minute, 3 track live cd recorded at a show in Osaka, 2001 along with a bonus DVD vid of that same performance, in suitably ghostly-effected black & white.
It's sort of music that makes even our Christine in mailorder feel like a grandmother from the Midwest. Just doesn't get it. Is it Halloween? Why is the lady crying? Can't they turn it down? This rock n' roll stuff is scary.
But while Christine's not gonna buy one, that's just all the better for the rest of you who thrive on this sort of stuff, since it's limited to 700 copies, of course lovingly packaged (silkscreened in metallic silver and gloss varnish on heavy black cardstock folder, complete with sillkscreened obi bundling the envelopes holding the two discs) in the expected aRCHIVE style.
MPEG Stream: "Clothed In Flames"
MPEG Stream: "Shadow Of A Dream"

KOUSOKUYA First Live 1979 Kichijoji Minor (PSF) cd 22.00
Kousokuya are one of the bands whose heavy sounds predate such current Japanese psych scenesters as LSD-march (who played here in SF last week) and Suishou No Fune (who are playing here next week), and without whom... well, along with Fushitsusha they're one of the longest running dwellers in darkness that Tokyo has produced. They've been around for going on three decades now, and as you can tell from the title of this disc, PSF has managed to dig up a tape of their very first ever live performance back in '79. Not a bad-sounding tape either. And definitely special not just for historical reasons, but for the amount of synth freakoutishness heard here, courtesy of a keyboardist who was only briefly a part of Kousokuya's early line-up. Reminds us a bit of early Comets On Fire, all totally damaged and dirgelike, embellished with tons of electronic fuckery... in fact, if you focus on just the vocals and the effects, this sounds like it could be a new release on the noise-mongering Load label. Just three songs, a densely-packed 25 minutes.
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

KOUSOKUYA Live - Gyakuryu Kokuu (PSF) cd 22.00
Les Rallizes Denudes, High Rise, Fushitsusha... If you know them, you probably know Kousokuya. Or you should. This Japanese combo, led by guitarist Kaneko Jutok, has been playing dark, heavy, distorted psych-rock in a similar vein to those bands for decades now. They haven't had all that many releases, but that's gradually being rectified by the efforts of the PSF label. So here's the Kousokuya trio live (as they should be!) in 1991 at a club called Gospel. This was recorded the same year as their debut LP, recently reissued on PSF as well (and reviewed elsewhere on our website). They churn out two long, slow-building tracks (20+ minutes apiece) filled with dark atmospheres, haunting vocals, primitive beats...and lots of geetar burn once things get going.
The inky black booklet for this cd includes lyrics, and also liner notes in English translation by Angie Hamamori, that touch on the long history of Kousokuya (going back to 1975!) and attempt to explain in an intimate way the power of the band and the individuals within it. She writes: "The solitude of all the musical instruments, and the armed musicians are spreading aesthetics at the edge of the world. The duel between the swords. The first note cuts the second note sharply, the third note reacts the loudness on no notes. In conclusion, this kind of high leveled quality definitely separates Kousokuya from the ubiquitous so-called psychedelic bands all over the world." Now, I don't know about you, but I'd be interested in hearing any band that would compel someone to write something like that. And from this and other experiences with their recordings, I'd say there's something to what she's saying...
MPEG Stream: "The Omen"

KOUSOKUYA Ray Night 1991-1992 Live (Forced Exposure) cd 13.98
"Legendary and ultra-obscure Japanese psychedelic rock group." You may have heard them on the Tokyo Flashback compilation series (volumes 1 & 2).

KOUSOKUYA & MASAYOSHI URABE The Dark Spot (PSF) cd 22.00
Tokyo psych band Kousokuya (previous release a live cd on Forced Exposure) collaborate with Japanese free saxophonist Urabe.

KRISTIAN, DAVID /SIAN acoma Narrows Bridge/Someday Anywhere (Alien8 Recordings) split cd 13.98
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Split cd of minimal, ambient electronics from Canadian drum 'n' bass experimentalist Kristian and Japanese artists Sian (a duo formed by the guys from noisemakers Aube and Monde Bruits). Haunting stuff, eerie sounds that sneak up on you.

KUDO, REIKO Hito (Hyotan) cd 25.00
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One of two import solo albums from the chanteuse of Japan's Maher Shalal Hash Baz.

KUDO, REIKO Kusa (Hyotan) cd 25.00
One of two import solo albums from the chanteuse of Japan's Maher Shalal Hash Baz.

KUDO, REIKO & TORI KUDO From Now On (PSF) cd 22.00

KUDO, REIKO+ Rice Field Silently Riping In The Night (Majikick Records / Periodic Document) cd 12.98
Another album from the female singer of Japan's Maher Shalal Hash Baz.

KURIHARA, MICHIO Sunset Notes (Pedal Records) cd 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
This is maybe not entirely what you might expect from a solo album from the guitarist for modern-day Japanese psychedelic rock legends Ghost and, formerly, White Heaven (he's also currently the six stringer in Stars, and a frequent Damon & Naomi sideman)... He's perhaps best known for his gorgeous displays of John Cippolina influence in his guitar playing, but on portions of Sunset Notes he sounds less like the legendary Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist than he does like Robert Fripp in Frippertronics mode. This lovely, lovely, sprightly, poppy album will also remind listeners of Ennio Morricone soundtracks (we're always suckers for that!) and surf music and dreamy pop. With track titles like "Twilight Mystery Of A Russian Cowboy" and "The Old Man And The Evening Star" it seems clear that he's not gonna deny the Fripp and Morricone influences... To be sure, some fans who want a more Ghostly album won't go for this but we think it's great! Bright and energetic, or gentle and pretty, but not hippified at all.
Released last year, now finally in stock at a reasonable price despite its Japanese import status.
MPEG Stream: "Do Deep-Sea Fish Dream Of Electric Moles?"
MPEG Stream: "Twilight Mystery Of A Russian Cowboy"

KURIHARA, MICHIO Sunset Notes (Ba Da Bing!) cd 10.98
Now, along with the Boris/Kurihara Rainbow album, this solo album from Ghost guitarist Kurihara is available domestically, at a much cheaper price than the Japanese import edition on Pedal that we previously stocked. Yay!
This is maybe not entirely what you might expect from a solo album from the guitarist for modern-day Japanese psychedelic rock legends Ghost and, formerly, White Heaven (he's also currently the six stringer in Stars, and a frequent Damon & Naomi sideman)... He's perhaps best known for his gorgeous displays of John Cippolina influence in his guitar playing, but on portions of Sunset Notes he sounds less like the legendary Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist than he does like Robert Fripp in Frippertronics mode. This lovely, lovely, sprightly, poppy album will also remind listeners of Ennio Morricone soundtracks (we're always suckers for that!) and surf music and dreamy pop. With track titles like "Twilight Mystery Of A Russian Cowboy" and "The Old Man And The Evening Star" it seems clear that he's not gonna deny the Fripp and Morricone influences... To be sure, some fans who want a more Ghostly album won't go for this but we think it's great! Bright and energetic, or gentle and pretty, but not hippified at all.
Released last year, now finally in stock at a reasonable price despite its Japanese import status.
MPEG Stream: "Do Deep-Sea Fish Dream Of Electric Moles?"
MPEG Stream: "Twilight Mystery Of A Russian Cowboy"

KURUUCREW VS. GREEN MILK FROM THE PLANET ORANGE split (Beta-Lactam Ring) cd 13.98

KUWAYAMA - KIJIMA 02.08.23 (Trente Oiseaux) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Here's the Japanese cello and violin duo of Kuwayama Kiyoharu & Kijima Rina's second release for Bernard Gunter's Trente Oiseaux label. Their creaking, mysterious improvisations are always set within a larger sound-environment. Their previous disc had them playing next to a highway at midnight, this one finds them in a warehouse on a pier, so rather than the buzz of traffic the ambient sounds are gently lapping, sloshing water in a large acoustic space, interwoven with their fog horn cello droning and deep string stroke scritch-scratch. Really nice and evocative, for fans of both modern free improv and field recordings -- it's maybe like violinist Malcolm Goldstein jamming with field recordist Toshiya Tsunoda. We're also somewhat reminded of works by Pauline Oliveros, Koji Asano, Philipp Wachsmann, and Akio Suzuki.
MPEG Stream: "02.08.31 e"

