Japanoise J-Punk The Experimental

[Mulboyne]

Acid Mothers Temple: Does the Cosmic Shepherd Dream of Electric Tapirs?
You cannot stop Acid Mothers Temple; you can only hope to contain them. Fans of the relentless Japanese psych cooperative have had a perpetual embarrassment of riches the past several years: By now, the savvier amongst us could've accumulated over 15 official albums released by the group since 2000. (And that's not counting god-knows-how-many CDRs, side projects, and spinoffs.) Theirs is quickly becoming one of the most daunting discographies in contemporary music....more...
Shugo Tokumaru: Night Piece
Shugo's hushed tenor and sparse acoustic guitar arrangements will...remind American indie-pop audiences of Sufjan Stevens, and the songs' unintrusive electronic embellishments recall Nobukazu Takemura and recent Fly Records releases from OMB and Tatsuya Yamada...Shugo is just way too melodic for the stateside free-folk scene...Night Piece is "just" a pop album, short but dense and infinitely considered......more...
Guitar Wolf: Loverock
Seiji. Billy. Toru. Take heed, bubby! These are not the names of your next artfully angular Ikea shelving components. No, these duosyllabic runes are the calling cards of those smashers of everything plastic, that beaten leather trio on the lunatic fringe, the only rock combo to ever tour Argentina on the seat of a black motorbike: Ladies and gentlemen and Kung Fu Ramone, put your fists in the air for Tokyo's own Guitar Wolf....more...
Nagisa Ni Te: The Same as a Flower
Lo-fi experimental rock is popular with the kids overseas (hence The Microphones' recent "Live in Japan"), but there are only a handful of reciprocal acts that have made it over here so far. Osaka-based duo Nagisa Ni Te are one, immersed in 60s/70s American psych-folk and a lo-fi connection to the natural world via imperfect multitracking and distracted guitar strumming. Despite being billed as Japanese avant-folk, The Same as a Flower subsists on relatively standard, slow, guitar-based songs...Fortunately, Nagisa Ni Te avoid sounding derivative, and some unique characteristics set them apart as worthy of attention....more...
DILL: WYHIWYG
Inoue's music is a lot closer to Brian Eno's classically informed ambience than Otomo Yoshihide's space-age free improvisation, but is just as Spartan and strangely attractive. The tracks with vocals stand out immediately; Inoue has a knack for supporting clear, seductive melodies with restless, jittery glitch. The brief "Tena" features the rounded, vocoder-affected alto of Akiko Sasaki over a minimal bassline and collage-style backdrop. Radio static comes and goes, and on the second verse I can hear bits of Eastern percussion, a falling siren and near atonal synthesizer clips. Yet, despite potential overcrowding, the track feels barely there ...more...
Takashi Wada: Meguro
Takashi Wada's "28°C" begins simply, with a few plucked notes of an acoustic guitar echoing nicely around a "wet" room, before a cooing female voice sings a few bars and a field recording bridge serves as a ramp up to a grand second half. Suddenly, a rapid double-time Casio beat and sampled bottom of double bass folds in, eventually carrying with it a joyous melody swinging on a synthesized trumpet. It's like a toned-down version of Max Tundra's "Cakes", and it's one of those moments where you forget completely who you're listening to, or how the music is being made. You just feel happy at this thing that sounds so good in such a fresh way. ...more...

[Mulboyne]

[AssKissinger]

http://www.thesoundprojector.com/exc_sp3_japan.html

[Thanatos' embalmed botfly]

remember spending weeks scouring Dauckland record stores in 1990 for a band I heard on campus radio called "The BORDINS."

Fucking idiot.

Stupid pre-internet life.

These days, I'm burnt out on all that experimental noise stuff. Apart from GEROGERIGEGEGE. "1,2,3,4 ahhhHHHHHHHH

Japanese thrash; the FUTURES.
Japanese sludge; CORRUPTED.

Oh, baby.

[Mulboyne]

A team from FG caught the new line-up a couple of months ago

Pitchfork: Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno - "Just Another Band From the Cosmic Inferno"

..."They're Coming from the Cosmic Inferno" is the real straightjacket material. Forty-four minutes this one goes on for, and again nearly all space is filled with balls-out soloing. The riff is less a focus here. As the band locks into an unyielding metronomic krautrock groove, Makoto takes a free form and less blues-based approach, letting his leads go where they want to go.

