Japanese Psych Pt 1
Sweeping statement but anyone who professes to like psychedelic music must have at least one work of Japanese psych in their collection - Japan has a very rich psychedelic history, from the GS garage bands of the sixties to current darlings Kikagaku Moyo. The quality and scope of this history is staggering when one starts delving - some old and some new, some sublime and some VERY LOUD and some, frankly, is so 'out there' as to verge on painful. So, as pure indulgence on my part, I'm gonna put up some stuff by my faves from the Land of the Rising Sun - bands, individuals and labels. Many of them I'm sure most are already aufait with, but if you discover something new and groovy, you're welcome!
Acid Mothers Temple
There is no better place to start than with the mighty Acid Mothers Temple and their various guises. Formed by Kawabata Makoto in 1995 as Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. they have gone through many, many members and almost as many names (Makoto said of the names " Though we shall henceforth be Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno, the new group will also be known in short as Acid Mothers Temple and this will no doubt sow confusion in the minds of many. But the true manifestations of Acid Mothers Temple are many—Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno, Acid Mothers Temple SWR. The future may see yet other groups bearing similar names. But each and all of them will be true manifestations of Acid Mothers Temple"). AMT have collaborated with some legends of the psych world such as Gong and Guru Guru (called respectively Acid Mothers Gong and Acid Mothers Guru - can you see a pattern forming?) Regardless of under which name they record, the focus has always been on "extreme trip music" - most recordings are improvised and draw influences from psychedelia, space rock, krautrock and, at times, acid folk. 'Speed Guru' Makoto's distinctive guitar freak outs are a joy to hear and every release (and there are literally hundreds!) has been rock-solid, and so it is nigh on impossible to pick a favourite.
Acid Mothers Temple - 'Blue Velvet Blues' from 'Pataphisical Freak Out MU!!'
Flower Travellin' Band
Flower Travellin' Band were formed at the tail end of the sixties, and are probably, truth be told, more rock than psych, but in their most recognised work 'Satori' you can hear the influence of Hendrix, Cream, Sabbath and Jefferson Airplane but still it's a bit.....more (In his fantastic 'Japrocksampler' Julian Cope puts 'Satori' as his joint favourite and says of it "so out on a limb was Satori that it still defies true comparison with other records. They just haven't been recorded yet".It has one of the most unmistakeable riffs of all time to boot.
The band were the brainchild of Yuya Uchida who, on returning from a visit to the US to visit his friend John Lennon, formed the short lived band Flowers, who briefly found notoriety by posing nude on the cover of their only LP. Flowers mutated into the Flower Travellin' Band and the rest, as they say, is musical history.
Flower Travellin' Band - 'Satori pt I' from 'Satori'
Keiji Haino
Haino is a one man music factory - his output is prodigious to say the least, and if ever there was an advert for the 'straight edge' lifestyle he is it - he has been alcohol, nicotine and drug free his whole life . Haino has been plying his craft for over four decades now, ever pursuing his need to take music to it's very limits. His first group, Lost Aaraaff, named after a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, were part of the Japanese underground in the early seventies.They performed at 1971’s GENYA Festival alongside Brain Police, Blues Creation, and Masayuki Takayanagi’s New Direction For The Arts and were not received well and were treated to a shower of rocks thrown from the audience. Haino went into retreat for several years in the seventies before dipping his toes in the musical ocean with a collaboration with psychedelic multi-instrumentalist Magical Power Mako (more of whom later).He then formed Fushitsusha who have become legends in the Japanese psych world - influenced heavily by krautrock they produced many albums of top notch haunting psychedelia, but were not averse to straying into harsh Japanoise. Much of their output was released by the legendary P.S.F. label (again, more later).
Other groups Haino has formed include Vajra, Knead (with the avant-prog outfit Ruins), Sanhedolin (with Yoshida Tatsuya of Ruins and Mitsuru Nasuno of Korekyojinn, Altered States and Ground Zero) and a solo project called Nijiumu. The list of artists with whom he has collaborated reads like a 'Who's Who' of left-field music: Faust, Boris, Derek Bailey, Joey Baron, Peter Brötzmann, Lee Konitz, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Charles Gayle, Earl Kuck, Bill Laswell, Musica Transonic, Stephen O'Malley, Makigami Koichi, Ayuo, Merzbow, Oren Ambarchi, Jim O'Rourke, John Zorn, Yamantaka Eye, John Duncan and Fred Frith. As well as groups and collaborations Haino has released truckloads of solo material which vary from pastoral musings to industrial strength electronica. A true visionary.
Fushitsusha - 'Disc 1, Track III' from 'Double Live' (PSF 3/4)
High Rise
Although predominantly known as a noise rock band High Rise (named after the novel J.G. Ballard)have also produced some brain melting psychedelic moments with some hair curling guitar freak outs.Members Masashi Mitani, Asahito Nanjo, Munehiro Narita, and Ikuro Takahashi originally performed under the name Psychedelic Speed Freaks . They decided to change their name at the advice of P.S.F. Records, who claimed Psychedelic Speed Freaks sounded "too direct" (P.S.F were named after the 1985 High Rise LP 'Psychedelic Speed Freaks'). Despite the speed references High Rise were strictly anti drugs. In the words of their own sleevenotes "Cybernetic wah abuse and non-stop intensity are their trademarks; complete tonal domination their goal."