KYOAKU NO INTENTION Astral Projection (PSF) cd 22.00
Second album of extreme electric guitar and drums improv action from the duo of Munehiro Narita and Shoji Hano, this time under the name Kyoaku No Intention (Worst Intention) which was the title of their previous PSF release (as well as the name of an early '80s project led by Narita prior to his formation of the Tokyo psych rock legends High Rise). The original Kyoaku No Intention left behind no available recorded traces, so we can't say how closely it forshadowed the sounds heard on Astral Projection. But with Narita's distorted, screaming guitar and Hano's tumbling drums, this disc can't be any less "out" than what Narita got up to 20 years ago. Shoji Hano is primarily a free-jazz drummer, though he's experienced in various psychedelic rock combos (Mainliner for one). Meanwhile, Munehiro Narita is of course the sort of underground Japanese guitar god that Hano is used to playing with (previous sparring partners include Keiji Haino and Kawabata Makoto). So you can expect serious speedfreak Hendrix psych-spurts alongside more moody, almost jazzy clatter over the three long, live tracks that writhe and burn on this disc. Lovers of way out, free-to-be-skree electric guitar mangling and drum wrangling will want to stick this in their ears right quick!
MPEG Stream: "track 2"

L Holy Letters (VHF) cd 13.98
The mysterious L (actually Japanese folk-psych troubadour Hiroyuki Usui, an ex-member of both Fushitsusha and Marble Sheep) released the Holy Letters album back in 1992, as a cd + 7" set in oversized packaging, on his own Holy Castle label, only to see it fade immediately into obscurity. In the years since, the whole underground Japanese psych scene has grown in popularity, with artists such as Ghost, Acid Mothers Temple, and Nagisa Ni Te among others gaining a measure of popularity and recognition. However, L's lone recording languished in the realm of collector/fanboy rumour, unknown to most, beloved by some and sought after by others. Amongst AQers, both Andee and Allan had finally managed to track down copies of the original edition of L's Holy Letters for themselves (to the tune of $25 or so apiece, yikes!) when it was announced that the VHF label would be reissuing this modern day acid-folk holy grail domestically. This lovely digipack reissue is now here, and comes complete with not only the music from the both the original cd and 7", but also with a seven minute previously unreleased bonus track from the original sessions circa 1989-90! VHF didn't attempt to replicate the original packaging, but does provide a handsome subsitute, in the form of a cardstock sleeve housing the disc and a booklet thick with color photos and liner notes by both Hiroyuki Usui himself and devoted L fan Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance. On the cd, you get about 70 minutes in total of slowly unfolding, sparse and beautiful music, with L taking the listener on an aural trip that includes drones, field recordings, throat singing...and his own otherworldly take on bottleneck slide blues (in fact, the first track is a version of Blind Willie Johnson's "Cold Was The Ground"). There's an introspective Nick Drake feel to this, but it's more abstract and free-floating and eerie than that... Sad and shimmering, these songs/suites will have you believe that ocean waves come lapping up to L's strummed acoustic guitar, while Tibetan monks join in with ritualistic percussion and backing vocals/whispers... There's shades of a Japanese Jandek in L's charmingly atonal vocals (Chasny's gushing liner notes liken them to "a favorite uncle singing knowingly about things you will one day learn"), half-spoken, half-sung, hushed with spiritual import. Everything on here was played by L (guitars, bass, vibes, drums, organ, harmonium, etc.). In addition there's a guest cellist on one track and electric guitar on another (by Taku Sugimoto).
We really can't argue with the assesessment that VHF themselves give this: "For anyone who's into Richard Youngs, Popol Vuh, Six Organs of Admittance, Tim Buckley, acid-folk, or Japanese underground, this is an essential purchase." Of special note to Six Organs fans, actually, since Hiroyuki Usui will be releasing a record in collaboration with Six Organs sometime next year...Chasny must be in heaven! A few weeks ago we made Drag City's reissue of Ghost leader Masaki Batoh's solo cd our Record Of The Week. This belongs on the same pedestal with the best of Ghost and Batoh, so if you like those folks, please don't miss this.
MPEG Stream: "Blues Trip #2"
MPEG Stream: "Holy Letter"
MPEG Stream: "Troll"

LE SON DE L'OS Grass Pillow (PSF) cd 17.98
It's kind of amazing how the venerable Tokyo psych label PSF can almost entirely concentrate on releasing just that: Tokyo psych! Well it's a big city and apparently there's no shortage of long haired musicians in shades there coaxing dark drones and distorted atmospheres from their instruments, in psychedelic altered states rapture...
So here, imported via PSF we have the latest vibrations from Tokyo, in the form of the the lovely and mysterious Le Son De L'Os, whom we heard for the first time last year on the 7th installment of PSF's Tokyo Flashback compilation series, on which they had the longest track, a "delicate and haunting organic drone" in our words. And this, the debut full-length from the group, is also an abstract, all-acoustic improvised affair, five tracks that are hushed and tenuous, fragile and atmospheric, definitely a late-night listen. Calm, quiet, yet compelling, this is music that draws you in - and certainly drowns nothing out, so although they we're told that Le Son De L'Os enjoy performing outdoors, they would have to do so far from the hustle and bustle of urban Tokyo, we'd imagine... and deep in the woods or up on a mountainside, where are they going to find a piano?
That's right, there's some (prepared?) piano on here, Le Son De L'Os being a trio consisting of Masahiro Deguchi (guitar, flute, piano, bell), Yuko Hasegawa (guitar, voice), and Shizuo Uchida (bass, "one-string"). Shizuo is half of the Hasegawa-Shizuo duo (with another Hasegawa, not Yuko), who've released albums on PSF, Tiliqua, and Utech that we've stocked before, and was also in Keiji Haino's ambient Nijiumu project, as well as being a member of art noise punk crazies Kito Mizukumi Rouber. Masahiro Deguchi was in PSF's Gendai Sokkyo. Yuko Hasegawa, for her part, was in the Tokyo Flashback vol. 4 band Onna-Kodomo together with Shizuo back in the '90s as well. So, plenty of Tokyo psych cred with this bunch! Though one listen is all you'd need to realize that. And you'll keep listening, if you have an affinity for this subtle style of drifting dreamy almost Jewelled Antler-y improv, that's both out-there and barely-there, but blissful.
Comes in nice gatefold mini-lp style sleeve, with obi.
MPEG Stream: "Voyageur 1"
MPEG Stream: "Voyageur 4"
MPEG Stream: "track 5"

LENINGRAD BLUES MACHINE s/t (Nux Organization) cd 14.98
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All right folks (specifically, psych lovers and/or Japanophiles)... here's a literal "warehouse find", copies of a long out of print cd that we ourselves discovered during a visit to one of our suppliers, recently! It was worth all the dust-induced sneezing to find, too. Fans of Japanese uber heavies Zeni Geva might know the name, as Leningrad Blues Machine was the heavy, shambolic psych outfit led by KK Null's guitar partner in ZG, Tabata Mitsuru (who was also an early member of the Boredoms as well). Bass player Hayashi Naoto also was in UFO or Die, FYI. This blown-out blues explosion of a debut was originally released via Null's Nux Org label in 1993, but the songs on this disc were actually recorded much earlier, as it consists of material from two shows at Egg Plant, Osaka in November of 1987 and February of '88, plus a couple tracks recorded to 8-track in Kyoto's Queer studio, 1987. There's nine tracks total, although the song "Russian Asshole" appears THREE TIMES in different renditions. That's brilliant, we think. Evidently it can be considered the Leningrad Blues Machine's "theme song". And it's a good 'un, a great example of the distortodelic, fuzz and feedback filled garage stomp at which they slay, in the tradition of near contemporaries The Heads, fellow countrymen High Rise, or spiritual forefathers Blue Cheer, whose classic cover of "Summertime Blues" is in fact sampled and looped as the intro to LBM's own "Bad Blossom" here! Speaking of ye olde influences, "Woodstock Monster" definitely channels some Stooges and MC5. But in 1988, stuff like that wasn't exactly off-handedly "retro" the same way we'd think about it today - it was just weird! LBM are also way more chaotic and noisy than a really retro band woulda been back then. You can also hear that they were on the same path as certain Seattle bands around the same time, or a few years later... this is Japanese proto-grunge, from a year or so before Mudhoney's earliest singles hit the racks. In LBM's case, it's grunge with grim grandeur, when you hear the melancholic majesty of tracks like "Roman Castevet" and other lugubrious epics here, which also bring to mind the more recent generation of downer "Tokyo Flashback" acts like Up-Tight, Miminokoto, and LSD-march.
Recommended to fans of The Heads, Mudhoney, Zeni Geva, people who think some Russians are assholes, etc. Grab it quick, we really only found a few, and then that's it, they're gone... though we do think that LGM themselves are possibly still active, sometimes, even now. And probably playing some of the same songs. For sure, "Russian Asshole"!
MPEG Stream: "Russian Asshole"
MPEG Stream: "Woodstock Monster"
MPEG Stream: "Bad Blossom"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES (double vinyl bootleg #2) (Fucked Up And Naked) 2lp 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Les Raillize Denudes (alternatively, "Hadaka No Rallizes") are the legendary and obscure '70s Japanese psych-rock combo that exterted a huge influence on the Keiji Haino/Fushitsusha/High Rise crowd. They're so obscure that it's just about impossible to find recordings of any of their music. Rare cd-r releases trade for big $$$, and the "Live '77" double vinyl bootleg that surfaced last year is now long gone. But, here's another volume. It's live, the sound quality is poor, there's no information about anything given (tho the color insert sleeve is nice) -- but the music is psychedelic grail-worthy. We've only got four copies, and won't be able to get any more. So, collectors: ready, set, go!

