Hadaka No Rallizes' "Yodo-Go-A-Go-Go"
Finally got ahold -- via Forced Exposure -- of this ceedee after reading Japrocksampler author Julian Cope's ecstatic screed when it was his Head Heritage album of the month earlier this year.
Hadaka No Rallizes, a.k.a. Les Rallizes Denudes, were a Japanese band that existed between 1967 and 1996. They totally fulfilled the promise of their 'meercun contemporaries like the Velvet Underground, the MC5, the Stooges, and the more extreme bands that wound up on the Nuggets compilation; in turn, they spawned noisy Japanese psych outfits like High Rise, Mainliner, and Fushitsusha. Les Rallizes achieved notoriety when their original bassplayer was involved in the 1970 hijacking of a Japanese airliner to North Korea in what was known as the "Yodo-go incident," which is whence this shiny silver disc's title came.
Four lengthy tracks form the core of this collection, bracketed by two shorter tracks each at the front and back, including two different versions of the garage-y "Otherwise My Conviction," on which Mizutani's vocals were supposedly so shitty that he vowed never to enter a recording studio again. They don't sound that bad to me, comparable in fact to those of an American teen-snot act like the Shadows of Knight. The longest track here, the anarchic "Smokin' Cigarette Blues," can hold its own with the likes of the Velvets' "I Heard Her Call My Name," the Stooges' "L.A. Blues," and '68 MC5-at-the-Grande Ballroom noisefests like "Ice Pick Slim," "I'm Mad Like Eldridge Cleaver," and even "Black To Comm" its own self. Its extended meltdown maelstrom features sounds as disparate as somebody blowin' a tuneless harp Dylan-style, and a rocket ship taking off. It's also mastered lower than anything else on the disc, so if you turn it up loud enough to hear, you'll wind up getting blown away by the track ("Fields of Ice") which follows, a relentlessly unfolding slab of sinister sound that creates a sense of foreboding and dread unheard of since Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop," or maybe "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" on the first Mothers of Invention album. (I know, I'm dating myself, but whatthehell.)
This is a band I've been waiting all my life to hear. In my obscurantist heart, they hold a place as beloved as that held (for entahrly different reasons) by Sonic's Rendezvous Band. Or Bindle.
As it seems Brother Cope's book has generated a fair amount of interest in psychedelic noise from Japan, I'd snap this up posthaste if I were you; there's no telling how long it'll be around for.
Hadaka No Rallizes, a.k.a. Les Rallizes Denudes, were a Japanese band that existed between 1967 and 1996. They totally fulfilled the promise of their 'meercun contemporaries like the Velvet Underground, the MC5, the Stooges, and the more extreme bands that wound up on the Nuggets compilation; in turn, they spawned noisy Japanese psych outfits like High Rise, Mainliner, and Fushitsusha. Les Rallizes achieved notoriety when their original bassplayer was involved in the 1970 hijacking of a Japanese airliner to North Korea in what was known as the "Yodo-go incident," which is whence this shiny silver disc's title came.
Four lengthy tracks form the core of this collection, bracketed by two shorter tracks each at the front and back, including two different versions of the garage-y "Otherwise My Conviction," on which Mizutani's vocals were supposedly so shitty that he vowed never to enter a recording studio again. They don't sound that bad to me, comparable in fact to those of an American teen-snot act like the Shadows of Knight. The longest track here, the anarchic "Smokin' Cigarette Blues," can hold its own with the likes of the Velvets' "I Heard Her Call My Name," the Stooges' "L.A. Blues," and '68 MC5-at-the-Grande Ballroom noisefests like "Ice Pick Slim," "I'm Mad Like Eldridge Cleaver," and even "Black To Comm" its own self. Its extended meltdown maelstrom features sounds as disparate as somebody blowin' a tuneless harp Dylan-style, and a rocket ship taking off. It's also mastered lower than anything else on the disc, so if you turn it up loud enough to hear, you'll wind up getting blown away by the track ("Fields of Ice") which follows, a relentlessly unfolding slab of sinister sound that creates a sense of foreboding and dread unheard of since Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop," or maybe "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" on the first Mothers of Invention album. (I know, I'm dating myself, but whatthehell.)
This is a band I've been waiting all my life to hear. In my obscurantist heart, they hold a place as beloved as that held (for entahrly different reasons) by Sonic's Rendezvous Band. Or Bindle.
As it seems Brother Cope's book has generated a fair amount of interest in psychedelic noise from Japan, I'd snap this up posthaste if I were you; there's no telling how long it'll be around for.
posted by stashdauber at 10:16 PM
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