Sometime in the early 90s, the floodgates in Japan opened and a barrage of out-of-this-world intense music abruptly slammed Westerners into a densely populated underground civilization of noisemakers. From the splintered noise remains of Merzbow and the textured electronics ambience of Susumo Yokota to the blistering psychedelic revelry of Acid Mothers Temple, the absolute deluge of exotic sounds pouring across the Pacific was enough to send anyone caught in the wave into a dizzying spin. Getting your foot in the door is easy-- the Boredoms, who even played Lollapalooza in '95, are the first step for most people. However, once that door is opened, the listener can find himself in a frustrating labyrinthine realm of endless open doors connected via a confusing system of intersecting passages and two-way mirrors.

The fact that information on these bands can be impossibly hard to come by is enough to deter just about anyone who isn't either fluent in Japanese or insane. Which brings me to this series-- Nihon No Hardcore, or Japan's Hardcore. Over the next few months, Pitchfork will run a series of loosely related features on Japanese underground music. This article is an attempt to fit together the puzzle pieces of one specific movement of Japanese underground music. So what's behind door #1, you ask? Psychedelia.

For the most part, I'm going to make an attempt to limit the information presented here to releases that are readily available. Unfortunately, that's just fraction of what's out there. The Japanese psychedelic movement is the stuff that comprises collectors' nightmares; only tidbits of information are available, import prices are often exorbitant, and some early releases are incredibly hard to find. The unlucky result being that a number of important artists' releases remain difficult to track down. I probably don't need to point out that this is in no way an absolute or comprehensive overview of the movement. The amount of psychedelic music amassed and produced in Japan over the last 30 years is unreal, and there's no way to cover every important artist. The intent of this article is to look at the principals of the movement, ranging from avant-improvisation to Blue Cheer-inspired blare.

The Mops

It all began in the middle of the 1960s when a number of young Japanese musicians began to mimic the popular music and culture of the United States and the United Kingdom. Eventually lumped into a category identified as "Group Sounds," some of the names coming out of the scene were the Spiders, the Cougars, the Carnabeats, the Playboys and the Tempters. It wasn't until later in the decade that the Group Sound bands began to explore the realm of psychedelia. With the release of the Mops' Psychedelic Sounds of Japan in 1968, the seeds of the movement were planted. If covers of countercultural favorites like "White Rabbit" and "Light My Fire" didn't make the flower-power influence obvious, the inclusion of the Animals' "San Franciscan Nights" certainly did. Their cover of the Box Tops' "The Letter" is pure joy. But the Mops didn't limit themselves to covers, as witnessed by the perfectly executed garage-rock blister of "I'm Just a Mops," the group's anthem: "I don't care of them/ So I'm just a Mops." Their first album, along with the Golden Cups' The Golden Cups Album (including versions of "Hey Joe" and "I Feel Good"), while still including some generic copies of Western counterparts, signaled the arrival of something entirely new in Japan's musical culture.

Jacks

Worlds apart from the Mops and the Golden Cups, Hayakawa Yoshio's Jacks were a psychedelic unit formed around the same time that seemed to make no overt references to the contemporary British and American psych. While other bands were duplicating sounds, Jacks and Hayakawa were hard at work becoming Japan's most important and influential psychedelic band of the time. Early in their career, Jacks supplied the music for an avant-garde theater group. While it might seem an odd pairing, it's a trend that continued with many other psych bands that would follow in Jacks' path. The band put out a couple of singles early in 1968, before releasing the astonishing psych masterpiece Vacant World later that year. One of those early singles was the painfully intense "Marianne," drenched with imagery of violent storms and drowned bodies-- all intoned over acid-lashed guitar fuzz and feedback. In retrospect, Jacks could be considered ground zero for the psychedelic movement in Japan, as they were the first band to impact a wholly new and unique sound that wasn't primarily derivative of Western influences. Under the title Karappo No Sekai: Takt Days, the early singles were ultimately released on disc by Nippon Columbia in 1998.