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Are You Rallizesed? (Ignuitas) 2cd 31.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What the heck? There's FIVE new Les Rallizes Denudes archival releases on this hitherto unknown label Ignuitas? And three of them are ALREADY out of print? (Sorry!). That's right. We were only able to get a handful of each, and they sold out in the store almost immediately. But we do have A FEW copies left of two of 'em that we were able to get more of, and by a few we mean like 6 or 8... so act fast, Rallizes-heads. Not even sure if we should bother with a "review" since in this case it'd be a mere formality, but here goes, briefly... Les Rallizes Denudes were/are a seminal underground Japanese psychedelic rock band, totally influential on the current crop of Tokyo guitar psych acts like LSD-march and Up-Tight (for instance), yet obscurely under-documented. What you CAN find, is primitive lo-fi genius (?). For more possibly dubious but nonetheless very interesting info get Julian Cope's recent book the Japrocksampler (when we have it back in stock, it's on backorder right now). And check out the recent Rallizes "best of" cd entitled Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go reviewed on AQ list #282.
These two releases, since we have so few, are reserved for the devout fans. There's Are You Rallizesed?, subtitled Shizuoka Stupa 1974, a double disc of material recorded live in '74 (natch). 115 sprawling minutes of classic Rallizes murk, nine tracks total. It's all moodily melodic psych drift that's a wraith-like presence, about to spontaneously combust into ashes even as it echoes irresistibly in your mind, ever out of reach. Is it band leader Takeshi Mizutani's searing guitar making that distorted sound... or just the deteriorating recording medium? Either way, once you've ingested the entirety of these two discs you won't be able to listen to any "normal" or "correct" recordings, quite the same way again. What else has this much fragile emotion, or needs your ears to meet it more than halfway, to hear the music within the magnetic tape miasma that they made that night 34 years ago? (Or maybe it's not all from the same night, since they do one song twice...)
The other one we've (barely) got is called Live May 25 1975 Yaneura. And that's about all the info we have for you right there. Four tracks, about 31 minutes of Rallizes' damaged distorted jangle as captured by someone's cheap, tinny tape recorder. It's a mysterious meeting of the shrillest of feedback and the sweetest of psych pop. You can put your imagination to work to try to figure out what it actually sounded like in person or just go ahead and assume it's meant to be so fucked up and muffled and utterly destroyed... that's right, we probably don't need to spell this out, but be warned: these are EXTREMELY lo-fi, dub-of-a-dub, Nth generation, ultra-bootleg-y sounding recordings. The tape hiss is almost as loud as Mizutani's guitar. It's like this Rallizes music is psychically appearing on tape from beyond the grave a la EVP, Ghost Orchid style... But of course, you wouldn't expect anything less. It's all part of the Rallizes mystique anyway. Half the reason folks like Rallizes is 'cause nothing else is ever allowed to sound like THIS. What we can legitimately complain about is the crappy cheap graphic design Ignuitas has thrown together for these releases. Good grief these look terrible. But you're not buying 'em for the packaging anyway. And the ARE real cds, not cd-rs... so that's something. Rallizes fans will take what they can get, when and if they can get it, we know 'cause we are. First come, first served...
MPEG Stream: "Tori No Koe"
MPEG Stream: "My Conviction"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes (Phoenix) cd 17.98
All right, time to crank the stereo! There's no way to listen to these, but loud. Two rather crucial entries in the distorto-delic discography of seminal '70s Japanese underground rock band Les Rallizes Denudes are now reissued, on proper compact disc for what we think is the very first time, these having being previously only "available", if you can call it that, as cd-rs. Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes, and Heavier Than A Death In The Family, woah, you know with titles like that they've gotta be good. And before you go running to your Japrocksamplers to look 'em up, we'll save you the trouble: Julian Cope rated these two albums at #11 and #3, respectively, on his top 50 of Japanese psych artifacts. Deservedly so.
Heavily mythologized and mysterious, this lo-fi, in-the-red, sunglasses-wearing, Motown-loving, airplane-hijacking (??!), studio-recording-avoiding, raw outsider rock and roll unit provided the inspiration for every latter day underground Japanese psych band who have ever slipped on shades, cranked up their amps, and had a Tokyo Flashback. (Like Fushitsusha!) And these two discs, both equally recommended, are essential documents as to how and why.
Heavier Than A Death In The Family features six songs, all but one of 'em in the double digits, with some great titles, no less than three of 'em referencing the night in some form or other: "Strung Out Deeper Than The Night", "The Night Collectors", "Night Of The Assassins", "Enter The Mirror", "People Can Choose", and "Ice Fire". All were apparently recorded live in '77 (except one from '73). Blistering is the word. Super echoey, reverbed out, almost like Ariel Pink producing Wooden Shjips or Comets On Fire gone dub... Sounds also like some Siltbreeze shitgazers, or current psychsters like Heavy Winged, plodding and throbbing. And "Ice Fire" is 16 minutes of proto-Merzbow meets Hawkwind howl. Wow.
Frayed and fried, ULTRA fuzzed and feedback-y, of course, and yet for a Rallizes release, the sound isn't all that "bad", compared to some of their stuff we've heard wherein the tape hiss competes with the guitar for domination. Not that that's a bad thing, either, but this will take less getting used to.
Meanwhile, Blind Baby Has It's [sic] Mothers [sic] Eyes consists of three tracks, but clocks in at 54 minutes total: the title track, "An Awful Eternity" (aka "An Aweful Eternitie"), and "The Last One". Presumably also recorded live, we don't know when, sometime in the '70s, the sound here is similar sickness. More of their charismatically clangorous chaos, getting quite hypnotically repetitious across the lengths of these three wandering, wah-wah wailing epics. We'd recommend this as a good gift for your friend who likes the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray", Circle, and primitive black metal such as Striborg... if they haven't heard Les Rallizes yet they'll be thanking you!
Although due to the confusing nature of the Rallizes catalog, we imagine that some of these tracks might appear on other Rallizes discs that you may or may not have, but in any case these two albums are essentials in their entirety. Get 'em while they last.
Typical Phoenix no-frills cardboard "wallet" packaging, each cd numbered and limited to 1000 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "An Awful Eternity"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes (Phoenix) lp 24.00
Now available on vinyl! Les Rallizes Denudes on wax, how cool is that!
All right, time to crank the stereo! There's no way to listen to these, but loud. Two rather crucial entries in the distorto-delic discography of seminal '70s Japanese underground rock band Les Rallizes Denudes are now reissued, on proper compact disc for what we think is the very first time, these having being previously only "available", if you can call it that, as cd-rs. Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes, and Heavier Than A Death In The Family, woah, you know with titles like that they've gotta be good. And before you go running to your Japrocksamplers to look 'em up, we'll save you the trouble: Julian Cope rated these two albums at #11 and #3, respectively, on his top 50 of Japanese psych artifacts. Deservedly so.
Heavily mythologized and mysterious, this lo-fi, in-the-red, sunglasses-wearing, Motown-loving, airplane-hijacking (??!), studio-recording-avoiding, raw outsider rock and roll unit provided the inspiration for every latter day underground Japanese psych band who have ever slipped on shades, cranked up their amps, and had a Tokyo Flashback. (Like Fushitsusha!) And these two discs, both equally recommended, are essential documents as to how and why.
Heavier Than A Death In The Family features six songs, all but one of 'em in the double digits, with some great titles, no less than three of 'em referencing the night in some form or other: "Strung Out Deeper Than The Night", "The Night Collectors", "Night Of The Assassins", "Enter The Mirror", "People Can Choose", and "Ice Fire". All were apparently recorded live in '77 (except one from '73). Blistering is the word. Super echoey, reverbed out, almost like Ariel Pink producing Wooden Shjips or Comets On Fire gone dub... Sounds also like some Siltbreeze shitgazers, or current psychsters like Heavy Winged, plodding and throbbing. And "Ice Fire" is 16 minutes of proto-Merzbow meets Hawkwind howl. Wow.
Frayed and fried, ULTRA fuzzed and feedback-y, of course, and yet for a Rallizes release, the sound isn't all that "bad", compared to some of their stuff we've heard wherein the tape hiss competes with the guitar for domination. Not that that's a bad thing, either, but this will take less getting used to.
Meanwhile, Blind Baby Has It's [sic] Mothers [sic] Eyes consists of three tracks, but clocks in at 54 minutes total: the title track, "An Awful Eternity" (aka "An Aweful Eternitie"), and "The Last One". Presumably also recorded live, we don't know when, sometime in the '70s, the sound here is similar sickness. More of their charismatically clangorous chaos, getting quite hypnotically repetitious across the lengths of these three wandering, wah-wah wailing epics. We'd recommend this as a good gift for your friend who likes the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray", Circle, and primitive black metal such as Striborg... if they haven't heard Les Rallizes yet they'll be thanking you!
Although due to the confusing nature of the Rallizes catalog, we imagine that some of these tracks might appear on other Rallizes discs that you may or may not have, but in any case these two albums are essentials in their entirety. Get 'em while they last.
MPEG Stream: "Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes"
MPEG Stream: "An Awful Eternity"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Cable Hogue Soundtrack (Phoenix) 2cd 25.00
Wow, for a band that legendarily never really made, like, any "official" albums, certainly no studio ones, we sure have written a lotta reviews of releases by 'em! Not that we're complaining, we'll happily gobble up whatever obscure documents by these gents that reissue labels like Phoenix manage to dig up. After all, these Japanese Seventies psych subversives are one of those bands that inspired an entire scene, it seems, with all shades-wearing Tokyo psych acts of the modern era (Fushitsusha, LSD-march, Up-Tight, Miminokoto, etc. etc.) owing them allegiance. Themselves inspired by the dark urban psych of the Velvets, plus a dose of oddly enough Motown rhythms... and an even bigger dose of hiss, distortion and feedback. All noise / psych rock freeks definitely should delve into the mystery and murk of Les Rallizes.
This one, named for a 1970 Sam Peckinpah western (?), is a soundtrack to a live VHS video (we've never seen) released back in 1992, compiled by Rallizes leader Takashi Mizutani himself, a "best of" of sorts, demonstrating that these psychedelic hermits have sounded always as blisteringly blown-out and otherworldly rockin' and rollin' since their inception in 1967... it could be '72, it could be '79, it could be '83, it could be '92, it doesn't matter, when Les Rallizes take the stage they're in their own universe anyway, where time and other natural laws (musical ones too) operate differently. Where were we in '92? Just discovering Fushitsusha, probably, not yet hip to the true godhead that is Les Rallizes.
At first, when confronted with the heavy duty, distorted throb of the first few tracks, you might think, cool, but this does sound like stuff you already have heard by Rallizes, so do you really need more? Well, first off, if you're like us, you probably do... and anyway, wait, 'cause this is a sprawling double cd set after all, and eventually it reveals some sides to Les Rallizes that seemed new to us. Stuff that's so amazingly echoed-out, it's practically dub music. Beyond dub music, even. (Hmm, that'd be interesting, if someone did a dub version of a Rallizes track... would it collapse in on itself somehow?). There's also moments that have to be some of the most melodic, prettiest Rallizes to ever grace our ears... and some of their heaviest stuff is here too.
'Cause this is sort of a "greatest hits", the tracks that sound familiar are of course performances of songs we've heard in other incarnations on other Rallizes releases, and again they are as 'perfectly' realized (Rallizesised?) as any renditions you'll hear.
So, yeah, Cable Hogue easily winds up in the "essential" category... with almost all the other Rallizes records we've heard. Limited, numbered, cardstock "wallet" packaging.
MPEG Stream: "Night, Night Of The Assassins"
MPEG Stream: "Fallin' Love With"
MPEG Stream: "The Last One"
MPEG Stream: "Feeling High"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Cable Hogue Soundtrack (Phoenix) 2lp 34.00
Now available on vinyl too!!
Wow, for a band that legendarily never really made, like, any "official" albums, certainly no studio ones, we sure have written a lotta reviews of releases by 'em! Not that we're complaining, we'll happily gobble up whatever obscure documents by these gents that reissue labels like Phoenix manage to dig up. After all, these Japanese Seventies psych subversives are one of those bands that inspired an entire scene, it seems, with all shades-wearing Tokyo psych acts of the modern era (Fushitsusha, LSD-march, Up-Tight, Miminokoto, etc. etc.) owing them allegiance. Themselves inspired by the dark urban psych of the Velvets, plus a dose of oddly enough Motown rhythms... and an even bigger dose of hiss, distortion and feedback. All noise / psych rock freeks definitely should delve into the mystery and murk of Les Rallizes.
This one, named for a 1970 Sam Peckinpah western (?), is a soundtrack to a live VHS video (we've never seen) released back in 1992, compiled by Rallizes leader Takashi Mizutani himself, a "best of" of sorts, demonstrating that these psychedelic hermits have sounded always as blisteringly blown-out and otherworldly rockin' and rollin' since their inception in 1967... it could be '72, it could be '79, it could be '83, it could be '92, it doesn't matter, when Les Rallizes take the stage they're in their own universe anyway, where time and other natural laws (musical ones too) operate differently. Where were we in '92? Just discovering Fushitsusha, probably, not yet hip to the true godhead that is Les Rallizes.
At first, when confronted with the heavy duty, distorted throb of the first few tracks, you might think, cool, but this does sound like stuff you already have heard by Rallizes, so do you really need more? Well, first off, if you're like us, you probably do... and anyway, wait, 'cause this is a sprawling double cd set after all, and eventually it reveals some sides to Les Rallizes that seemed new to us. Stuff that's so amazingly echoed-out, it's practically dub music. Beyond dub music, even. (Hmm, that'd be interesting, if someone did a dub version of a Rallizes track... would it collapse in on itself somehow?). There's also moments that have to be some of the most melodic, prettiest Rallizes to ever grace our ears... and some of their heaviest stuff is here too.
'Cause this is sort of a "greatest hits", the tracks that sound familiar are of course performances of songs we've heard in other incarnations on other Rallizes releases, and again they are as 'perfectly' realized (Rallizesised?) as any renditions you'll hear.
So, yeah, Cable Hogue easily winds up in the "essential" category... with almost all the other Rallizes records we've heard. Limited of course.
MPEG Stream: "Night, Night Of The Assassins"
MPEG Stream: "Fallin' Love With"
MPEG Stream: "The Last One"
MPEG Stream: "Feeling High"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Double Heads (Phoenix) 6cd 69.00
Much like the Great White Wonder 4cd/5lp box from legendary Japanese psych combo Les Rallizes Denudes that we reviewed a while ago, this brand new SIX cd box, capturing a handful of the band's live shows in the early eighties, is most definitely not for dabblers. In fact, we've definitely reached a point, where unless you're a crazed collector, a Les Rallizes Denudes completist, or just an insane record nerd, you've probably surpassed your LRD quota, for, well FOREVER. Thankfully it seems, plenty of you out there are one or all of those things, cuz we couldn't keep that Great White Wonder box in stock, and it looks to be the same situation with this new one. Heck, all the Japanese psych nerds here either need, want or have already bought this, so we imagine some of you do too (although, let's not forget, that one aQ-er, who shall remain nameless, at one point bought a massive FORTY cd-r Les Rallizes Denudes set, which speaks to a whole other set of problems, but we digress).
So this set collects three legendary shows, that took place in 1980 and 1981, and featured the band with their new guitar player, who was chosen by LRD mainman Takashi Mizutani to replace 2nd guitarist Takeshi Nakamura, and the player was chosen with the intent of finding someone more connected with the burgeoning punk scene, so the sound here, is a bit more 'punk', although ultimately the sound is not THAT far removed from seventies Rallizes, pounding drums, wild swirling squalls of blown out guitar, effects everywhere, the vocals dripping with them, many of the songs laid back and poppy, dipping into a sort of Velvets-y dirge (which the band had already proven to be quite adept at), the sound smeared and druggy and dreamy, long stretches of moody meander leading into dense psychnoise blowouts, dubbed out rhythms, heavy and haunting, the vocals especially, powerful and shamanistic, and with a body of work that is mostly raw poorly recorded live sets, the sound here is killer, loud, intense, echo drenched, and supremely psychedelic. And now having listened to this box all the way through yet again, we might have to recant our opening statements, cuz really, how could you NOT want this, it RULES!!!
MPEG Stream: "One"
MPEG Stream: "Two"
MPEG Stream: "Three"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Eve Night 1983 (Ignuitas) 2cd 39.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Great White Wonder (Phoenix) 4cd 62.00
Every time we come across a new Les Rallizes Denudes reissue, not only are we absolutely thrilled, cuz we're sort of WAY obsessed, as are many of you we're discovering, we just can't get enough of these Japanese underground legends' crazed guitar-heavy freaked out, in-the-red psychedelia, but we also begin to marvel that there even IS another Rallizes release. After all, these guys only ever had ONE single proper release, and spent very little time in the studio, so pretty much every other record is a collection of live performances, some recorded straight through, others collaged into 'proper' records, but hell, we're not complaining, these guys sound like they were made for tearing it up live. And the varying sound quality, only adds to the whole freaked out-ness, the sound crumbling, or the levels peaking and the whole band seeming to disappear in a cloud of muted buzz, before emerging and exploding into another frantic bout of wild tangled leads, or some chugging proto-metal psychedelic blues.
Great White Wonder was originally released in 2006 on Japan's Univive label, and now it's now been reissued with a whole extra disc, the now 4cd set compiling, yep, a handful of live shows from 1974 to 1980, with lots of the same song performed at each, but in true Les Rallizes fashion, you'd never know, in fact sometimes we think the titles were just a formality, the same song will be 9 minutes on performance, 5 the next, 6 the next, super loose and high end and chaotic one performance, dark and muddy and riffy the next, murky and heavily reverbed and way more rocking the next, but that's kind of what's so magical about these guys, and what keeps most of us complaining about the inevitable overlap, cuz it all sounds so good, and it always sounds different, the arrangement, the sound quality, the tone and timbre, and listening to these 4 discs, if you edited out the breaks and between song spaces, it's easy to imagine this would flow pretty excellently as a nearly four hour super jam. And it is pretty divine, these guys are the undisputed masters, slipping from brooding, and soulful crooned balladic blues, the guitar leads super emotional and soaring and epic, to wild and loose and chaotic, the guitars impossibly frantic and furious and freaked out, the sound easily shifting between the two, a moody crooned verse will explode into freaked out psychedelic frenzy, an endless heart-of-the-sun jam will slip smoothly into a loping bit of midtempo brood. And with Les Rallizes, it's totally about the jam, sure there are songs, and there is singing, but most songs eventually (d)evolve into something much more transcendent, total epic majestic psych rock nirvana.
Fans of all things PSF, modern Japanese Psychedelia, and newer psych rock like the Heads and White Hills, odds are you're already as obsessed with these guys as we are. If you're not, well, give the sound samples a listen and try and see if you can resist...
Four cds housed in cardboard wallet style sleeves, all housed in a nice printed box, with extensive and detailed liner notes. And FYI, an eventual (and expensive) vinyl version is on the horizon as well.
MPEG Stream: "Field Of Artificial Flower"
MPEG Stream: "The Last One"
MPEG Stream: "Deeper Than The Night"
MPEG Stream: "White Waking"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Great White Wonder (Phoenix) 5lp box 95.00
As promised, this expansive underground '70s Japanese psych document, first available as a 4cd box set, is now also out on vinyl. Five 180 gram lps in a big white box, a pretty essential Rallizes fetish object if there ever was one (outside of Japan, where there's been plenty, much more pricey than this!). Here's what we wrote about the cd version...
Every time we come across a new Les Rallizes Denudes reissue, not only are we absolutely thrilled, cuz we're sort of WAY obsessed, as are many of you we're discovering, we just can't get enough of these Japanese underground legends' crazed guitar-heavy freaked out, in-the-red psychedelia, but we also begin to marvel that there even IS another Rallizes release. After all, these guys only ever had ONE single proper release, and spent very little time in the studio, so pretty much every other record is a collection of live performances, some recorded straight through, others collaged into 'proper' records, but hell, we're not complaining, these guys sound like they were made for tearing it up live. And the varying sound quality, only adds to the whole freaked out-ness, the sound crumbling, or the levels peaking and the whole band seeming to disappear in a cloud of muted buzz, before emerging and exploding into another frantic bout of wild tangled leads, or some chugging proto-metal psychedelic blues.