High Rise - 'Wipe Out' from 'High Rise II'
Coming soon - Japanese Psych Pt 2. In the meantime here's a little playlist to expand upon the above. Enjoy
Acid Mothers Temple
There is no better place to start than with the mighty Acid Mothers Temple and their various guises. Formed by Kawabata Makoto in 1995 as Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. they have gone through many, many members and almost as many names (Makoto said of the names " Though we shall henceforth be Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno, the new group will also be known in short as Acid Mothers Temple and this will no doubt sow confusion in the minds of many. But the true manifestations of Acid Mothers Temple are many—Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O., Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno, Acid Mothers Temple SWR. The future may see yet other groups bearing similar names. But each and all of them will be true manifestations of Acid Mothers Temple"). AMT have collaborated with some legends of the psych world such as Gong and Guru Guru (called respectively Acid Mothers Gong and Acid Mothers Guru - can you see a pattern forming?) Regardless of under which name they record, the focus has always been on "extreme trip music" - most recordings are improvised and draw influences from psychedelia, space rock, krautrock and, at times, acid folk. 'Speed Guru' Makoto's distinctive guitar freak outs are a joy to hear and every release (and there are literally hundreds!) has been rock-solid, and so it is nigh on impossible to pick a favourite.
Acid Mothers Temple - 'Blue Velvet Blues' from 'Pataphisical Freak Out MU!!'
Flower Travellin' Band
Flower Travellin' Band were formed at the tail end of the sixties, and are probably, truth be told, more rock than psych, but in their most recognised work 'Satori' you can hear the influence of Hendrix, Cream, Sabbath and Jefferson Airplane but still it's a bit.....more (In his fantastic 'Japrocksampler' Julian Cope puts 'Satori' as his joint favourite and says of it "so out on a limb was Satori that it still defies true comparison with other records. They just haven't been recorded yet".It has one of the most unmistakeable riffs of all time to boot.
The band were the brainchild of Yuya Uchida who, on returning from a visit to the US to visit his friend John Lennon, formed the short lived band Flowers, who briefly found notoriety by posing nude on the cover of their only LP. Flowers mutated into the Flower Travellin' Band and the rest, as they say, is musical history.
Flower Travellin' Band - 'Satori pt I' from 'Satori'
Keiji Haino
Haino is a one man music factory - his output is prodigious to say the least, and if ever there was an advert for the 'straight edge' lifestyle he is it - he has been alcohol, nicotine and drug free his whole life . Haino has been plying his craft for over four decades now, ever pursuing his need to take music to it's very limits. His first group, Lost Aaraaff, named after a poem by Edgar Allen Poe, were part of the Japanese underground in the early seventies.They performed at 1971’s GENYA Festival alongside Brain Police, Blues Creation, and Masayuki Takayanagi’s New Direction For The Arts and were not received well and were treated to a shower of rocks thrown from the audience. Haino went into retreat for several years in the seventies before dipping his toes in the musical ocean with a collaboration with psychedelic multi-instrumentalist Magical Power Mako (more of whom later).He then formed Fushitsusha who have become legends in the Japanese psych world - influenced heavily by krautrock they produced many albums of top notch haunting psychedelia, but were not averse to straying into harsh Japanoise. Much of their output was released by the legendary P.S.F. label (again, more later).
Other groups Haino has formed include Vajra, Knead (with the avant-prog outfit Ruins), Sanhedolin (with Yoshida Tatsuya of Ruins and Mitsuru Nasuno of Korekyojinn, Altered States and Ground Zero) and a solo project called Nijiumu. The list of artists with whom he has collaborated reads like a 'Who's Who' of left-field music: Faust, Boris, Derek Bailey, Joey Baron, Peter Brötzmann, Lee Konitz, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Charles Gayle, Earl Kuck, Bill Laswell, Musica Transonic, Stephen O'Malley, Makigami Koichi, Ayuo, Merzbow, Oren Ambarchi, Jim O'Rourke, John Zorn, Yamantaka Eye, John Duncan and Fred Frith. As well as groups and collaborations Haino has released truckloads of solo material which vary from pastoral musings to industrial strength electronica. A true visionary.
Fushitsusha - 'Disc 1, Track III' from 'Double Live' (PSF 3/4)
High Rise
Although predominantly known as a noise rock band High Rise (named after the novel J.G. Ballard)have also produced some brain melting psychedelic moments with some hair curling guitar freak outs.Members Masashi Mitani, Asahito Nanjo, Munehiro Narita, and Ikuro Takahashi originally performed under the name Psychedelic Speed Freaks . They decided to change their name at the advice of P.S.F. Records, who claimed Psychedelic Speed Freaks sounded "too direct" (P.S.F were named after the 1985 High Rise LP 'Psychedelic Speed Freaks'). Despite the speed references High Rise were strictly anti drugs. In the words of their own sleevenotes "Cybernetic wah abuse and non-stop intensity are their trademarks; complete tonal domination their goal."
High Rise - 'Wipe Out' from 'High Rise II'
Coming soon - Japanese Psych Pt 2. In the meantime here's a little playlist to expand upon the above. Enjoy
Japanese Psych 1 by Andyu on Mixcloud
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