Les Rallizes Denudes

Oftentimes, shifts in musical landscape are indicative of social or political upheaval, and Japan wasn't exempt from the economic, social and political turmoil that shook the foundations of U.S. and European life in the 1960s. As the decade progressed, a number of issues, including the Vietnam War and the country's relationship with the United States, began to point to the beginning of a cultural swing. All in all, it was a very similar social climate to ours in the U.S.-- students protested, leftist radical organizations were formed and the police got pissed.

Musically, though, Japan had the incendiary Les Rallizes Denudes-- a group of psychedelic noise terrorists whose entire history is shrouded in myth, violence and massive heaping piles of volume. Characterized by revolutionary ideology and activity (one member was linked to a plane hijacking in 1970), Rallizes' remained active on-and-off from 1967 until the late 1990s. Unfortunately, the amount of material that has been released is minimal-- some might say nonexistent. However, in the early 90s, the band self-released three CDs and a video all at once, in a supremely limited run. The band's word-of-mouth reputation among record hounds insured that the sets would sell out almost instantaneously.

To be honest, I've never heard this band, but I'm including them here because every tidbit, every article, every book on Japanese psychedelia is dripping with mysterious rumors about Les Rallizes Denudes. Supposedly reminiscent of the early Velvets incarnation, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, every show they played was typified by long bouts of improvised guitar, shrieking feedback, black magic incantations and mounds of fuzz and hiss. Legend has that the album to get, if you're lucky enough to lay your eyes on it, is the double-disc 77 Live.

Taj Mahal Travelers

Operating around the same time as Les Rallizes Denudes, Taj Mahal Travelers were a massive group of well-known free improvisers whose membership included Kosugi Takehisha, Koike Ryo, Kimura Michihiro, Tsuchiya Yukio, Nagai Seiji, Hasegawa Tokio and Hayashi Kinji. The only available documents of their brief career are live import-only discs, but each of those recordings are essential for anyone interested in their sound. Blending both Eastern and Western instruments, TMT were able to create a densely layered texture of sound that hummed, pulsated and breathed with life. While co-founder, violinist Kosugi Takehisha, unwaveringly claims that the music was not psychedelic, there's no denying the impact this music had on later groups such as Acid Mothers Temple or Ghost. Drone Syndicate recently released the brilliant Live Stockholm July 1971 two-disc set, an amazing representation of TMT's shimmering drone improvisations.

Haino Keiji

The discography of Haino Keiji-- one of the most recognized names in the Japanese underground scene, is somewhat overwhelming. There's simply too much music to absorb. Insanely active, Haino's impact on Japanese music is immeasurable. With a massive solo catalog, numerous releases with Fushitsusha and an indeterminable number of collaborations (Derek Bailey, Magical Power Mako, Bill Laswell, Rashied Ali and Barre Philips, among others), Haino has single-handedly changed the musical landscape with his own intensely personal sound vision.

Similar to other members in the psychedelic community (Nanjo Asahito from High Rise), Haino is staunchly anti-drug. For Westerners, and members of the Elephant 6 collective, this might seem completely at odds with the whole notion of psychedelia; a musical movement which will eternally be associated with magic, multi-hued mushrooms and acid-addled hippies. This sort of anti-drug attitude may lend itself to Haino's own brand of mysticism, something which he has pursued relentlessly from the very beginning. On many of his solo releases, the music is touched with a lingering sense of loneliness and emptiness. Almost always surging with tension, Haino will use percussion, guitar or voice to mount or release friction. One of the easiest to find, the Tzadik release Tenshi No Gijinka, is dense with numerous vocal stylings, ranging from howling screams to chants to remote whispers. Intentionally sparse percussion drives the music-- trance inducing and spiritually evocative.

Fushitsusha, on the other hand, are a high-powered, dark energy trio led by Haino that specialize in feedback, distortion, and sonic whiplash. The current lineup consists of Haino on guitar and vocals, Yasushi Ozawa on bass and Takahashi Ikuro on drums. Early live recordings on the PSF label capture Fushitsusha at full roaring capacity, equipped with thundering percussion and distortion-fueled guitar bliss. Studio records, like Allegorical Misunderstanding, can be group exercises in restrained sound constructions. Playing together as a unified sound entity, the trio builds intensity and mounts pressure through surging, amplified drones. The ultimate results can be a scattered mess; most of the time, though, the outcome is a delirious free-form sonic onslaught.

