Sunday, September 27, 2009

Pass No Past (Japanese Post-Punk)



Until recently, Japan’s 80’s underground scene was a big black hole in my quest to unearth every fucked-up noise ever spewed from the Far-East. I'd previously thought they were late entries to the punk scene, but thanks to the wonder of the internets, I’ve discovered that there were in fact plenty smoking ’77 era punk bands (check out the live footage from the psycho sci-fi flick Burst City) as well as angular post-punk on par with New York No-Wave. In fact, members of Friction pop up in that legendary scene's story, doing time in Teenage Jesus and the Contortions before returning home to cook up their own brand of six stringed havoc. I picked this up knowing only the Friction tracks, but was blissfully blown away by the rest of it. Did some digging to find some live Tsunematsu Masatoshi as well as his incredible first single. I also can’t believe that I missed this Gunjogacrayon EP until now. Recommendations on further listening would be most welcome.

1-1 Friction - Crazy Dream
1-2 Friction - Kagayaki
1-3 Friction - Big-S
1-4 Friction - Pistol
1-5 Tsunematsu Masatoshi - Grinning In Your Face
1-6 Tsunematsu Masatoshi - Gears
1-7 Tsunematsu Masatoshi - E.D.P.S.
1-8 Tsunematsu Masatoshi - にがした・はじまり
1-9 Tsunematsu Masatoshi - E.D.P.S. (Industrial Version)
2-1 Phew with Ryuichi Sakamoto - 終曲
2-2 Phew with Ryuichi Sakamoto - うらはら
2-3 Boys Boys- Monkey Monkey
2-4 Boys Boys- Control Tower
2-5 Totsuzen Danball - ホワイト・マン
2-6 Totsuzen Danball - 変なパーマネント
2-7 Totsuzen Danball - 感覚が記号なら
2-8 Totsuzen Danball - 思惟の提案
2-9 Totsuzen Danball - 走れ
2-10 Totsuzen Danball - 理想的な幼稚園
2-11 Totsuzen Danball - 走り幅とび
2-12 Gunjogacrayon - ムキ
2-13 Gunjogacrayon - L

Pass No Past

Need more convincing? Check out some live Friction.