[Mulboyne]

Keiji Haino is a hard one to take.

Pitchforkmedia: "Black Blues (Acoustic) / (Electric)" by Keiji Haino
Often pigeonholed as a shadowy guitar screamer, Haino claims to have mastered over 80 noisemakers including digital theremin, air synth, hurdy-gurdy, wave drum, all sorts of percussion, and various indigenous instruments...rest of the review...

[maraboutslim]

From '93 till '98 I was pretty intune with certain sub-sets of the Tokyo "underground" music scene. Some of the bands were known around the world but most were just self-funded bands putting on self-promoted shows at various "live houses" in Shibuya, Shinjuku, Shimo-kitazawa, etc. I was the token gajin member (lead guitar) of a band that had a few singles released (by american labels dabbling in japanese music) and helped produce a compilation of Japanese indy-pop bands called Pop Jingu. I hope some of you own it! (if not, i've got a few stashed away I could part with). While not a huge seller or anything, it was pretty cool to see a CD you helped put out and that had your band on it on the "staff pics" racks in various Tokyo record stores. And then I had the disasterous idea to publish a magazine in Japanese on international music and art that I intended to make quarterly but had to shut down after just one issue as I was moving back to California.

I also wrote an article on female garage bands (and a shorter story on the shut-down of Hokoten) for the "big in japan" issue of Raygun magazine. That was cool because I got to interview cool bands like the 5,6,7,8s, ginny vamps, aiha higurashi (seagull screaming kiss her kiss her), and Supersnazz (i had more than a little crush on bass player Tomoko!) and with the Raygun connection I got to hobknob briefly with various Japanese musicians, having lunch with people like photographer and singer Nanaco (she was an 'idol' in the '70s, but she started recording again in the 90s: she's a very inspiring woman), getting invited to Pizzicato Five recording sessions (i had to pass) and junk like that.

Everyone should play at being a pop journalist at least once in their lifetime! It's lots of fun.

Anyway, I often wonder what happened to a lot of the bands we used to play gigs with and that I used to see regularly (with Captain Japan a lot in the later years). One of my favorites was a band called Biscuit Fan - if anyone knows anything about them, let me know. I was also seeing Sugar Plant a lot in those days and hope Chinatsu and Shinichi are still making music. Anyone know?

[Visitor K]

well, for folks in kansai (i just left there after a year) you should check out the kyoto based Pop Chocolat http://www.geocities.co.jp/MusicStar-Vocal/8282/ if you like all girl pop-punk, quite a bit like the 1/4 japanese band deerhoof, but a little less experimental.
Also, another good kansai band is Bacon, energetic pop-punk (with a cool synth player)...
so, i just moved to tokyo and am wondering where to see some good music.. i lived pretty far outside of osaka last year, and only went to one show, so i am jonesing for some good live shows.

[Captain Japan]

Anyway, I often wonder what happened to a lot of the bands we used to play gigs with and that I used to see regularly (with Captain Japan a lot in the later years). One of my favorites was a band called Biscuit Fan - if anyone knows anything about them, let me know. I was also seeing Sugar Plant a lot in those days and hope Chinatsu and Shinichi are still making music. Anyone know?

Indeed it was Slim who took my to my first ever show in Japan. It was Sugar Plant in Shimokitazawa. But they seem to be in hiatus. From their Web page:

sugar plant stopped activities for a while.

But it looks like Cinnabom is moving along:

Chinatsu's solo unit "cinnabom" released a debut album on 333 DISCS (Japan). Produced by Goro Ito (Moosehill, RAM). It's a beautiful bossa nova style original music!
To hear sample, click here. (Sorry, English page is not ready yet)

[maraboutslim]

Thanks for the update! I'll check it out.

[Mulboyne]

Pitchfork Review: Acid Mothers Temple and the Cosmic Inferno - "IAO Chant From the Cosmic Inferno" and "Cosmic Funeral Route 666"

...Even with AMT's hell-bent release schedule, however, Makoto has always seen the wisdom in making the occasional grand statement. And by all earmarks, the massive IAO Chant From the Cosmic Inferno would appear to be just such a momentous occasion. Recorded as a tribute to the late Pierre Moerlen of the hippie art-rock collective Gong, IAO Chant consists of a single 51-minute track, the monumental "Om Riff From the Cosmic Inferno"...more...

