Bleak Bliss: May 2016

Lewd - Rivet

I was going to post the Sponge Lunch 7" and the Pincers tapes but it looks as though Jac Van Bussel has them for sale. This is the CD released on Nux Organization in 1993. If anybody has the Six Virgins Again tape I'd love to hear it...

Rivet

Lewd / Zeni Geva - Split

Side A is a live recording by Lewd (formally Incubus) who were Hans Jacobs on vocals and guitar, Jac Van Bussel (aka DMDN, Jacinthebox and former THU20 member) on bass and Paul Rabelink on drums. They were unfortunately short-lived. Imagine a strangled Godflesh. There you go ... really pretty great. The Zeni side is a live recording featuring the classic line-up of Kazuyuki Kishino, Mitsuru Tabata and Eito Noro with Yasuko (?) as a second drummer. Zeni Geva. Live. With two drummers? Damn!

LP released on Supreme Tool Supplies in 1992.

Lewd / Zeni Geva

Zeni Geva - Distorted Live

A relatively short blast of live recordings but there is no information about where or when these were recorded. C28 released on Supreme Tool Supplies in 1992.

Distorted Live

Zeni Geva - Maximum Love + Fuck

This is the same line up as the previous post. I'm fairly sure that these are the same versions of the songs that appeared on the Maximum Money Monster CD the following year but in a different track order. However, there is a much more raw feel to the vinyl that makes this a different listen entirely.

LP released on Nux Organization in 1989.

Maximum Love + Fuck

Zeni Geva - Live On Suicide

This time it's a stripped down trio with Mitsuru Tabata joining KK on guitar with Ikuo Taketani remaining behind the kit.

C50 released on Nux Organization in 1989.

Live On Suicide

Zeni Geva - How To Kill

Kazuyuki Kishino takes on the vocals, guitar and bass, Ikuo Taketani handles the drums, second guitar is taken on by Fumiyoshi Suzuki (aka N.P) with additional vocals added by Elle (aka Achy and who was in Criminäl Party and LSD).

LP released on Nux Organization in 1987.

How To Kill

Zeni Geva - Skullfuck Live

This time Asami (?) replaces Bunsho Nishikawa on bass for two live recordings ...

C42 released on Nux Organization in 1988.

Skullfuck Live

Zeni Geva - Vast Impotentz

Kazuyuki Kishino on vocals and guitar, Fumiyoshi Suzuki (former collaborator with Juntaro Yamanouchi as The Gerogerigegege) on guitar, Bunsho Nishikawa on bass and Ikuo Taketani (early member of Boredoms and Hanatarash) on drums.

C60 released on Nux Organization in 1986.

Vast Impotentz

Kazuyuki K.Null with Fred Frith, Guy Lohnes, Ichiro Agata, Jim O'Rourke - Guitar Organism

Six collaborations with Kazuyuki Kishino. The track with Fred Frith is the one that appears on the earlier tape but there is an 18 minute meeting with Jim O'Rourke, one with Guy Lohnes (who I know nothing about) and three appropriately frenetic ventures with Ichiro Agata (guitarist with the impeccable Melt-Banana).

CD released on Nux Organization in 1996.

Guitar Organism

Null & Fred Frith - Null & Fred Frith

Side A is (a perhaps unlikely) collaboration recorded live at a gig in Tokyo in 1990 and the reverse is a solo composition from Kazuyuki Kishino recorded live in his own studio in the same year.

C56 released on Nux Organization in 1991.

Null & Fred Frith

Various - Hard Drugs

You have to fear for the meat in the sandwich on this one. You get two short tracks from Koma Storatos (?) and Controlled Bleeding surrounded by long-form pieces by Null, Incapacitants and Fumiyoshi Suzuki's N.P.

C46 released on Nux Organization in 1986.

Hard Drugs

Tibeta Ubik - 2

Tibeta Ubik was an apparently short-lived example of the early collaborations between Kazuyuki Kishino and Masami Akita during the early Eighties.

At such a distance, the history of Japanese tapes is opaque to say the very least ... this is the second of their tapes and I'm not aware of any others surfacing (and I've been searching for at least a decade).

C60 released on ZSF Produkt in 1983.

Two

Merzbow / Null - Produktion

Two recordings from the heyday of Masami Akita and Kazuyuki Kishino's collaborations with them captured live at gigs in Tokyo during August 1984. C60 released on Produktion in 1988.