Great White Wonder was originally released in 2006 on Japan's Univive label, and now it's now been reissued with a whole extra disc's worth of music, the set compiling, yep, a handful of live shows from 1974 to 1980, with lots of the same song performed at each, but in true Les Rallizes fashion, you'd never know, in fact sometimes we think the titles were just a formality, the same song will be 9 minutes on performance, 5 the next, 6 the next, super loose and high end and chaotic one performance, dark and muddy and riffy the next, murky and heavily reverbed and way more rocking the next, but that's kind of what's so magical about these guys, and what keeps most of us complaining about the inevitable overlap, cuz it all sounds so good, and it always sounds different, the arrangement, the sound quality, the tone and timbre, and listening to these discs, if you edited out the breaks and between song spaces, it's easy to imagine this would flow pretty excellently as a nearly four hour super jam. And it is pretty divine, these guys are the undisputed masters, slipping from brooding, and soulful crooned balladic blues, the guitar leads super emotional and soaring and epic, to wild and loose and chaotic, the guitars impossibly frantic and furious and freaked out, the sound easily shifting between the two, a moody crooned verse will explode into freaked out psychedelic frenzy, an endless heart-of-the-sun jam will slip smoothly into a loping bit of midtempo brood. And with Les Rallizes, it's totally about the jam, sure there are songs, and there is singing, but most songs eventually (d)evolve into something much more transcendent, total epic majestic psych rock nirvana.
Fans of all things PSF, modern Japanese Psychedelia, and newer psych rock like the Heads and White Hills, odds are you're already as obsessed with these guys as we are. If you're not, well, give the sound samples a listen and try and see if you can resist... heck chances are you've been WAITING for this!
MPEG Stream: "Field Of Artificial Flower"
MPEG Stream: "The Last One"
MPEG Stream: "Deeper Than The Night"
MPEG Stream: "White Waking"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Heavier Than A Death In The Family (Phoenix) cd 17.98
All right, time to crank the stereo! There's no way to listen to these, but loud. Two rather crucial entries in the distorto-delic discography of seminal '70s Japanese underground rock band Les Rallizes Denudes are now reissued, on proper compact disc for what we think is the very first time, these having being previously only "available", if you can call it that, as cd-rs. Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes, and Heavier Than A Death In The Family, woah, you know with titles like that they've gotta be good. And before you go running to your Japrocksamplers to look 'em up, we'll save you the trouble: Julian Cope rated these two albums at #11 and #3, respectively, on his top 50 of Japanese psych artifacts. Deservedly so.
Heavily mythologized and mysterious, this lo-fi, in-the-red, sunglasses-wearing, Motown-loving, airplane-hijacking (??!), studio-recording-avoiding, raw outsider rock and roll unit provided the inspiration for every latter day underground Japanese psych band who have ever slipped on shades, cranked up their amps, and had a Tokyo Flashback. (Like Fushitsusha!) And these two discs, both equally recommended, are essential documents as to how and why.
Heavier Than A Death In The Family features six songs, all but one of 'em in the double digits, with some great titles, no less than three of 'em referencing the night in some form or other: "Strung Out Deeper Than The Night", "The Night Collectors", "Night Of The Assassins", "Enter The Mirror", "People Can Choose", and "Ice Fire". All were apparently recorded live in '77 (except one from '73). Blistering is the word. Super echoey, reverbed out, almost like Ariel Pink producing Wooden Shjips or Comets On Fire gone dub... Sounds also like some Siltbreeze shitgazers, or current psychsters like Heavy Winged, plodding and throbbing. And "Ice Fire" is 16 minutes of proto-Merzbow meets Hawkwind howl. Wow.
Frayed and fried, ULTRA fuzzed and feedback-y, of course, and yet for a Rallizes release, the sound isn't all that "bad", compared to some of their stuff we've heard wherein the tape hiss competes with the guitar for domination. Not that that's a bad thing, either, but this will take less getting used to.
Meanwhile, Blind Baby Has It's [sic] Mothers [sic] Eyes consists of three tracks, but clocks in at 54 minutes total: the title track, "An Awful Eternity" (aka "An Aweful Eternitie"), and "The Last One". Presumably also recorded live, we don't know when, sometime in the '70s, the sound here is similar sickness. More of their charismatically clangorous chaos, getting quite hypnotically repetitious across the lengths of these three wandering, wah-wah wailing epics. We'd recommend this as a good gift for your friend who likes the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray", Circle, and primitive black metal such as Striborg... if they haven't heard Les Rallizes yet they'll be thanking you!
Although due to the confusing nature of the Rallizes catalog, we imagine that some of these tracks might appear on other Rallizes discs that you may or may not have, but in any case these two albums are essentials in their entirety. Get 'em while they last.
Typical Phoenix no-frills cardboard "wallet" packaging, each cd numbered and limited to 1000 copies.
MPEG Stream: "Strung Out Deeper Than The Night"
MPEG Stream: "The Night Collectors"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Heavier Than A Death In The Family (Phoenix) 2lp 34.00
Now available on vinyl! Les Rallizes Denudes on wax, how cool is that!
All right, time to crank the stereo! There's no way to listen to these, but loud. Two rather crucial entries in the distorto-delic discography of seminal '70s Japanese underground rock band Les Rallizes Denudes are now reissued, on proper compact disc for what we think is the very first time, these having being previously only "available", if you can call it that, as cd-rs. Blind Baby Has It's Mothers Eyes, and Heavier Than A Death In The Family, woah, you know with titles like that they've gotta be good. And before you go running to your Japrocksamplers to look 'em up, we'll save you the trouble: Julian Cope rated these two albums at #11 and #3, respectively, on his top 50 of Japanese psych artifacts. Deservedly so.
Heavily mythologized and mysterious, this lo-fi, in-the-red, sunglasses-wearing, Motown-loving, airplane-hijacking (??!), studio-recording-avoiding, raw outsider rock and roll unit provided the inspiration for every latter day underground Japanese psych band who have ever slipped on shades, cranked up their amps, and had a Tokyo Flashback. (Like Fushitsusha!) And these two discs, both equally recommended, are essential documents as to how and why.
Heavier Than A Death In The Family features six songs, all but one of 'em in the double digits, with some great titles, no less than three of 'em referencing the night in some form or other: "Strung Out Deeper Than The Night", "The Night Collectors", "Night Of The Assassins", "Enter The Mirror", "People Can Choose", and "Ice Fire". All were apparently recorded live in '77 (except one from '73). Blistering is the word. Super echoey, reverbed out, almost like Ariel Pink producing Wooden Shjips or Comets On Fire gone dub... Sounds also like some Siltbreeze shitgazers, or current psychsters like Heavy Winged, plodding and throbbing. And "Ice Fire" is 16 minutes of proto-Merzbow meets Hawkwind howl. Wow.
Frayed and fried, ULTRA fuzzed and feedback-y, of course, and yet for a Rallizes release, the sound isn't all that "bad", compared to some of their stuff we've heard wherein the tape hiss competes with the guitar for domination. Not that that's a bad thing, either, but this will take less getting used to.
Meanwhile, Blind Baby Has It's [sic] Mothers [sic] Eyes consists of three tracks, but clocks in at 54 minutes total: the title track, "An Awful Eternity" (aka "An Aweful Eternitie"), and "The Last One". Presumably also recorded live, we don't know when, sometime in the '70s, the sound here is similar sickness. More of their charismatically clangorous chaos, getting quite hypnotically repetitious across the lengths of these three wandering, wah-wah wailing epics. We'd recommend this as a good gift for your friend who likes the Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray", Circle, and primitive black metal such as Striborg... if they haven't heard Les Rallizes yet they'll be thanking you!
Although due to the confusing nature of the Rallizes catalog, we imagine that some of these tracks might appear on other Rallizes discs that you may or may not have, but in any case these two albums are essentials in their entirety. Get 'em while they last.
MPEG Stream: "Strung Out Deeper Than The Night"
MPEG Stream: "The Night Collectors"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Le 12 Mars 1977 a Tachikawa (Over Level) 2cd 26.00
BACK IN STOCK. This Japanese psych essential, originally reviewed back on list 156, has been hard to come by for some time now but finally has been repressed or something, and we've got 'em, again!
You hear that? That echoing, droning, heavy psych jamming destroying your mind? Yep, at last, we've got 'em. Real cds, not cd-rs. Reasonably priced. More than a handful in stock (for now). The distorto-delic seventies Japanese guitar psych holy grail known as "Live '77", previously released only in an absurdly expensive, impossible to track down double cd-r edition, and in part on long-gone vinyl bootlegs, is now within your grasp (almost). This we expect to have around for more than two seconds at least, and is a comparative steal at only $25. Nicely done too, with a die cut cover revealing a blurry b&w photo of Les Rallizes Denudes guitarist Mizutani Takashi in action.
Disc one starts off exploring Les Rallizes mellow side, all sensitive and lovely, with "Enter The Mirror", but then soon explodes into sheer amplified overload, with throbbing mantric rhythms Circle fans should dig. It's a searing wash of guitars in the most far out VU, Neil Young, Fushitsusha realm, but taken way further out. Rough, raw live sound, but really all the fuzz and distortion and grit sounds just right. There's four long tracks on disc one, three looong tracks on disc two. By the time the epic 20+ minute "The Last One" on disc two marches into white noise oblivion, you -- and maybe your speakers -- will be fried.
Apparently, Takashi and co. are still out there, somewhere in Japan, making music as they have been for the past 30-odd years, but rarely leaving a recorded trace. But this 1977 live set isn't just about the only thing really available, it's also proof of their obscure genius. Next to 60's beat-psych legends the Jacks, they are maybe THE pioneering Japanese psychedelic outfit, obviously a BIG influence on today's underground Japanese psych bands, like Keiji Haino's Fushitsusha, High Rise and Mainliner, Acid Mothers Temple, Nagisa Ni Te, maybe even noiseniks Hijokaidan... All of 'em could simply be Les Rallizes tributes, really. We'd have to imagine that Keiji Haino and co. caught some Rallizes shows back in the day. So, if you like any of that stuff, you need this...and if you're the sort who buys every admittedly fine Kawabata Makoto/AMT cd or LP released every goddamn week, you have to get this just to help with the cosmic balance, man. Get 'em now, while you can!
MPEG Stream: "disc 1, track 1 (Enter The Mirror)"
MPEG Stream: "disc 1, track 3"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Le Festival De Fleur Complet, 8 Avril 1975 (Ignuitas) cd 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Live 1972 (Over Level) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Dunno what the most blown-out, amped-up, destroyed distorted damaged demented acid rock psychedelic craziness you've ever heard is... but whomever they are, we bet Les Rallizes Denudes could hang with 'em no problem at all. Might even teach 'em a thing or two. For those in the know, the fact that we've got another rare documentation (live, they're always live) of this legendary Japanese underground band is reason enough to buy one. If you haven't yet turned on to them, well, have you head any of the current crop of world-weary Japanese psych bands, in their black leather and dark glasses? Like LSD-march and Up-Tight and Keiji Haino's mighty Fushitsusha? Well they're all basically trying to be THIS band. Whom you'll hear here storming and stomping back in, yeah, 1972, as blackened and bleak and badass as as any of 'em today. This is definitely the Rallizes we like, mesmerizing and mind-numbing, with howling guitar and bleating vocals... The endlessly repetitive, trudging drones of some of the tracks here are relatively mild and "pop", but wait, others are throbbing Excedrin headaches in the guise of rock music. All right!! Live 1972 is lo-fi as hell, and glitches, drop outs, and abrupt edits are all part of the experience. Wouldn't have this any other way. We're just happy somebody recorded this way back when, even if it was on a hand held cassette tape deck! Six tracks, 43 and a half minutes of 34-year-old void-treading, feedback-blurting bliss!!!
MPEG Stream: "track 1"
MPEG Stream: "track 5"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Live At Kinjou Gakuen University, October 30, 1976 (Ignuitas) cd 28.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Live May 25 1975 Yaneura (Ignuitas) cd 26.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
What the heck? There's FIVE new Les Rallizes Denudes archival releases on this hitherto unknown label Ignuitas? And three of them are ALREADY out of print? (Sorry!). That's right. We were only able to get a handful of each, and they sold out in the store almost immediately. But we do have A FEW copies left of two of 'em that we were able to get more of, and by a few we mean like 6 or 8... so act fast, Rallizes-heads. Not even sure if we should bother with a "review" since in this case it'd be a mere formality, but here goes, briefly... Les Rallizes Denudes were/are a seminal underground Japanese psychedelic rock band, totally influential on the current crop of Tokyo guitar psych acts like LSD-march and Up-Tight (for instance), yet obscurely under-documented. What you CAN find, is primitive lo-fi genius (?). For more possibly dubious but nonetheless very interesting info get Julian Cope's recent book the Japrocksampler (when we have it back in stock, it's on backorder right now). And check out the recent Rallizes "best of" cd entitled Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go reviewed on AQ list #282.
These two releases, since we have so few, are reserved for the devout fans. There's Are You Rallizesed?, subtitled Shizuoka Stupa 1974, a double disc of material recorded live in '74 (natch). 115 sprawling minutes of classic Rallizes murk, nine tracks total. It's all moodily melodic psych drift that's a wraith-like presence, about to spontaneously combust into ashes even as it echoes irresistibly in your mind, ever out of reach. Is it band leader Takeshi Mizutani's searing guitar making that distorted sound... or just the deteriorating recording medium? Either way, once you've ingested the entirety of these two discs you won't be able to listen to any "normal" or "correct" recordings, quite the same way again. What else has this much fragile emotion, or needs your ears to meet it more than halfway, to hear the music within the magnetic tape miasma that they made that night 34 years ago? (Or maybe it's not all from the same night, since they do one song twice...)
The other one we've (barely) got is called Live May 25 1975 Yaneura. And that's about all the info we have for you right there. Four tracks, about 31 minutes of Rallizes' damaged distorted jangle as captured by someone's cheap, tinny tape recorder. It's a mysterious meeting of the shrillest of feedback and the sweetest of psych pop. You can put your imagination to work to try to figure out what it actually sounded like in person or just go ahead and assume it's meant to be so fucked up and muffled and utterly destroyed... that's right, we probably don't need to spell this out, but be warned: these are EXTREMELY lo-fi, dub-of-a-dub, Nth generation, ultra-bootleggy sounding recordings. The tape hiss is almost as loud as Mizutani's guitar. It's like this Rallizes music is psychically appearing on tape from beyond the grave a la EVP, Ghost Orchid style... But of course, you wouldn't expect anything less. It's all part of the Rallizes mystique anyway. Half the reason folks like Rallizes is 'cause nothing else is ever allowed to sound like THIS. What we can legitimately complain about is the crappy cheap graphic design Ignuitas has thrown together for these releases. Good grief these look terrible. But you're not buying 'em for the packaging anyway. And the ARE real cds, not cd-rs... so that's something. Rallizes fans will take what they can get, when and if they can get it, we know 'cause we are. First come, first served...
MPEG Stream: "The Last One"
MPEG Stream: "(Japanese title third track)"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES Mars Studio 1980 (Phoenix Records) 4cd 62.00
The avalanche of reissues from this legendary Japanese psych outfit continues unabated, with yet another multiple disc box, this one of note, as it's perhaps the most sought after studio recordings from this group, recorded during a brief period in the early eighties when the band included guitarist Fujio Yamaguchi, whose playing meshed perfectly with Les Rallizes mastermind Takeshi Mizutani, resulting in some of the group's dreamiest, and most high fidelity recordings. By now, all but the most stalwart and utterly obsessed Japanese psych nerds are probably burnt out and broke from trying to keep up with all these jams, so with these boxsets, we often find ourselves prefacing our reviews with the warning that they're probably for collectors only, but with Mars Studio, this might be a good place to start, it's definitely the least lo-fi, which for some of us is not necessarily a good thing, it does mean, that the songs are definitely the focus here. The liner notes point out that these are all live takes, as the songs were never properly finished or mixed, and that many of these were captured on a single microphone in the mixing booth, which is why on some tracks you can hear conversations between the musicians and the engineers. But it's all part of the magical mystery of Les Rallizes, and while there are a handful of feedback drenched jams, and a few heavy numbers, the bulk of the tracks from the 3 months the group spent in the Mars Studio tend toward the darkly psychedelic, and in many cases display a distinctly Velvets-y vibe, all low slung and groovy, the guitar solos much more measured and melodic, and ultimately quite gorgeous. And like on other Les Rallizes collections, their are multiple takes of the same songs, often with the different versions virtually unrecognizable, again, another part of the group's mystery. Fans of the noisier fucked up side of Les Rallizes might be a bit thrown off, although there is some of that here to dig, like the 24 minute "Guitar Jam" on disc 3, but folks into a more laid back psychedelia, will definitely be in Japanese psych heaven. The fourth disc is a legendary 1980 live show originally released as Double Heads September, and is a pretty good document of the band at the time, although really, since the studio tracks are also essentially live, it fits pretty perfectly with the first three discs.
Even after all these reissues though, we love this stuff, and can't seem to get enough.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, each one hand numbered, each disc housed in a full color sleeve, all the sleeves housed in a full color box.
MPEG Stream: "Enter The Mirror"
MPEG Stream: "Distant Memories"
MPEG Stream: "A Tale Of Love"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES (AKA HADAKA NO RALLIZES) Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go (aka Flightless Bird Needs Water Wings) (10th Avenue Freeze Out) cd 17.98
With the publication of Julian Cope's long awaited Japrocksampler tome, interest in Japan's underground psychedelic rock scene in the '70s has gotta be running at an all time high. A big portion of Cope's book dealt with the legendary Les Rallizes Denudes aka Hadaka No Rallizes, a long running (since the late sixties, still "active" today) and influential act led by guitarist Takashi Mizutani. Without Les Rallizes, more modern day bands like Up-Tight and LSD-march wouldn't exist. Rallizes were also a big inspiration for Keiji Haino's equally significant Fushitsusha group. Their style (musical and sartorial), their distortion, their sunglasses... blown-out minimalist rock throb, carving delicate and/or devastating beauty out of guitar feedback and reverby pop simplicity. Unfortunately for readers of Cope's book, pretty much the entire catalog of Rallizes LPs, cd, cd-rs, cassettes etc. falls into the category of near-myth, hard to find at the very least. It used to be, you could go into a record shop in Japan and spend hundreds of dollars for a handful of live Rallizes cd-rs. We've stocked what we could, but Rallizes cds are few and far between.
In other words, good timing that this disc just materialized (and maybe no coincidence that it was written up as a Record Of The Month on Cope's Head Heritage website a few months back). Titled either Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go or Flightless Bird Needs Water Wings, this cd offers up eight tracks of prime Rallizes, a "best of" of sorts drawn from rare recorded relics circa the early/mid '70s, though it goes back to '67 for track one. The disc opens with that garagey raver, "Otherwise My Conviction", then ventures into a gentler but no less distorted drone pop territory with "Valle d l'eau". The mood stays mellow until Mizutani busts out his searing Neil Young eat your heart out style guitar scorch for the end of the 13 minute third track, "Enter The Mirror". Has Wooden Shjips heard this? We're pretty sure they have. "Smokin' Cigarette Blues" is next, supremely lo-fi (with this band, that's a virtue), about as murky a 19 minutes of "blues" as you'll ever hear...it's all ambient low rumble and clatter, so abstract it's hard to tell if there's a band involved or not... this could be the Dead C for goshsakes! Wow. Following that, the fiery "Flames Of Ice" is propulsively distinct in comparison, and these 17 minutes should weigh heavily as a reason to pick this up. Then they plow into "Field Of Artificial Flowers", another heavy one, something like Link Wray's "Rumble" ultra-distorted into white hot sizzle and stretched out for ten minutes. What can they do to follow that? Being Les Rallizes Denudes, they go "Deeper Than Night" of course, which perfectly condenses everything that's wonderful about Les Rallizes into a mere two minutes and 24 seconds -- the mantric plod, the screeching sheets of sound wrenched from still bleeding guitars and amps. And then we're back to "Otherwise My Conviction", another version ending this disc much like it began. Whew. While any Rallizes cd is almost by definition essential, this really covers all the bases. Definitely one to get -- and it's also one of the only ones you CAN get.
MPEG Stream: "Enter The Mirror"
MPEG Stream: "Field Of Artificial Flowers"