[Mulboyne]

Boris - "Pink"

In underground metal years, Boris are senior citizens: Their self-released debut full-length, Absolutego, dates back to 1996, and compilations were hosting their material two years prior to that. But as invigorating as some of their earlier records are, the band didn't begin to gain a substantial following outside the metal world until 2003's outstanding Akuma No Uta-- parodying the artwork of Nick Drake's Bryter Layter-- struck a chord with independent music fans seeking an antidote to the more polite pop sounds of the Shins, Sufjan, and Death Cab for Cutie. Now, following more than a decade of hard labor and a swarm of 2005 releases, the trio gives their ever-expanding audience something to chew on: Pink is their best album yet, and by some distance the most accessible of their career to date...more...

[bruce_a]

I came across Nagisa ni Te last year via a music blog. I've enjoyed the tracks they offer for free download, but since I'm a cheap bastidge I haven't bought their album. I'd love to hear more though. Too bad they'll probably never have this over at Book Off or Book Mart (who DID have Skunk Anansie's first album for $3, go fig). Oh well. I guess buying ONE new CD won't kill me.

This one's probably my favourite, called Anxiety. This MP3 is hosted by their label.

[Mulboyne]

Kyodo via Yahoo: Japanese rock music festival set for April 1 in Beijing
A first-time all Japanese rock music festival has been scheduled for April 1 in Beijing, an organizer said Wednesday. The Japanese Music Festival will feature underground musician Tatsuya Yoshida and psychedelic rockers Atsushi Tsuyama and Makoto Kawabata, both members of the group Acid Mothers Temple, according to an organizer at the Factory 798 art district in northeastern Beijing. The musicians will play an evening concert to 150 to 200 people at the South Gate Space gallery. Tickets are 50 yuan ($6.22) and there is no concert time limit, a South Gate Space staff member said...Despite the April Fool's Day schedule, the concert is real...

[AssKissinger]

Recently I just started rockin' out to these guys

sigh

[Mulboyne]

Recently I just started rockin' out to these guys

sigh

YouTube video

[AssKissinger]

Wow that sounds totally different from the cd I have but it was very campy-cool. Almost like they decided to give up black metal and go group sounds. Thanks.

[Mulboyne]

One of the links for the band in the wiki has this post from the end of April:

As many of our forum members here are already aware, I have been working on a new project lately:
It is called "Far East Radio," and as it sounds, it is an internet radio station connected to music from the Far East. The genres included range from 1970s Japanese psychedelic hard rock to progressive black metal, with several genres in between.

Some bands you will find on the station often are Abigail, Barbatos, Cut Throat, Eternal Elysium, Far East Family Band, Flied Egg, Flower Travellin' Band, Sabbat, Sad Legend, SIGH, X Japan, and MANY more.

I have it streaming as much as possible, so visit the site and listen for a while! All you need is a compatible media player such as Winamp, iTunes, Real Player, Foobar 2000, or others (Windows Media Player doesn't work with the stream).

Far East Radio Website

The site has a few Sigh tracks - haven't listened to them - and even old 70's band Flied Egg. Their stuff is pretty rare these days.

[Ptyx]

No totally japanese noise related but noise nonetheless. Lightning Bolt is doing a Japan tour in the coming days, they have three dates in tokyo :

6/1(THU) Tokyo Shibuya O-NEST With: STRUGGLE FOR PRIDE, cudda-chikurelo DJ$B!'!!(BK.E.I.(VOVIVAV)

6/2(FRI) Enoshima OPPALA With: Guitar Wolf, KIRIHITO, DJ$B!'!!(BL?K?O, K.E.I.(VOVIVAV)

6/3(SAT) Kyoto UrBANGUILD With: Amazon Saliva, Oshiri-Penpenz

6/4(SUN) Yamaguchi Houfu bar Indo-yo$B!!(B With: Tadashi Sasaki, Soul-Kyoudai, GeGeGeGe Qualtet, The Golbees, FRATENN and more...