Produktion

Merzbow - US Tour 1990 (Armpit)

Released on Loawai Tapes in 1992 as a single-sided C60.

Live @ Armpit, San Francisco 1990-09-08

Merzbow - US Tour 1990 (Bulkhead)

Released on Loawai Tapes in 1992 as a single-sided C60.

Live @ Bulkhead, Santa Cruz 1990-09-07

Merzbow - US Tour 1990 (Kaleidoscope)

Recorded live at a record store whilst Masami Akita was on a tour of the States in 1990. Released on Loawai Tapes in 1992 as a single-sided C60.

Live at Kaleidoscope Records 1990-09-05

Masonna - Pukes On America

Recorded live in Seattle in 1996 and released as a C26 on Loawai Tapes the same year.

...and why wouldn't you?

Masonna - Like A Vagina

C36 released on Coquette in 1998.

... but not quite

Masonna - Mad Onna

C36 released on Coquette in 1989.

Crazy For You

Masonna - Maso + Onna = Masonna

C40 released on Coquette in 1989.

Onanism

Masonna - All Live Recording At My Room

Self-explanatory and wonderful C32 released on Coquette in 1989.

Room Service

Masonna - Open Your Cunt

Warped noise from Maso on this C30 released on Beast 666 Tapes in 1989.

...always say please first!

Masonna - Compilation 1987-1992

The first half of this tape is Yamazaki Takushi presumably reworking his own earlier source material whilst the second side features a short set at Bears in Osaka in July 1992. C40 released on his own Coquette label in 1992 in a tiny edition of 50.

Compilation 1987-1992

Government α - Doze

The first release on his own Xerxes label and possibly the first Government Alpha recordings. C30 from 1994.

I was going to post the Erratic and Snakes And Ladders tapes but the good man has remastered versions (for only $3 each) on his Bandcamp page so go and give him some cash.

Doze

Government Alpha - Bloody Slumber Party

Fasten your seat belts! C46 released on Extraction Records in 1998.

Bloody Slumber Party

Government Alpha - Q

Yasutoshi Yoshida in fine form on this C46 released on Spite in 1999.

Q

MSBЯ - Structured Suicide

M.S.B.R. on a C54 released on his own MSBR Records in 1993.

Get your kit off and bathe in this vat of wonderful noise.

Structured Suicide

MSBЯ - 2,000 Thousends Contaminate Electronic Acid

Koji Tano.

Two words that say everything that I need to say.

C48 released on Old Europa Cafe in 1994.

Electronic Acid

MSBR - Fracture Of Silence

54 minutes of tape that came with it's own half-time snack courtesy of Sounds For Consciousness Rape in 1995.

one slice short of a sandwich

Null - Hellzonic Bio-Metal

Kazuyuki Kishino is Null, K.K. Null, an early collaborator with Merzbow, a former member of YBO² and Absolut Null Punkt and (now) half of the stunning Zeni Geva. A true cornerstone of Japanese music.

C72 released on Nux Organization in 1989.

Hellzonic Bio-Metal

Null - Sonic Erosion

C50 released on Nux Organization in 1989.

Sonic Erosion

The Gerogerigegege - Gerogerigegege

The Gerogerigegege are often maligned as being about nothing other than wankmeister Juntaro Yamanouchi's "masturbation voice". Obviously there is more to Gero that that (or less depending how much you like listening to a man cracking one off).

Juntaro Yamanouchi and Takeshi Ohmura on a C30 released on Masami Akita's ZSF Produkt in 1985.

Gerogerigegege

Nihilist Surfin Group - Dutch Omanko

Wonderful blistering noise from Juntaro Yamanouchi.

C64 released on Peter Zincken's (aka Odal's) Nihilistic Recordings in the late '80s and that is as specific as I can get ...

Dutch Omanko

Nihilist Surfin' Group - Music For The New Yorker

Nihilist Surfin' Group was a short-lived pseudonym used by Juntaro Yamanouchi (aka The Gerogerigegege). Doom synth B-Movie incidental music on a C46 released on Sound Of Pig in 1988.

Music For The New Yorker

Pain Jerk - Fatamorgana

Pain Jerk is the work of Kohei Gomi. He's one of the greatest Japanese noise artists. Actually, you could leave out the country of his birth and the word "noise" in the previous sentence and it would still be true.

C40 released on his own AMP label in 1995.

Fatamorgana

Pain Jerk - Aktion Bruit

C46 released on AMP in 1995.

