Nijiumu - Untitled

Nijiumu (literally "the blending of that which is and that which is not") were Asahito Nanjo, Keiji Haino, Shizuo Uchida and Tetuzi Akiyama.

There is an excellent and comprehensive interview with Asahito on Squealer.

"Nijiumu concentrate on creating an atmosphere. There was no clear concept, sometimes we wouldn't even talk about what we were going to do. Nijiumu is like Fushitsusha in that it was started with the aim of doing something that no one else had thought of. It doesn't have any clear philosophy behind it.

There were four of us - Matsuoka, Uchida, Haino and me. The first time we played Haino was on vocals, percussion and small ethnic instruments, I was on bass, Matsuoka on piano, and Uchida played bass and synthesized percussion. So there were a lot of electric instruments. We used to play once a week in Nerima for about three hours. After I left [in 1990], Nijiumu became more and more Haino's band."

These are two CDRs that Asahito released on his (controversial) La Musica Records. They feature two live recordings (they appear to be recorded live in the studio) from 1990. They were mastered by Asahito at La Musica Studio in 1999 so I think it's fair to say that is also the year of release.

Imagine Dead Can Dance playing cover versions of The Lemon Kittens (or vice versa) and you're close but nowhere near.

Great, great music!

Untitled 1

Untitled 2