LES RALLIZES DENUDES / TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS OZ Days Live 1973 lp 18.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Super rare, totally amazing split lp from two Japanese legends. Fuzzed out psych rockers Les Rallize Denudes on one side, blissy drone ensemble Taj Mahal Travellers on the other. HOLY SHIT! What a match up! We only had this once before and it was nearly $40 (and we were only able to get a couple copies that time). Now we managed to get FIVE more copies, and they're only $18.98! Need we stress that these will be gone before you even finish reading this... sorry!!

LETHE Catastrophe Point #5 (Intransitive Recordings) cd 14.98
Metgumbnerbone is not a reference that pops up all that much, nor is it one that would mean much to anyone who isn't a complete dork about British esoteric experimental musics. But that's where we'll start for this review because that's the reference that one such dork had to make here at aQuarius (it was Jim if you must know). Metgumbnerbone was a shadowy collection of dour Brits (including Richard Rupenus of The New Blockaders) who took up residence in an abandoned factory somewhere in Newcastle and constructed a bleak ritualist music out of the refuse found within. Scraping metal and atonal horns crafted out of plumbing material abound in the Metgumbnerbone vocabulary. Such is the case for Lethe as well, the found-space project of Japanese improviser Kuwayama Kiyoharu. However, as Metgumbernone's post-electrical scrabblings were the result of a collective effort, Lethe's spatializations emerge from an orchestra of one. It seems impossible that he did not overdub many of these sounds, but the production so fully embraces the cavernous space of his choosing that Lethe's pieces sound as if they were constructed in a single take.
For Catastrophe Point #5, Lethe used an abandoned grain warehouse located on the outskirts of Nagoya, Japan. Much more than an ambivalent shuffling or wandering scattering of clunky sounds, Lethe amasses sympathetic scrapings from pieces of metal, large and small, as they are dragged, bowed, and beaten throughout the space. Long form drones emerge throughout the performance as if he's triggering a resonant frequency of the space, echoing against itself. It's true that many of these sounds resemble those found on the impossible to find Metgumberbone records, but other references would be Organum's Vacant Lights album, Z'ev's finer moments, the recent John Grzinich constructions, and even Yoshi Wada's bellowing recordings of his Earth Horns. Excellent!
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 1"
MPEG Stream: "Untitled 2"

