JAPANESE PSYCH

Erebus RecordsSpeed Glue & Shinki : Eve (Zen'ya) (JAP,1971)***°

When Shinki Chen was reissued a few years back (first not officially) I remember it was appreciated very much by heavy rock/psych collectors. Of course for any even slightly freaking out and experimenting guitarist with some blues fundament, Hendrix obviously was mentioned as a reference a few times. For Shinki Chen this blues association only appeared after some past in folk and surf music and his Yardbirds and Kinks interest. After a period with un-compromising long hair looks and an I-play-what-I-like attitude, the first Shinki band was formed which renamed themselves from The Bebes, Golden Cups (with a single) to Powerhouse (with an LP in 1969), and then Food Brain (with an LP in 1970). The first Shinki Chen & Friends album was recorded the next year, in 1971, and they had a second double LP release in 1972 (with a different line-up). The band at first was called Speed Glue & Shinki, a trio, with bassist Masayoshi Kabe (since Golden Cups/Foodbrain) and new member, American Vietnam war refugee, Joey Smith (from former Zero History, later with DK Mushroom & Son). The single after that last LP did not show much success, Joey Smith with the new bass player Mike Hanopol, returned to the Philippines where they would join a second version of Juan de la Cruz.

This is the first album by the trio. It follows more the American acid bluesrock traditions (not even “powerhouse”), with a Hendrix influence indeed but still a bit predictable. What surely is an odd factor and which is unusual for a Japanese album is that I think there were really drugs involved. This brings at the same time a pain in the ass “fuck this and that” rather straight forward and mind blinded attitude with it, it also gives the album its charm, because when the enhance their own freedom to play, especially on “ode to bad people” the electric guitars (bass and lead guitar) starts to take the trip more enhanced, they use a few small experimental effects (on “M Glue”), and their mind and playing goes a little bit more far-out as usual. It is not one of the top acid psych-bluesrockers but it surely has its charm.

Audio : "Stoned out of my mind"

& info on http://www.myspace.com/speedglueandshinki

with Shinki Chen on http://www.myspace.com/shinkichen

Audio of previous LP here

Band pages on http://www.myspace.com/speedglueandshinki &

http://www.myspace.com/shinkichen ; see also audio-videos of S.C. on https://www.anapnet.com/...

Info on band : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed,_Glue_&_Shinki

& on release : http://www.discogs.com/release/1264715

Info on different release : http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/thebookofseth/1398

Other review : http://myrecordcollection.org/artists/speedglueshinki/eve.html

More on Chinki Chen : http://spendingloudnight.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/no-speed-or-glue/

More about Powerhouse see below->

Beta-Lactam Ring RecordsLSD March : Nikutai No Tubomi -2cd- (JAP,2007)**°''

LSD March is named after one of the most stoned, overloaded and distorted tracks krautrock improvisers (or perhaps any 70s German group) Guru Guru ever recorded. This track must have been an example of some sort, because the first track of the double CD, an entire CD long track of over 40 minutes tries to come to a comparable psychedelic effect, but in a more typical Japanese way : some sort of sonic breed must come to life !! In this case they have created a distorted, growing beast with at first, hardly-recognisable-where-it-comes-from, sonic material produced by distorted guitars, and cymbals. After a while one guitar comes out more recognisable, stoned in its distortions and oscillating bass, it produces some cat-like sounds, and while the percussion slowly moves into slumber, there is created one big smoky stoned pot of machinery. The drums get an upbeat rhythm, distorted vocals are added, the machinery is like a sound crushing sonic machine, which speeds up like a motor and then finds its sonic boom, the psychedelic liberation in madness. Time to calm down in a variety of sonics.

It is a very slow piece, not too complicated as elements, but it achieves well its intended goals.

The second CD is something completely different, and explores sounds on stage, and is at its best like a child reinventing a form of stage/opera with sound and vocal mumblings, inventive and brilliantly discovering but it can also be a bit more futile and infantile at its most loosely chosen moment. The first track starts with a vocal mumbling improvisation during temple bells sounds. The second track produces animalistic/animistic droning sounds with strangely tuned strings, like dynamics from another world. Toypiano and toy handrums are participating with the voice, a rather minimal sound-ritualistic evocation. Also the third track with found instruments invents like a child discovers sounds, and it is this track which is like a new form of minimal, nightmarish-dark, slightly demented form of Japanese underground opera. The fourth track improvises on sax, where shaking rhythms stand for the environment, and the sax sounds like its living entity and visitor to the scene. The fifth track is different, with playful bubbling and breathing electro, and an additional sequenced sound, with a distorted voice and some drum rhythm hanging on. On track 6, the singing is improvised during industrial sounds of cymbals and iron. More iron is bowed on the next track, as if tuning in and with cow-like sounds, and this combined with rustling thin plastic bag sounds, and ticking percussion while another voice contribution improvises again. The last track is built from harmonica with drums only.

