TIP OF THE TONGUE 23 SEPTEMBER 2006
Kousokuya
First Live 1979/Kichijoji Minor
PSF PSFD-166
CD
OUT OF STOCK!
Amazing archival find of live recordings from the key Japanese underground music venue, the legendary Minor house, featuring the original four-piece line-up of one of the most important/innovative psychedelic rock bands of the modern rage. Formed in 1978 after Jutok Kaneko, Mick and Hiroshi Yokoyama split from Kokugaiso, the first Kousokuya line-up added the late Toshiko Watanabe on drums, the wife of Minor owner/Pinakotheca label boss Takafumi Sato. The time-staggered rhythms and higher-keyed improvisatory logic is still totally focussed here, but there's less sludge and Kaneko's guitar provides more of a constant rhythmic base alongside Watanabe's drums - giving the music a mainlined No Wave charge - while Mick focuses solely on vocals (no bass) that feel a little closer to Junko of Hijokaidan's epiglottal torrents albeit mixed with a little Magik Markers-style convulsive dialogue. Yokoyama's synth work is fantastic, chunks of atonal chord-circuitry that sound somewhere between the invasive alien procedures of Allen Ravenstine of Pere Ubu, Sun Ra's keyboard work and the apocalyptic American night of Simply Saucer. Comes with killer snaps and great, highly informative English/Japanese liner notes from Fumio Kosakai of Hijokaidan/Incapcitants/Uchu Engine et al. Highly recommended.