LETHE Catastrophe Point 7 & 8 (Invisible Birds) 2cd 63.00
It's hard not to jump right into discussing the packaging that Invisible Birds has crafted for this opus by the peripatetic Japanese experimentalist Lethe (aka Kuwayama Kiyoharu), but that will have to wait for later on in the review as it's the incredible, occluded sounds that Lethe generates that are of true import here.
For many years now, Kuwayama had been recording the resonance of various abandoned spaces, first around his native Japan and more recently from sites far far away. He seeks out an old warehouse, airplane hanger, the hull of a ship, or any massive slab of architecture shaped by concrete and/or steel which happens to have an open door (or broken window) and a choice amount of natural reverb and resonance. There he collects whatever he can find within the space to use as source material to resonate those industrial spaces: slabs of metal, empty water tanks, sodden wood, broken glass, small bones, and the flotsam that had collected on the floors after years of neglect. Out of these found objects, Kuwayama has an uncanny knack for producing natural, acoustic drones which hold a haunted aesthetic amplified through the cavernous reverb of those crumbled cathedrals to industry. Given the seemingly surreptitious nature of Kuwayama's wanderings, these recordings are swaddled in the darkness of night with only candles or a bonfire somewhere in the far corner of the building as his illumination. It has to be said that Kuwayama does overlay and edit all of his recordings into composition, following liked minded artists such as Tarab, Eric La Casa, or John Grzinich.
Catastrophe Point 7 begins with this process at a site deliciously referred to as Arsenic in Lausanne, Switzerland. Well, it turns out that Arsenic is a contemporary theater space in current use, and despite his non-feral residence, Kuwayama offers an incredible assortment of acoustic drones, noises, and textures. Bellowing tones emanate from a variety of long plumbing pipes, replicating the circular breathing strategies of Yoshi Wada; and around these leaden flutterings, he scrapes uneasy textures and builds clattering crescendos. The point about Arsenic not being a totally disused space comes to the forefront about halfway through Catastrophe Point 7 as he rolls a piano into the empty theater space and sets forth a melancholy series of clustered piano tones, much like his one time collaborator Jonathan Coleclough produced on his signature album Period.
Catastrophe Point 8 was recorded in an abandoned space. This time, it's a former power station in Scotland. A mournful acoustic drone, perhaps from a similar set of plumbing pipes heard in the Swiss recordings opens this disc, with small crumblings of wood, glass, and concrete positioned close to the microphone. Set in spatialized contrast to these closely miced sounds, Kuwayama captures various clanks, thumps, and other bumps in the night all decaying in the prolonged reverb of that power station. It's a much more Spartan affair than the first disc, but just as effective in its haunted sensibility. Highly recommended listening!
And yes, the packaging. The discs themselves are housed in a beautifully printed letterpress folio, with a lengthy booklet written by fellow industrial shadow-master Giancarlo Toniutti. For this small art-edition, Invisible Birds has housed the two discs in an archival, embossed box with another booklet of photographs from Kuwayama and a snippet of 8mm film. The art edition is beautifully done and well worth the expense. Needless to say, they made just 100 of the art edition!
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 7.2"
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 8.1"
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 8.3"