Aktion Bruit

Optrum - Recorded

Blistering noise by a band led by hero Atsuhiro Ito, who plays an instrument called the Optron (which is essentially a set of amplified florescent light bulbs that he holds like a guitar and SHREDS while producing a seizure-inducing light show), along with drummer Yoichiro Shin. This album was released by Unknownmix/Headz in 2006.

Optrum - Recorded

K2 - Tekhnodrug

Metal-junkologist Kimihide Kusafuka on a C60 released on his own Kinky Musik Institute in 1993.

Tekhnodrug

K2 - Les Extremes Se Touchent I

I had posted what I thought was the Chocolate Monk tape ... I think I dropped a bollock and it's actually this.

C48 released on BV Tapes in 1995.

Les Extremes Se Touchent I

Aoyama Masami - New Neuroses

A complete mystery. Guitar and electronics by an artist with no other known recordings or appearances on other people's albums. Released as a CD in 2001 by Off Site, a label affiliated with the venue in Toyko that hosted performances of extra-quiet improvisation and brittle non-sound by people such as Taku Sugimoto, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, Sachiko M, Taku Unami and their usual crew. This album, though, is definitely audible and quite good. I only wish I could tell you more about it.

Aoyama Masami - New Neuroses

Black Elegance - Kram

Information-light Japanese noise cassette by the mysterious "F. Miura" (who?), released by Contagious Orgasm's SSSM label in 1993. As far as I can tell, this was the project's only album.

Black Elegance - Kram

Gu-n - 群

The lone release by a drone/noise/improv supergroup of sorts. Gu-n were Fumio Kosakai (of Incapacitants and Uchu Engine), Ryuichi Nagakubo (who played bass with CCCC, Yuragi and Uchu Engine), Hidenobu Kaneda (of Yuragi), Sawada Morihide (of Marble Sheep and Yura Yura Teikoku), and the great Ikuro Takahashi (who has been part of Fushitsusha, Overhang Party, LSD March, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, and many many more legendary bands). As Gu-n, they compiled the best bits of improvised drone and scrape from two sessions (in February and June, 1995) into this album. It was released as a CD on Pataphysique (Overhang Party's label) in the same year.

Gu-n - 群

Kawabata Makoto & Michishita Shinsuke - ◯△▢

Surely these two gentlemen need no introduction ... but just in case, the former is Acid Mothers Temple's head honcho and the latter is the guitarist and singer with the mighty LSD March. Whilst you would probably expect a feedback drenched onslaught, what you actually get is a delightfully constructed and elegant pair of improvisations.

LP released on Prophase Music in 2009.

◯△▢

Marble Sheep - Marble Sheep Meets ◯△▢

Psychedelic shamanism of the highest order on this CD released on FünfUndVierzig in 2003.

Marble Sheep Meets ◯△▢

◯△▢ (Maru Sankaku Shikaku)

Compiled recordings from a band (yes, their name was actually a circle, a triangle and a square) that existed for just a few years, from 1970 to 1973, and played a kind of hippie psychedelic jam rock that is terribly dated yet charming for what it is. Don't expect the blazing epiphanies of Les Raillizes Denudes or disciplined free improvisation of Taj Mahal Travellers. These guys were more of a precursor to Marble Sheep, No-Neck Blues Band or Acid Mothers Temple than to heady heavies like Fushitsusha or Kosoukuya. Still, it's undoubtedly a good thing that Captain Trip Records saw fit to reissue the group's three LPs from 1973 as proper CDs with one additional disc (no year listed, but likely also 1973) of previously unreleased jams. Two members of ◯△▢, guitarist Reck and drummer Chiko Hige, went on to play in the punk bands 3/3 and Friction. For a time, they resided in New York and were part of the "no wave" scene; Reck played with Teenage Jesus & the Jerks while Hige played with the Contortions.

Randy Greif - Alice In Wonderland

If you have never heard the work of Randy Greif then this will serve as a delirious and hallucinatory introduction.

Between 1991 and 1992 Staalplaat released the first four CDs in the series. You then had to cut out the coupons and send them all back to the label in order to get the fifth. You even got the coupons back. Luckily, Soleilmoon Recordings released them as a remastered box set in 2000 and again in 2010.

These recordings are genuinely magnificent and are best heard in one sitting ... so set aside six hours of your life and slide down the rabbit hole!

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

No. 4

No. 5

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