Forty Five Minutes Of Japanese Psyche

For the last two months Ernie of 27 Leggies and myself have been engaging in a long running duel- think Ridley Scott's masterful 1977 film The Duellists where Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine engage in a long running feud during the Napoleonic Wars. 

Mine and Ernie's duel is not due to an imagined slight and a stain on an officer's honour- at least I don't think it is- but is a duel of Japanese psyche bands, a to and fro  between two music blogs, each raising the stakes slightly with a post featuring obscure Japanese rock bands playing psyche, acid, prog, punk, ambient, psychedelic, noise and jazz inflected rock. Ernie went last with a post in May celebrating Kuunatic. Today's Sunday mix is something of a post holder while I consider where to go next, forty five minutes of music made by a variety of Japanese psyche bands featured either here or at 27 Leggies. Three quarters of an hour of Japanese psyche may not be your Sunday morning cup of green tea but in the spirit of adventure and experimentation I offer it up anyway. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Japanese Psyche

• Boredoms: Free (End Of Session Version)
• Kikagaku Moyo: Zo No Senaka
• Bo Ningen: Triangle
• Kuunatic: Desert Empress Pt. 1
• Yura Yura Teikoku: Dekinai (Extended Remix)
• Kikagaku Moyo: Majupose
• Yura Yura Teikoku: Sweet Surrender (Remix)

Boredoms are from Osaka, a noise rock band who formed in 1986 and have a huge, rambling back catalogue. They formed a friendship with Sonic Youth and as a result got exposure in the USA and played 1994's traveling circus Lollapalooza. Free is a cover of a song by Phish,  a rather lovely and chilled ambient track that leads us gently into the mix...

... whereupon Kikagaku Moyo take over- heavy, overloaded psychedelic rock, drums and guitars, wah wah pedals and valve amps pushed to their limits, chanted vocals, sitar, theremin. Kikagaku Moyo formed in 2012 and went on hiatus in 2022, a decade of psyche. Zo No Senaka is a live recording, the band playing a wedding at Hasenheide near Innsbruck and the album recorded and given to the guests and helpers with a further 300 copies made available to fans via the band's website. 

Bo Ningen's Triangle is the fifteen minute closing track from a 2021 re- recording of the band's 2011 debut album, a rebuild. I shaved four minutes off the start here, so that Bo Ningen kick in where Kikagaku Moyo left off. Bo Ningen are a fearsome live band and have found many supporters in the UK and Europe. They've played with Damo Suzuki, Savages and Faust and Bobby Gillespie has sung with them. 

Kuunatic are an all female trio from Tokyo who make 'tribal, dramy, tale music' (their description not mine) with keys, bass and drums and three way vocals. Experimental prog and psyche merged with sci fi and Japanese folk while wearing robes and headdresses. What's not to like?

Yura Yura Teikoku (translation- the wobbling empire) formed in Tokyo in 1989, underground psychedelia but with a commercial edge that led them to New York's DFA who put out a 2007 EP with Dekinai on one side and Sweet Surrender on the other. Terrific James Murphy endorsed electro/ punk funk. 

Mata ne. 

Pictures Of A Floating World

There's an exhibition on at the Whitworth in Manchester at the moment of the art of two Japanese artists, Hokusai and Hiroshige (it opened two weeks ago and is on until November). In the Edo period (17th and 18th century Japan) the pair were responsible for a multitude of ukiyo- e prints, made on woodblocks and printed in beautiful colour onto paper. The most famous of them is Beneath The Great Wave, a picture that changed Japanese art and then when the country began to open up to the west, one that changed Western art too. It's become one of the most famous prints in the world and there are two originals from the Edo period in the exhibition.

Hokusai and Hiroshige captured Japanese landscapes and weather and everyday scenes, rural and urban life. There are pictures of samurai, actors, geisha and farm labourers as well as endless versions of Mount Fuji- Hokusia's series Thirty Six Views Of Mount Fuji eventually ran to forty six and Hiroshige responded with Fifty Three Stations Of The Tokaido Road. The prints- the detail and draftmanship, the layout (so influential on modern visual arts, comics, books and magazines) and the vividness of that world- are astonishing. I loved it and will definitely go again. It's a joy just to spend time looking at them.

They were known at the time as 'pictures of a floating world' which is a phrase which has stuck with me since Saturday afternoon. 

What's more, it's free- and the gallery was busy, people of all ages wanting to get close to the prints. 

Coincidentally over at 27 Leggies Ernie posted some songs by Japanese band Nagisa Ni Te which were well received. Ernie's post and the music reminded me of the Japanese band Yura Yura Teikoku who I posted about once waaay back in 2010. Yura Yura Teikoku were a three piece psychedelic rock band from Tokyo, formed in 1989 and splitting up amicably in 2010. In 2009 DFA put out some of their music which is I imagine where I latched onto them. 

Hollow Me came out in 2007 and was then part of the 2009 DFA release after being featured in Sion Soro's film Love Exposure, a Japanese comedy drama. 

Hollow Me

This one is from a 2010 live album.

Ohayo Mada Yaro

Sweet Surrender is from a 2007 single, a krauty motorik psyche rock excursion that kicks up a storm. 

Sweet Surrender (Remix)

The other side of that single was Dekinai, spiky guitars and rattling drums, a thrilling slice of Tokyo psychedelic rock. 

Dekinai

The remix is even better, somewhere in a sweet spot in between Stereolab and LCD Soundsystem. 

Dekinai (Remix Extended)

Yura Yura Teikoku 'Dekinai'

This song came on my mp3 player on the way home from work yesterday. I had no idea what it was, and don't remember either downloading it or transferring it to the player.

Yura Yura Teikoku are a Japanese three piece, the name translates as The Unstable Empire, and they formed in 1989. A bit of internet research gets them described as 'Can meets dub', 'psychedelic 70s rock and power pop', 'psyche pop and garage rock', and (gulp) 'soft rock'. Wait come back. Don't click back in your toolbar. Stay with me. They released a lp with this track on it on DFA (see, phew, told you it'd be ok). This song's great- from the fast clattery drum intro(begging to be sampled by somebody), to the guitar and the vocals (in Japanese and it doesn't make any difference that I havn't a clue what he's singing about). A bit like a more focused, poppy Yo La Tengo. Highly recommended.

Dekinai.mp3