Satoshi Sonoda - Everything Lies Beyond The Burning Summer Grasses (1977-1978)

Well, this is dedicated to "Memories Of Yasushi Ozawa". Everything Lies Beyond The Burning Summer Grasses is a major collection of otherwise unreleased material put together by Satoshi Sonoda from the late 70s that provides an illuminating snapshot of the breadth and depth of the then-nascent Tokyo underground sound. Sonoda founded a student club at Meiji University attracting players like Yasushi Ozawa and Chie Mukai, both of whom make appearances on this CD.

Sonoda was a formidable electric guitarist in his own right, influenced as much by rock groups like Free and The Jimi Hendrix Experience as Keith Rowe, Sonny Sharrock and Derek Bailey. This archival album bundles a clutch of performances featuring or related to Sonoda. It documents the fascination with musical collisions of free jazz, rigorous twentieth century composition, art-inspired free improv moves, as well as the fried gargle of acid punk. Capturing small scale shows in after-hours university classrooms and tiny clubs, this is a music that is just intensely evocative of its specific time and place combining fractured improv moves with endless repeat-riff boogie and almost Mazzacane-styled wrist action, Che-SHIZUian acid folk and wretched gobble-punk vocals.

Here is pretty weird stuff for you. Don't say I didn't warn you:
Satoshi Sonoda - Everything Lies Beyond The Burning Summer Grasses (256Kbps)

Enjoy !

Ozawa Yasushi - Some Fragments of Bass Performance

This is a limited private release of a series of solo recordings by the late Yasushi Ozawa, bassist with Fushitsusha and member of Marginal Consort. It's an incredible studio session recorded at Bunkyo Civic Center on July 30th 2000 and given to Akira Ootsuka with instructions to only release it after Ozawa was dead. Yasushi passed away on Feb.2, 2008, aged 50. Much more than simply a solo bass record, this is a real tour-de-force, demonstrating both the incredible reach of Ozawa’s instrumental conceptions and just how much he brought to Fushitsusha. There are odd, scrambly miniatures that are perfectly dislocated from structural conceits, double-tracked attacks of eight string fury accompanied by boulders of cracked electricity, eerie alone-in-the-dark F/X saturated hymnals, almost Youngs/Wickham-Smith styled fuzz punk blasters…

A masterpiece of solo improvisation. Highly recommended.
Get it here: Ozawa Yasushi - Some Fragments of Bass Performance (192Kbps)

Enjoy !

The Paper Chase - Now You Are One Of Us (2006)

This is corresponding to my last post. So let's be scared by some very well produced noise-pop/rock now !

Now You Are One Of Us offers sliding, seasick guitars; an Albini-fied rhythm section; spectacularly detailed arrangements and production; and a similarly spectacular level of ambition. To these ears, this Texas-based group continues to be one of the most exciting acts in rock: its sound is simultaneously easily identifiable and flush with possibility.

The Paper Chase is ultimately an angular indie-rock band, somewhat like the Jesus Lizard, only the Paper Chase’s guitars wobble and stumble instead of stomping along with the bass and drums.

But The Paper Chase brings much more to the table than just vocals, guitars, bass and drums, though. Nearly every second of Now You Are One Of Us is filled with inspired production touches, eerie samples, one-handed piano lines, and strings. The piano and strings don’t play the sort of accompaniment role that those instruments usually play in rock music – the piano often carries the melody, and the strings are intentionally distracting, jagged and dissonant.

I just love the 3rd track "The Kids will grow up to be Assholes".
Get it here: The Paper Chase - Now You Are One Of Us (VBR)

And enjoy !

16 Bitch Pile-Up - Bury Me Deep (2007)

Ok. "Sometimes the sounds of Sixteen Bitch Pile-Up are like porcupine car wrecks recorded underwater, sometimes they’re like slow glacial drift. It’s doubtful you will hear a more genuinely seat-gripping moment of terror than the layers and layers of screams that swiftly disarm on the eight track of 16 Bitch Pile-Up’s first factory-pressed CD, Bury Me Deep. So much of noise or any audio artform that attempts to strike-up a series of discomforting unpleasantries for its audience is based more on hints and implications of fear rather than its actual emotional response.

But Bury Me Deep is one of the very few listening pleasures in recent memory to produce a pronounced tremble in your stomach or force you to look embarrassingly over your shoulder as if an ominous presence has suddenly materialized in your sphere.

16 Bitch Pile-Up may not burst forth with the catharsis of the best harsh noise-niks, but their understated disquietude is just as shocking and exciting."

Get it here: 16 Bitch Pile-Up - Bury Me Deep (192Kbps)

Enjoy !

Olaf Rupp - Whiteout

Well, I saw him play with Lol Coxhill last night. It was just wonderful. So:

Olaf Rupp started at the age of twelve as an autodidact to play what might be called today Improvised Music. In the nineties he mainly played electric guitar and his own setup of electronics. On the acoustic nylon string guitar he developped some playing techniques from Chinese Pipa music as well as rasgueados, arpeggios and tremolos in such a way that they can be used for overtone and cluster effects to create new, "virtual" sounds. He played among others with Tony Buck, John Zorn, Joe Williamson, Paul Lovens, Butch Morris and Michael Wertmüller.

Olaf Rupp's sound world is every bit as singular as that of both Derek Bailey and Hans Reichel, and his musical personality is every fathom as deep. Unique stuff !

Get his new album here: Olaf Rupp - Whiteout (320Kbps)

And enjoy !

KTL - Kindertotenlieder (2006)

Ok, maybe time for some real noise again. KTL are Stephen O'Malley of Sunn O))) and Peter Rehberg of Pita (also boss of independent label Editions Mego). This is their first album.
A skeletal finger ushers us into O'Malleys black-metal inspired world while allowing Rehberg to conjur up wobbling sub-bass frequencies and horrifying electronic noise. This is where you realise this is music that simply must be played at a high volume. At least I hope so.

The music was composed for performance artist Gisèle Vienne and author Dennis Cooper’s theatre production called "Kindertotenlieder".

The term "Kindertotenlieder" (Songs on the Death of Children) refers to Friedrich Rückert's poem cycle and Gustav Mahler's musical interpretation.

This is rrreally grim.
Get it here: KTL - Kindertotenlieder (320 Kbps)

And enjoy !