This second CD really has its moments and ideas, but still is, while being very improvised a bit random and not very worked out with its focus, despite some great moments.

Audio : "Aubade", "Nikutai No Tubomi" (or here or here), "Elephant", "Stone"(or here), "Tempo" (or here), "Love"(or here), "1978", "Dance",

"Holy Ghost" & on http://www.myspace.com/lsdmarch

Homepage : http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Michishita/

Label info : http://www.blrrecords.com/prod/1805/nikutai_no_tubomi.html

Description : http://www.toben-records.de/LSD-March-Nikutai-No-Tubomi-2CD_1

Other review on http://www.whitenoiserecords.org/index2.html

Reviews of LSD March releases on http://myrecordcollection.org/artists/lsdmarch/lsdmpage.html

Beta-Lactam Ring RecordsSeven that Spells : The Men from Dystopia (CR/JAP,2007)****'

This Croatian powerrock group got assistance from Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple,…). The now very much psychedelic music sounds like going first towards a sonic overload, pushed by someone who wants to lead like Yahowa 13 but is as crazy as hell (he’s a man from Distopia, so it has been conceptualized). It does not end with one track. Somehow there’s a peyote/mescaline-Indian be-the-fire-dance, ritualistic communal drive in the monotone rhythmic pulsations/or “melody”. Then, within this sonic vacuum cleaner you can start to hear an electric sitar flipping on the dance. I could almost sing along with “heho-haho”, mantra-wise, with the spiralling focus. Heavenly female vocalists (-preferably nude, for the sake of the concept-) then starts to sing along on the background. By the third track a freaking wild electric guitar improvises on top of all that, and the band goes weird with it with more sonic spacey effects, and more bass-with-drum drive, taking off. This wild guitar continues for a while and manages to “wow” me the whole way through, holding my breath and attention and then looking for breath again, more than once. Then wordy-like pushes starts all over to lead again the dance, with the whole band behind them like a living draconic energy. The sonic mass begins to roar with moving-in-the-air cosmic fluting overtones as a new entity. This seems to bring the band down to a first closing part. The band then transforms into a kind of sequenced sonic washing machine loop, with the beautiful sounds of overtones following them, and with wild high toned guitars dissolved into the turmoil of sounds. But thoroughly the guitar finds some individual shape in the heavy brooding monster, and from inside, or from the bottom it starts to feed it trying to make it move. Instead the energy fades out a bit, in the next track. In a Nurse With Wound feeling of overtones, the psychedelic guitars fades away like directed lava, with some electricity. Distant voices cry from hell deeper down the trail, not for help, but to participate in the firey bliss. Then from underneath the rhythmical foot tapping dance rhythms and communal vocals appears one last time from a distance, not with an extra sitar this time but with a hurdy gurdy to it, while the fluting sounds dominate the psychedelic underground. Cymbal echoing effects subtly fly around it. The music fades out and the communal vocals keeps the tension high (with hurdy gurdy), while the rest of the sounds drones away.

Audio : "I"(or here), "II", "III"(or here), "IV", "V" & on http://www.myspace.com/seventhatspells

Video of live prerformances on http://www.youtube.com/...

Label entry : http://www.blrrecords.com/prod/1806/the_men_from_dystopia.html

Info on group : http://www.raig.ru/seventhatspells.asp

Homepage : http://www.7thatspells.com/

Other albums reviewed on http://www.disagreement.net/reviews/seventhatspells_mymommywantstokissyourmamma.html

& http://aural-innovations.com/2004/january/sevspell.html

& http://www.geocities.com/prognaut/reviews/sts.html

& http://www.space-rock.co.uk/index.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=274

& http://www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue34/sevspel4.html

Erebus RecordsJacks : No Sekai/ Vacant World (JAP,1968)****'

The Jacks first album is a very special and original one. The band was part of the underground scene and had a more radical sound compared to other bands from the late 60s, even when compared to American garage standards this still is a rather subtle and highly creative thing. There’s a high intense almost dramatic raw emotionality in the vocals which brings the band, especially on the opener “Marianne” closer to garage psych, while mostly they are singing ballads with a psychedelic touch and fine harmonious arrangements. They had in fact their roots in 1966 as a folk trio, Nightingale, but evolved, as a 4 piece band to Jacks with a more psychedelic sound. This includes a certain slowness in the emotionality building up in the song, with subtle fuzz guitars and a few beautiful solos with it, some organ, and rather jazzy vibraphone contributions, good rhythms, and guitar with some use of reverb, or with like an earlier 60s freakbeat rhythm guitar with a surf touch, and a bass line which can sound a bit jazzy, or acoustic, at times as well. The (emotionally sung) drama builds up really beautifully in the songs, which alone makes this rather unique. Two later tracks on the album are more psychedelic bluesrock, and the last song, very originally is accompanied by church-organ like accompaniment. A really great album!

