Two living legends of DIY outsider otherness, Jad Fair of Half Japanese and Naofumi Ishimura of Yximalloo , got together to make a triptych of albums in the nineties and noughties.
Picasso said, and i've quoted him before in these unhallowed pages:
"It took me four years to paint like Raphael,but a lifetime to paint like a child."
Now these two 'Artists',and they ARE indeed 'Artists', had one up on Picasso,and missed out the Raphael part.While dreary unit shifters like Marc Knopfler spend a lifetime trying to play like the musical equivalent of Raphael,whoever that could be(?).Jad and Nao came out of the womb already painting and playing like a child,but had the good sense to stick with it for a whole lifetime.
This, the second of a series of three (so far?),has more of a hint of Jad Fairs work rather than Nao's;but thats mainly due to Jad's singing spread all over the 40 tracks,not to mention his reasonably proficient drumming.I could in fact prefer this collaboration to either one's nineties solo work.
Tracklist:
1 Absolute Pure
2 Blue Horizon
3 It's Mot Fair
4 A Real Mix Up
5 Do You Know A Secret?
6 The Crown Of Love
7 Snakes
8 Star Trick
9 Demon Monster
10 Her Hair Was Red
11 Hawaii
12 Is It A Great People?
13 Muslc
14 Sea And Sand
15 Mickey Mouse
16 T.V. Monster
17 Cupid
18 Fortune Teller
19 Ice Cream
20 Jimmy
21 Big Money
22 Bunny When Hop
23 Gentleness
24 Television
25 So It Is Written
26 Pancake Box
27 Valentine
28 Half Robot
29 Roll Over Beethoven
30 Attchi Muite Hoy
31 Monkey In Tree
32 Candy Land
33 Pretty Princess
34 Cowboy's Life
35 Bread And Butter
36 All You Gotta Do
37 Big Fat Monkey
38 Radio City
39 Only One You
40 Tonight
An album with 24 tracks that's called "15 Songs"?
More certified lunacy from the padded walled sound factory of Yximalloo.This time collaborating with the legendary inventor of 'House' (Not that that's something to be proud of!?), Sympathy Nervous.
Thankfully,there is no proto-dance culture on this cassette and is aimed more at the mind than the feet;but where that mind is is anyone's guess?
Tracklist:
A1 A Fire #12
A2 A Stone #26
A3 A Bird
A4 A Snake
A5 A Fish
A6 A Stone #16
A7 A Fire #4
A8 A Grass
A9 A Stone #25
A10 A Ghost
A11 A Star
A12 A Stone #27
A13 A Dance
A14 A Stone #11
B1 A Horse
B2 A Water #8
B3 A Wood
B4 A Cow
B5 A Water #10
B6 A Man
B7 A Stone #23
B8 A Moon
B9 A Water #9
B10 A Fire #6
When you've finished your Chicken Vindaloo, Yximalloo ain't no chicken when it comes to using your plate,washed or unwashed, as a percussion piece for his next recording......well,at least he didn't in 1982 when he was too poor to afford proper instruments.
What we have here are 36 toytown DIY versions of early 'SPK' or the dreadful bandwagon jumping 'Test Department', but with pots , pans and buckets replacing the Angle Grinders and industrial springs;but crucially, with an injection of the sense of humour that was so woefully lacking in the metal banging Industrial trends of the early 80's.
This is a kind of sub-urban ethnic folk, utilising his surroundings to make music from whatever he finds.No trip down the local Music Emporium for Nao Ishimura, oh no, that's the easy way out. Grab anything that goes 'ding' or 'clonk',start hitting it,then press play and record.
Note the credit to Jad Fair,of Half Japanese, on the insert,who draws all of Yximalloo's cover art.
DOWNLOAD and rattle those pots and pans HERE!
Yximalloo makes music with small samplers,small synths and drum machines that suggests pre-emulator Residents.Sounds promising doesn't it?
Again one is bludgeoned to death with the sheer number of wacky and weird tunes that suffers from 'The White Album' syndrome.Mozart may have written too many notes in his symphonies but Ishimaru writes,if that's the correct term(?),far too many tunes.Although I guess this was just a small fraction of what he actually 'wrote' in 1986;he must have done this stuff everyday, all day, for his entire life so far?Prolific isn't the word for this obsession.
The recording quality has also increased into the Hi-Fi spectrum,which is a small negative.These minute and a half long events always sounded better in the fog of analogue tape hiss for me.
