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Endless Ruins PSF PSFD-126 CD £14.99 Outrageously heavy solo debut from Kousokuya frontman Jutok Kaneko, here extrapolating trio (with ex-White Heaven drummer Koji Shimura and bassist Takuya Nishimura) and solo moves all the way over the event horizon. Endless Ruins sounds like an apocalyptic Crazy Horse running down the end-of-century blues. Still one of the most profoundly inventive and individualistic guitarists to come out of the Tokyo underground. Highly recommended. |
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1st PSF PSFD-132 CD £14.99 Alongside Keiji Haino’s Fushitsusha, Jutok Kaneko’s death-decadent Kousokuya ruled the Tokyo underground of the 80s and 90s with a lead fist. Kaneko can mangle six strings better than anyone this side of Neil Young and Tony Iommi. 1st is a long-overdue reissue of Kousokuya’s ultra-rare debut LP, originally self-released in 1991 in an edition of only 200 copies. It features the classic original line-up of guitarist Kaneko, female bassist/vocalist ‘Mick’ and drummer Ikuro Takahashi (of Fushitsusha et al). Hands down one of the most formally flattening records to come out of whole Japanese scene. Highest recommendation. |
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Live Gyakuryu Kokuu PSF PSFD-152 CD £14.99 Kousokuya, led by renowned guitar monster Jutok Kaneko, were a massive presence on the Tokyo underground throughout the 80s and 90s. Their debut LP, originally self-released in a tiny run in 1991and since reissued on CD by PSF, plotted galaxies of heavy gravity like nothing this side of Neil Young’s Weld and Black Sabbath’s Masters Of Reality. Kaneko’s guitar playing is brutally blunt, working staggered rhythms into huge, tottering constructions that crash to earth with all the ferocious inevitability of dead stars. Vocalist Mick’s high despairing vocals and ten-nods-behind-the-beat bass style reinforce the profoundly desperate, nihilistic air while drummer Ikuro Takahashi (Fushitsusha et al) sets single megaton blasts in the background. Live Gyakuryu Kokuu is a killer retrospective of this mammoth outfit, two long tracks recorded the same year as their debut album that work forms from ominous black gulfs like nothing else this side of Fushitsusha. Highest recommendation. |
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s/t Eine Kleine Nachtmusik 003 CD £13.99 Numbered edition of 500 copies in hand-stitched embossed art paper sleeves from Ikuro Takahashi’s (Fushitsusha/Kousokuya et al) own private press. This is another major archival release from the vaults of the Japanese underground, documenting a group led by Tori Kudo (Maher Shalal Hash Baz/Noise/Guys ‘n’ Dolls et al) on piano and featuring Kanji Nakao (Compostera) on saxophone, Yoshi Kuge (Compostera) on drums and Takuya Nishimura (Che-SHIZU) on bass. This is the closest that Tori has ever come to cutting a free jazz album, though it’s inevitably a couple of sails more skewed than a simple investigation of the elasticity of genre. Nakao is a fantastic player, now a model of control, now barking through the low register like a headier Sonny Rollins and Tori pushes him the whole way, pursuing ideas with big barracking chords and dancing around the themes with ploy-rhythmic re-statements. There’s a nice, dusty feel to the recording, a time machine aspect that seems to lend it an extra layer of poignancy while the tough/tender interaction perfectly captures that sublime happy/sad feel of all of the best Maher/Tori sides. Two concerts are included, one from 1995 and another from 1996. Many fantastic hitherto-unknown releases appearing from the mists of the Tokyo underground of late and this is another highly recommended installment. |