Tiliqua description : “This was the only disc with guitarist Mizuhashi in the groups’ ranks. He quit as soon as the recording session was over, ending almost immediately the classic line-up. Compared to their fellow Group Sound practitioners who squirted out lyrics mainly confined to boy meets girl and other sweet oozing problems, The Jacks generated dark, morbid and melancholic images, embodying the darker side of teenage angst and its decaying innocence, exposing their audiences on more than one single occasion to the creeping horrors looming out of their lyrical juxtapositions. The Jacks definitely didn’t have any intention to wear flowers in their hair in order to conquer Tokyo, the equivalent of San Francisco, like saliva driveller Scott Mc Kenzie put forward in his hippie theme song. The Jacks were the sole G.S. band whose total repertoire consisted out of their own material spiced up with Japanese lyrics; there where their contemporaries mainly focused on songs sung in exotic katakana English. Another characteristic that distinguished The Jacks from the other combos was their own unique sound, without making overt references to contemporary US or British psych, that steered away from duplicating foreign role models. Their acidic fuzz-laden whiplash set against a folk intoned backbone made them embody a conceptual demarcation with other G.S. sound-producing combos. The Jacks were a highly unique phenomenon. One of the cornerstones – if not THE cornerstone – of the Japanese psych pantheon. “

Audio : "Marianne","Vacant World" & info on www.myspace.com/wearethejacks

Audio on http://www.youtube.com/... Homepage : http://id16.fm-p.jp/44/sexcrow/

Other review : http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/183137049.html

& http://www.keikaku.net/reviews/126

Info on band : http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/japrock/jacks/

Descriptions on http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/jacks.html & on http://en.wikipedia.org/...

Jacks previous singles on http://www.garagehangover.com/?q=node/55

and second album on http://metropolis.co.jp/tokyo/686/music_beat.asp

Erebus Records Gedo (JAP,1974)**°°

Compared to most Japanese items from this period, this live recordings starts much more raw, hard, and punkish than almost anything I have heard from this period in Japan : primitive acid psych with blues elements with heavy and freaky electric guitar outbursts, doom bass, heavy distortion, primitive energy, recorded live and not too perfect, but with an effective mix of primitive acid with wild proportions. But then suddenly after four tracks, and perhaps some break, the songs are much more mainstream rockers, and bluesrockers, without many guitar solos, except an occasional one, with a fine drum solo. Only the last track, before the break, the guitarists freaks out in a really convincing and rather special way. The bis track to my surprise was an acoustic track, before you hear the bikers drive away. An album that has unique moments, more enjoyable moments and a few more just above average ok moments. This still included something unique in that moment.

Info : http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/japrock/gedo/

Homepage Hideto Kano (lead guitarist) : http://www.geocities.jp/guitarmanhk22/English/English.htm

Other reviews : http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/gedo/gedo/

Erebus RecordsPowerhouse (JAP,1969)**°°'

Powerhouse surely has their powerful name that rings easily in your mind, a first reason to remember them easily. Secondly, they were an early band from guitarist Shinki Chen. In 1967 they were still called The Bebes, having released a long and slowed down version of The Beatle’s “Back in the USSR”, when Shinki chen joined in with George Yanagi (Strawberry Path, Flied Egg) on bass, changing with this their name to Powerhouse. Their debut LP was called “New Style Of Blues” and that’s what it was. The same Beatles song received a cover treatment as if it were an American white blues song, with harmonica, directing towards R&B. Also covered were Yardbirds and a Loving Spoonful track, both more or less highlights of this album (of over 15 minutes each), because it is when they start to improvise more freely (the new guitar and bassist are responsible for this mostly), they turn from a still rather average but also greatly-independent late 60s raw rock band with an interest for American bluesrock to a more stoned vibed, darker real-blues tension band, with a freedom of certain moves in the guitar style which is typical for Shinki Chen. He had his hair grown very long also, making it difficult to get bookings most places, but he refused to change his attitude. This was a free feelin’ American blues that found its own power. Most tracks have a more typical 60s fundament, but bluesier and with some fuzz solos that still make these versions original enough to get your attention into them to enjoy them as something different. Originals are impossible to find.

Info : http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/japrock/powerhouse/

Description of single on http://www.waysidemusic.com/...

