va - Clones of Suicide

Extremely odd "tribute" to New York City's pioneering synth duo Suicide by the crew of Japanese weirdos who inhabited that barely-describable sideways-electronics "scene" that circled the Zero Gravity and Far East Experimental Sounds/Sonic Plate labels in the late 1990s. These aren't really cover songs; they are more like declarative blurts of appreciative (dis)respect that somehow reference Suicide's impact on the artists' own production/aesthetic. Some are sparse tunes with repeating organ bars definitely informed by Martin Rev. Others turn the echo up on some Elvisy vocals a la Alan Vega. None of it is easily explainable.

The disc features music by Dub Sonic (aka the late, Sun Ra-obsessed Takehiro Nakazato), Take Rodruiguez (Nakazato's inexplicably Latino alias for techno-bossa-nova), techno/dub/nonsense band Nasca Car, Manshow, super-heavy bass emperor Kucknacke, Scorpion is Snake is Spider (which sounds likes a Hanatarash alias, but is actually Kucknacke), Kazunao Nagata (the undisputed champion of synthesized what-the-fug, aka the man behind techno/pop label Transonic and the braincell-shattering Zero Gravity label), G13 (aka ambient drifter Enitokwa), Woodman (whose "A Barbarian in Asia" album can and must be found elsewhere on this blog... get to it!), Bathroom Monkeys (aka Woodman again), and... the coup de ??? of the entire album, a duo of Kucknacke with the legendary, acidic folk singer/songwriter Kan Mikami! No, I did not make this album up. It is a real thing, really pressed on a CD and sent to Earth by Sonic Plate in 1999.

va - Clones of Suicide