Nanjo Asahito

While on the subject of sonic attacks, I don't want to forget Nanjo Asahito. The main man behind groups such as High Rise, Mainliner, and Musica Transonic, as well as the psycho-freakout La Musica label, Nanjo's specialty is sheer power. Fueled by fuzz and a love for pushing everything into and beyond the red, he's been involved in an inexhaustible list of projects and groups in the Japanese psychedelic underground. High Rise is and has been his main gig since the mid-80s. Very similar in noise and attack to Mainliner, High Rise is unadulterated aggressive noise psychedelia. Always operating under the notion that louder is better, High Rise-- especially in a live setting-- make music that has the ability to shred and disintegrate walls. It's a ceaseless barrage of sound: blistering, fiery-fingered guitar solos from Narita Munehiro, rumbling constant bass and vocals from Nanjo, and pounding rhythmic percussion from the rotating cast of drummers. The PSF label, borrowed their name from the title of High Rise's first album, Psychedelic Speed Freaks. If you think Iggy Pop's remastering of Raw Power is the epitome of in-the-red production, check out either the PSF label's II or Live.

Mainliner and Musica Transonic are other Nanjo projects which find the bassist/vocalist sharing time with Acid Mothers Temple lead man, Kawabata Makoto. On Mainliner Sonic, Ruins drummer Yoshida Tatsuya joins the fray. Musica Transonic has remained the powerful trio of Nanjo on bass, Kawabata on guitar and Yoshida on drums. But Mainliner sounds nothing like the Ruins and is only slightly reminiscent of AMT; it's a perverse experiment in motorpsycho, heavier-than-you-can-imagine rawk noise. Vocals are heard, but indistinguishable, while Nanjo's bass plods mercilessly ahead. Yoshida moves like lightning around his kit, crashing cymbals and banging away like he's drilling a hole into a concrete wall. And then Kawabata is thrown into the mix, and what might've maintained some semblance of sanity begins sounding completely demented. This is easily some of the sickest psychedelia you might ever hear. The distortion is relentless, mounting in a hallucinatory haze of fuzz and feedback. These Charnel Music releases are not for the meek, and don't let the band's debut title fool you-- Mellow Out is more of the same.

Acid Mothers Temple

Compared to Mainliner, Kawabata's Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso UFO is relatively accessible. Formed in 1997, AMT are, in appearance and name, more along the lines of Western psychedelic mentalities. Part of the larger Acid Mothers collective (which has comprised up to 30 members), AMT live communally, populate their cover art with voluptuous naked women, reference drug use, and are obsessed with an idea of interdimensional communication. A "millennial hippy group" that specializes in music for drug trips, Acid Mothers isn't just interested in the average psychedelic guitar workout. The first three records on PSF, specifically Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso UFO, are sheer freak-outs incorporating fuzzed-out guitar solos with lengthy drones and gurgling electronics from the synth mistress Cotton Casino.

Blending the Western ideas of psychedelics with a traditional Japanese style, Acid Mothers and Kawabata were able to move to the forefront of the Japanese psychedelic movement. Their most recent release on Squealer, The New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple, is the easiest album to track down. It's a varied collection of tracks which show off Kawabata's obsession with guitar noise, lengthy blissed-out drone experiments, and the occasional folk-tinged acoustic song. More adventurous, though, is the recent Swordfish-issued CD, La Nňvia-- a cover of an old French Occitanian folk song incorporating, among other things, throat singing-- or the recent arrangement of Terry Riley's In C, available on the Eclipse-released LP In C/In E.