Tracklist:
1. Man's Man
2. Chinese Ballet
3. Millitarhythm
4. Papa Pencak Silat
5. Dt-On-On-On
6. Village of People of Farm of Normal
7. The Old Lady from The New Territory
8. Dance Dance Dance until The 3rd World War
9. He Talks to Ashtray
10. 100 en
11. Fundoshi Men
12. Russkoe
13. Picnic for The Hungry Ghosts
14. < + 1 ?
15. Local Opens Market
16. Magic for Avoiding Bomb
17. Gross National Welfare Rhapsody
18. Gas Ceremony of Local Society
19. Hi-Hy-Hi Tech Agriculture
20. J. P. N. Corps
21. Low Clouds
22. Retrocommission
23. Force
24. The Biggest War
25. Temple of 1000 Buddhas
26. Night Tripper Animals's Internal Organs
27. Dewisri
28. The Political Dynamics
29. Okama on The Hall
30. Erotic Shooting
31. A Few Brief Lines
32. Kintamani
33. Exchanging Semen
DOWNLOAD the greatest hits from 86 HERE!
Another truckload of sub-two minute ditties from the Yximalloo day-centre for the mildly insane(1984 was a good year for Paranoia one suspects?).
Endlessly inventive,like a field recording from a lost village of schizophrenics in the Himalayas, or at least on top of Mount Fujiyama that exists only on public holidays(not many of them in Japan I wager?).
Any albums with a constant barrage of short tracks has a similar effect as a Drone.One tends to drift off into another dimension where time becomes irrelevant like a time-lapse movie of urban traffic.I listened to this but I'm damned if I can remember doing it!?
Tracklist:
1. Traveler from Hopi
2. Why to Xmas
3. Russian Dance
4. Mahi Mahi Fish Song
5. Yximalloo Tribe's Ensemble #15
6. Pressure from Christians to Nudists
7. Aikoku Kousin Kyoku #3
8. Fire
9. Fuli Fuli #11
10. Cola Song
11. Gureepufuruutsu Juusu
12. The Song I Never Sing Again
13. Lotto
14. Inmarsat-Ati #8
15. Zicarbometxyvinylamine
16. The Border of South
17. Helen
18. Fuck Me,Beethoven
19. Inmarsat-Atl #9
20. Eel Fishing in Moon Night
21. Sweet Karen/Spare Us #33
22. Volks Sex
23. Hae #2
24. Fuli Fuli #14
25. Aikoku Kousin Kyoku #5.5
26. Life in a Quiet Village
27. Tori #33
28. Fr15z
29. White House Reaction
30. Dance Dance Dance Until The 3rd World #39
31. Sleep Well
A further compilation of Yximaloo's prolific output,this time from 1982.
Every country has their 'Residents', and ,arguably, Japan's 'Residents' is Yximaloo.
Abstract Lo-Fi Minimalism coloured with a wide pallet of sounds and rhythms,and all kinds of inexplicable weirdness filling up the spaces.
There are times when words are useless,but this isn't one of them.It's just that i'm fucking knackered and can't be arsed to write anything much....sooooo....the best way to find out what this sounds like is to download it and give it a listen.
I reckon its jolly good indeed,jolly strange,but then again what 'Strange' actually qualifies as is open to conjecture. Personally, the weirdest stuff I've ever heard is The Bee Gee's in their falsetto Disco pomp, but i'd sooner dance to Yximallo any day of the week.If 'The Residents' had come up with "Saturday Night Fever" we'd all be hailing it as an all-time Avant-Garde classic?
Fuck, I ended up writing more than I felt capable of after all?
Disregard my earlier statement, because I really can't be arsed to delete it......I'm going to bed to listen to "Diskomo" by The Residents.
Tracklisting:
1. A Fire #12
2. A Bird
3. A-E-A-E #1
4. A Water #8
5. Offer Incense Sticks #6
6. WA-MATSURI #10
7. Moon Loop #1
8. A Ghost
9. A Horse #9
10. A Wood #7
11. Offer Incense Sticks #9
12. A Dance
13. Ton-Ten-Kan
14. A Fish
15. Dead Soldier with Red Lipstick
16. O'Rhythm
17. A Horse #8
18. Fish Loop
19. A Fire #4
20. A-E-A-E #3
21. A Grass
22. A Moon
23. Jet
24. TI-TZU #2
25. Not So Easy #10
26. Moon Loop #6 + #7 + #8
27. WA-MATSURI #8
28. A Fire #6
29. A Horse #7
30. Reggae Kills The Weird Music in Jamaica #6
31. A Water #9
32. Plague
DOWNLOAD the best of 1982 HERE!