LETHE Catastrophe Point 7 & 8 (Invisible Birds) 2cd 19.98
Here's the regular (and much more reasonably priced!) edition of the ultra deluxe Lethe 2cd set we reviewed a few weeks ago.
For many years now, Kuwayama Kiyoharu (aka Lethe) had been recording the resonance of various abandoned spaces, first around his native Japan and more recently from sites far far away. He seeks out an old warehouse, airplane hanger, the hull of a ship, or any massive slab of architecture shaped by concrete and/or steel which happens to have an open door (or broken window) and a choice amount of natural reverb and resonance. There he collects whatever he can find within the space to use as source material to resonate those industrial spaces: slabs of metal, empty water tanks, sodden wood, broken glass, small bones, and the flotsam that had collected on the floors after years of neglect. Out of these found objects, Kuwayama has an uncanny knack for producing natural, acoustic drones which hold a haunted aesthetic amplified through the cavernous reverb of those crumbled cathedrals to industry. Given the seemingly surreptitious nature of Kuwayama's wanderings, these recordings are swaddled in the darkness of night with only candles or a bonfire somewhere in the far corner of the building as his illumination. It has to be said that Kuwayama does overlay and edit all of his recordings into composition, following liked minded artists such as Tarab, Eric La Casa, or John Grzinich.
Catastrophe Point 7 begins with this process at a site deliciously referred to as Arsenic in Lausanne, Switzerland. Well, it turns out that Arsenic is a contemporary theater space in current use, and despite his non-feral residence, Kuwayama offers an incredible assortment of acoustic drones, noises, and textures. Bellowing tones emanate from a variety of long plumbing pipes, replicating the circular breathing strategies of Yoshi Wada; and around these leaden flutterings, he scrapes uneasy textures and builds clattering crescendos. The point about Arsenic not being a totally disused space comes to the forefront about halfway through Catastrophe Point 7 as he rolls a piano into the empty theater space and sets forth a melancholy series of clustered piano tones, much like his one time collaborator Jonathan Coleclough produced on his signature album Period.
Catastrophe Point 8 was recorded in an abandoned space. This time, it's a former power station in Scotland. A mournful acoustic drone, perhaps from a similar set of plumbing pipes heard in the Swiss recordings opens this disc, with small crumblings of wood, glass, and concrete positioned close to the microphone. Set in spatialized contrast to these closely miced sounds, Kuwayama captures various clanks, thumps, and other bumps in the night all decaying in the prolonged reverb of that power station. It's a much more Spartan affair than the first disc, but just as effective in its haunted sensibility. Highly recommended listening!
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 7.2"
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 8.1"
MPEG Stream: "Catastrophe Point 8.3"