Ghost

Somewhat similar to Acid Mothers Temple in certain areas are Batoh Masaki's Ghost. Given more to trance-like folk productions than AMT, Ghost's influences are just as diverse. Informed as much by the German Krautrock of the 70s-- especially bands like Amon Düül and Can-- as they are the British folk boom of the late 60s and early 70s, Ghost are able to successfully blend these ideas into a distinctly Asian psychedelia. Recorded at various temples throughout Japan, Temple Stone is a gorgeous meditative illustration of what the group can achieve live. One of their best studio efforts to date, the Drag City release Snuffbox Immanence, is a mesmerizing blend of Eastern and Western traditions. Batoh has also released two solo records (one of them containing a creepy cover of Can's "You Doo Right") and worked with other groups like the hippie-psychedelic bands Cosmic Invention and Sweet & Honey. The Now Sound label's releases of Cosmic Invention's Help Your Satori Mind and Sweet & Honey's Live at Your Cosmic Mind are worth the effort to track down, although both are currently out of print.

Kudo Tori

Kudo Tori has been active in the Japanese underground for decades, but only recently has his work started to see release in the west. Classified as pop-psych, his euphonium-driven group Maher Shalal Hash Baz is embodied by a looseness and freedom that is singularly different from almost anything else arising out of the psychedelic movement. MSHB formed when Kudo hooked up with euphonium player Nakazaki Hiro in the mid-80s. Kudo did his share of time with other groups like A-Musik and Ché-Shizu (whose British-folk-influenced Nazareth is a dreamy psych masterpiece) in the eighties, but eventually decided to devote the majority of his time to MSHB.

Unfortunately, their greatest work, Return Visit to Rockmass, is incredibly difficult to track down. It's a mammoth 3xCD/3xLP box on the Org label that works as a showcase for Maher's incandescent dreamy psychedelia. Songs amble along at awkward, clumsy paces either horribly-out-of or not-quite-in tune. Surprisingly though, for avant-informed works like these, each song is suffused with a delirious sense of familiarity and comfort. The most obvious reference points would be the late-60s awkward shambling of the Shaggs, or ESP acts like Cro-Magnon and the Godz-- although not as inharmonious or off-kilter as either. The single, "Unknown Happiness," is a great little slice of Maher Shalal Hash Baz's fragile beauty, but the double-disc import, From a Summer to Another Summer: An Egypt to Another Egypt is the best available representation of their slapdash, loose style.

Conclusion

The information I've presented here represents a brief overview of the people who have in some way or another spearheaded or continued the psychedelic movement in Japan. While it doesn't encompass all the artists who have left an indelible print on the scene, I certainly couldn't conclude this article without a mention of the PSF label once again and its founder, Ikeezumi Hideo, the man responsible for linking many artists, musicians and performers together over the last 15 years. Without PSF providing an outlet for this incredible array of psych music, the scene might've faded from public eye. For anyone just interested in dipping into the psychedelic arena without committing to a full-length album from a band, PSF's four volumes of Tokyo Flashback releases are great introductions to many of the bands recounted here.

Haino Keiji and Nanjo Asahito have been two of the most active men on the scene, playing with a number of different groups and providing, for many, a gateway into the realm of Japanese psychedelia. In recent years, Acid Mothers Temple and Ghost have also carved out their own niche in the scene. And former punk noisemeisters the Boredoms have also set their course on transonic flight of late, starting with the brilliant Super Ae and continuing on with Vision Creation Newsun.

It would seem that, with such a large number of psych records being issued from the Japanese underground, that quality would begin to suffer. Surprisingly, it hasn't. The psychedelic scene is comprised of a number of artists dedicated to their craft, intent on their vision and art. Their embrace of and expansion of psychedelia as a form of mystic art is testament to an undying belief in the visceral power of music.

As a final note, I'd like to point out something else of note: the Sonore book Japanese Underground Music, which includes a wealth of biographical band information about the Japanese scene. Oftentimes, it's easier to track down actual releases than any biographical notes, but this book provides a lot of information that isn't available elsewhere. It's a slightly expensive tome, but absolutely essential for anyone who wants to dig deeper into Japan's underground.

luke buckman, pitchfork, january 2002
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