& Spanish description : http://rocksoul-warriors.blogspot.com/2009/02/power-house-same-1969.html

Original for sale on http://www.tiliqua-records.com/rare/reco_I-P.htm

Erebus Records Yonin Bayashi (=Quartet Band) : Ishoku-Sokuhatsu (="Explosive Situation") (JAP,1974)**°

First having existed as San-Nin (=trio group) since 1970 with an extra member and keyboard player they became Yonin-Bayashi (=quartet band) a year later. Different in style from most Japanese albums this is more “progressive-rock” styled than usual, although the fundament does not always sound so progressive, with its softrock, moments of mainstream kitschiness and soft hardrock flashes, a certain progressive sound remains smoothly part of it the whole way through. The softer sung parts in the beginning, with relaxed disco strings works only at first slightly disturbing the expectations, but listening to where the relaxed guitars and keyboards lead to further, it becomes clear it is much more than something ordinary here. The “progressiveness” never is leading or going too far, like a bolero-rhythm for instance, a breakout percussive part or a keyboard/guitar improvisation, an occasional weird moog moment, it still is strong enough to conquer the slight weakness of the small softrock approach parts, so once this aspect and combination is accepted, the album reveals something rather enjoyable and entertaining, edging towards something almost symphonic even without really becoming so.

Info : http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/japrock/yonin_bayashi/

Label description : http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/yonin.bayashi.html

Description on http://www.psychemusic.org/japanese_psych.txt

& http://time-has-told-me.blogspot.com/2006/07/yonin-bayashi-issyoku-sokuhatsu.html

Other review on http://www.planetmellotron.com/revy.htm

More complete album discography :

1'Hatachi No Genten' [Toho, 1973]

2'Ishoku-Sokuhatsu' ('Explosive Situation') [Tam, 1974].

3'Golden Picnics' [CBS, 1976]

4'Painted Jelly' [Canyon, 1977]

5'Live '73' [Toho, 1978],

6'Pao'or 'Bao' [Canyon, 1978],

7‘Triple Mirror’ [TAM, 1978],

8'Neo-N' [Canyon,1979]

9'Dance' [BGM/Victor, 1989],

10'Live Full House Matinee' [BGM/Victor, 1990]

There's lso a CD called :

11 a'Early Days' P-Vine (=first album+ unreleased early live stuff).

Erebus Records Happy End (JAP,1970)****

Happy End’s debut on URC (1969) was an outstanding soft-rock album which didn’t stay unnoticed in Japan. Not only was it the first album sung in Japanese, breaking the local rules in rock music (where western covers were played most commonly), which is something the label of course also stimulated (especially folk-rock movement with Japanese influences, besides influences from blues and at least some psychedelia later on), also the production and arrangements show a subtle brilliance, especially in the rhythm section which builds up to three layers of percussion (drums, hand percussion and handclaps), and for the electric fuzz guitars, which interplay similarly in a slightly different rhythm intervals, or which are combined with acoustic guitars or rhythm guitar layers. But also the vocals are highly attractive, have a romantic touch, have some beautiful vocal harmonies. One could imagine a slight bluesy softrock approach, as well as a West Coast feeling into this music. A winner. The two main composers had shown more important moves : drummer Haruomi Hosono had come from Apryl Fool, and bass player Hosono formed the Yellow Magic Orchestra afterwards.

Band info : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_End_(band)

& http://ondeafears.com/...

& http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/japrock/happy_end/

Discography : http://www.jrawk.com/Content/H/happyend/index.html

Audio and info of Apryl Fool : www.myspace.com/aprylfoolspace

& http://www.answers.com/topic/apryl-fool

Erebus Records Kuni Kawachi & Friends : Kiriyogen (JAP,1970)****

It is a bit unclear if this album can be regarded as a Flower Travelling Band’s release or not. 3 of the 5 members of this band participated, before their third album “Anywhere” which has only published after the band broke up in 1973. Band leader on this project, Kuni Kawachi had come from The Happenings Four. This project compromised a world in between both bands, a rock album with emotional, more high register vocals, but also ballad-typed modes, bluesy groovy drives into the songs, some good electric guitar solos, and experimental passages played slowly on their instruments, and progressive breaks and sudden turns, and some thoughtful and surprising arrangements, on vibraphone (last track), additional sitar (track 5), acoustic guitars and bluesy acoustic steelstring improvisations (track 6), or a bit of psychedelia (like the dreamy piano recalling The Beatles melody on track 3). The songs are in Japanese. The subtle progressive moves and smooth-grooviness in the songs surely makes this album interesting and special. I can imagine the album might need a few listens.

Audio : "Kirikyogen"

Band info : http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/japrock/kawachi_kuni/

Description on http://www.waysidemusic.com/...

& http://www.jrawk.com/Content/K/kawachikuni/reviews/kirikyogen.html