6/5(MON) Fukuoka Decadent DELUXE With: Ishiatama-Jizou, nontroppo, accidents in too large field MC&DJ: BOGEY

6/6(TUE) Oita AT HALL With: VELOCITYUT, Yunagi-Sensen

6/7(WED) Okayama PEPPER LAND With: Idol Punch, Kecchi, THE PINK PANDA, Sprite, LIVE CLEAN STAY YOUNG, Nurumayu, AcmeCocaPipans

6/8(THU) Osaka SHANGRI-LA With: Afrirampo, Ultra Bide

6/9(FRI) Nagoya CLUB ROCK'N'ROLL With: DMBQ

6/10(SAT) Tokyo Super Deluxe With: DMBQ, HAIR STYLISTICS DJ: K.E.I.(VOVIVAV)

6/12(MON) Tokyo UFO CLUB With: Afrirampo

[Mulboyne]

No totally japanese noise related but noise nonetheless. Lightning Bolt is doing a Japan tour in the coming days, they have three dates in tokyo

Just saw them in London. They usually play from the mosh-pit rather than the stage so get there early to get near the front or you won't see anything.

[Ptyx]

Yeah i saw some videos of their show, it looks pretty intense. It's a good idea to play from the pit but how do they manage the pogo dancers ?
Two of the tokyo shows are sold-out by the the way the one at O-nest and the one at UFO.

[Mulboyne]

When it got out of hand in London, the band pushed people back. The average height must be taller in Britain than Japan but you could couldn't see a thing if you were further away than 5 or 6 deep. That tended to mean the crowd became more manic although some reviews of other performances reported that the crowd were quite muted. Here they are in Baltimore and here you can see how close the crowd can get. Lightning Bolt often pay respects to Japanese noise duo Ruins (mentioned by AK at the beginning of this thread) but they have said they don't care for the new avant garde jazz direction that Ruins have taken.

N.B. It seems like the other Tokyo date (Super Deluxe) is also sold out.

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

This video has good sound and picture quality.

Acid Mothers on Live Eye TV (or click through from the main website)

This episode was a departure from the norm for us…it’s a 28min long version of “Pink Lady Lemonade”, from Japanese spacemen, Acid Mothers Temple. First formed in 1996, by Kawabata Makoto, Acid Mother’s Temple, and it’s several off-shoot projects, have melded a hard rockin’ psychedelic attack with swirling electronic inter-planetary meditations. Rock meets Alien Intelligence and Trips the Light Fantastic…This performance was live in Seattle at Neumos, and included Kinski drummer Barrett Wilke, to fill out the already massive sound of this amazing musical collective!

The video is actually of the AMT & the Cosmic Inferno but here's what Julian Cope, former lead singer with The Teadrop Explodes, has to say about an earlier incarnation of the band:

...Led by the incredible acid-rock guitarist and forward-thinking Motherfucker Kawabata Makoto, Acid Mothers Temple is designed specifically to lead middle-aged rock‘n’rollers away from the boring fucking Beatles and Byrds remasters section of the record shop and into strange and uncharted regions called “Contemporary”. Whenever my friend Psychedelic Paul is on the verge of buying yet another 13th Floor Elevators re-package, I grab him by the nuts and haul him into the section marked “Mad Japs”...

The same site also has a video of Boris - who also featured over in this thread - and Mono who are making waves overseas.

[Ptyx]

I saw Mono live at Quattro and it was one of the most boring performance i ever attended along with Autechre in London a few years back.
Mono are japan's answer to Mogwai without the intensity. I don't know what they sound like on record though, it might be better.

[Mulboyne]

I saw Mono live at Quattro and it was one of the most boring performance i ever attended...I don't know what they sound like on record though, it might be better.

Most of the reviewers I've read always claim that their live show is better so that doesn't sound too good. The Mono CD I heard sounded very similar to Explosions in the Sky.

[AssKissinger]

I'm surprised how informative this article from VH1 is Fushitsusha

[AssKissinger]

Boris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siwV1pFgIKs&search=Boris%20live


Melt Banana


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FsXnhmoPSQ

Bordeoms

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgwMBXhyp9w

Keiji Haino

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkl_CbLdBjA

[AssKissinger]

AMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUZL6wbxKok

[AssKissinger]

Otomo Yoshihide

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-DXwxKlE2I