LETHE Dry Ice On Steel Tables (And/OAR) cd 13.98
If you were to touch a piece of metal to dry ice, an incredible squeal bursts forth at a caustic frequency and high volume. This phenomenon of sonic alchemy is the result of the temperature change between the metal and the dry ice. When the dry ice jumps in temperature from 60 degrees below zero, the molecules rapidly sublimate from solid to gas. Since the metal is quite rigid, the carbon dioxide gas bursts outward and the two surfaces of the solid dry ice and the metal act akin to a reed on a sax played by a six year old. We first saw this trick employed by Matmos at their Yerba Buena Center for the Arts residency many years ago; and Lethe - the Japanese acoustic experimentalist Kuwayama Kiyoharu - took this up on a much large scale with large steel tables heated by candles and situated in a massive industrial warehouse. The protracted squeals, sonorous buzzing, and shrill drones aren't too dissimilar to how Kuwayama would bow metal, wood, and other found objects within abandoned warehouses, especially with the cavernous reverb that spills around every sound. As with pretty much all of his other recordings, Kuwayama takes great care in the amount space he uses between each of the highly variable shrieks and bellows produced by such incredibly simple means. It's a fantastic post-Fluxus performative gesture presented on a grand scale.
MPEG Stream: "Dry Ice On Steel Tables"