Enter the very special world of Naofumi Ishimura, also know as Yximaloo.
Japan has always produced a interesting brand of nutter, and Ishimura is no exception.
As the Japanese turned their creative juices away from warfare and world electronic gadget domination, their seemingly hard-wired eccentricity has inevitably leeched its way into the medium of music.
Yximaloo has released a Tsunami of home recorded cassettes, of which this is a cd-r'd example of his highly inventive work from 1981.
If you exposed a cassette recording of Coldplay in rehearsal to the exposed reactor core at Fukushima then ran it backwards, you may get something approaching the non-music preserved as magnetic waves on this digitized cassette from 1981.A nintendo soundtrack for the deaf that never happened.
Dis boy he good.
Tracklist:
1 Yximalloo Tribe's Ensemble 1:48
2 Try Try Try 4:00
3 Fela #7 + #11 4:46
4 Radio Style 5:26
5 Strange Charm 1:46
6 Speed In Tokyo 1:21
7 We Work 98 Hours For A Week 3:25
8 RZ15V 3:44
9 Not So Easy 3:08
10 I Hate Music #3 2:13
11 I Hate Music #4 12:37
12 Off Libya 22:59
DOWNLOAD the worst of 1981 but the best of 2018 HERE!
No series of posts on Japanese music would be complete without the poster boy, and wild man of Japnoise, Masonna.
Once a close associate of the often mentioned Merzbow, Maso Yamazaki has a fine line in extreme screaming and shouting, which adds that much needed performance aspect to power electronics.Without that human factor the constant distorted tornado can get incredibly tiresome.
This mono outing in (Ironic)tribute to those ear and brain damaging pop superstars ,Bananarama, is fittingly extreme,and ear protection is recommended.
The fact that all tracks were recorded in glorious Mono, live, at home,with no mixing,and no overdubs,seem to suggest this is the perfect DIY record. Well done my son!
This reminds me of the time I bought a short wave radio from the Kays catalogue at 35p per week,it could also pick up the police radio and the transmissions of passing aircraft.Oh the hours of harmless fun I had.Then i started buying DIY cassettes from the DIY sections of Sounds and NME and realised that nearly everyone used a Short Wave Radio as an instrument.Who needed a synthesiser with a whole universe of weird noises and disjointed electronic rhythms available at the twist of a dial.
That's basically what this entire cassette is, a bunch of Short wave radio interference,eastern European blocking signals and drifting transmissions, masquerading as avant garde composition.
The ultimate Radio transmissions record is "The Conet Project" as featured earlier in this blog.This is nowhere near as spooky as that release,but its probably the ultimate DIY method for anyone who can't be arsed to play an instrument or compose anything coherent.
Tracklist:
| A1 | Transparent Radio | |
| A2 | P×T×C=1 | |
| A3 | Thugu-Rikwo | |
| B1 | Sarava Tetsudo | |
| B2 | Pocket Planetaria | |
| B3 | Plastic Garden |
DOWNLOAD some stuff you could tape off your radio HERE!
As usual, I know Fuck all about Mr Alimoti,and I'd prefer it to remain that way.Mystery is an under-rated and increasingly rare commodity in today's overexposed planet, overdosed on information, both incorrect and partially false.The only truth available is the blank spaces from the past which we can fill in ourselves (DIY?) with that other under-rated,and again, sadly rare, process, 'Imagination'.
When I imagine Nishimura Alimoti recording this shadowy, rumbling, post punk shytsterpiece; I see a monochrome vision of a small sparingly furnished room in a high rise apartment block in the most unfashionable area of Osaka, with a twenty something (Japanese) male sitting at a table covered with recently acquired second hand musical gear.Hunched over a crap guitar,overdubbing to some bass and drums he'd recorded earlier; all in one take.
And that's what this sounds like, bedsit land pop from the twilight zone. Don't walk towards the light, its shit out there!
Tracklist:
| A1 | Bunbunbae | |
| A2 | Hyojyo No Uta | |
| A3 | Inkasanka | |
| A4 | Lock And Role | |
| B1 | Yasai Ga Kirai | |
| B2 | Ninshiki Yoso | |
| B3 | Moeagaru Chukinto | |
| B4 | Nakayubi Tomare | |
| B5 | Reito Shokki | |
| B6 | Tori Ga Tonda Rarara | |
| B7 | Zesshyo |
DOWNLOAD something mysterious HERE!
