Hair Stylistics - Dynamic Hate

When he called himself Violent Onsen Geisha, Masaya Nakahara produced some of the most scorching albums of the first wave of Japanese noise. But Nakahara, who is well known in Japan as an award-winning novelist, visual artist and occasional actor, has always been harder to pin down than simply as a contemporary of Merzbow and Masonna. In fact, he never considered himself to be part of any scene, and still doesn't.

When he changed his musical name to Hair Stylistics, Nakahara openly embraced the influence of hip-hop and pop music that was hidden beneath his previous electronic din (if you don't believe me, listen again to Shocks! Shocks! Shocks! or the perfectly-titled "Fuck Off RRRecords, Bye Bye Noise Music" off the Come Again 2 compilation). He also ramped up productivity, releasing two 12-albums series' of "Monthly Hair Stylistics" CDs: one album a month for an entire year. If that's not enough, he also self-published huge amount of very small edition CDRs and a few standalone pressed CDs and LPs. Despite the avalanche of product, there has been no sacrifice in quality; improbable as it may be, most of these albums are very good. 

Dynamic Hate is one of my favorite Hair Stylistics albums. Released as a CD in 2013 on the pop label Disques Corde, it is essentially an instrumental hip-hop album with short songs comprised of sparse beats and nonsense samples that betray a bizarre sense of humor. Perhaps the line from VOG's "Otis" to "Dynamic Hate" is an easy one to trace.

Hair Stylistics ‎– Dynamic Hate