Onna - Maila

Onna was (or maybe still is? I'm not sure) a band led by "erotic manga" artist Keizo Miyanashi since the early 1980s. The band's first songs were very much of their time: barebones drumbox thump thumping along, angular cheap-sounding guitars kicking up clouds of brain-hugging fuzzballs, and Miyanashi's voice... yeah, that voice might be a deal breaker for you. It's never really clear which notes his Takashi Mizutani-esque yowl n' moan are aspiring to hit, but it doesn't seem as if he cares very much. Some people can deal with it, others will have a harder time.

Onna existed within the same weird noise/folk/psych/improv world as monumental outsiders like Keiji Haino, Tori Kudo, Jutok Kaneko, or Magical Power Mako... and yet, despite the band's longevity, Onna hardly released any music. There was a single that apparently was an indie hit in Japan when it came out in 1983. The next proper album came out on PSF (of course!), but not until 2007. Aside from those two releases, there were a couple of compilations of archival live material and a very odd self-released double-CDR. "Maila" came out on CD in 1999, and was a reissue of both sides of Onna's 1983 single plus one extra track of woozily demented psychedelia. After these songs, Miyanashi's music would get more abstract and odd. Stay tuned!

Onna - Maila