Rule Of Spirit
(Alchemy) Used CD $25.00
2004 reissue of the 1987 heavy psych album by Naoto Hayashi and company. Sealed with obi
Live In Tokyo
(Alchemy) Used CD $25.00 (Out-of-stock)
Recorded live at the La Mama, June 1996. Sealed
Shiny Crystal Planet
(Alchemy - ARCD119) Used CD $20.00 (Out-of-stock)
A fusion of the psychedelic phrasing of Angel’in Heavy Syrup guitarist Fusao Toda and the spacey electronics of Masonna’s Maso Yamazaki, pumped full of pop fashion sense, the perfect soundtrack for an astro-modernist go-go lounge.
Zouroku no Kibyou
(Vinyl on Demand) Used 2xLP $50.00
(Alchemy) Used CD $25.00 (Out-of-stock)
Twentieth anniversary edition (remixed, re-mastered and reissued in 2002) of Hijokaidan’s first album (Unbalance 1982), recorded live during their heyday of highly confrontational, somewhat unnerving performances. “Their music,” notes Female Trouble, “has little driving rhythm [and] is extremely disconnected…. It was said that Hijokaidan originally set out to sound like Hawkwind performing at an airplane landing, which is really not too far off…. Although this [abrasively spacey and psychedelic] record may not be as noisy as their future releases, it certainly captures a sort of essence of raw violence….”
2xLP includes live bonus tracks from 1988 and 1994
Noise From Trading Cards
(Alchemy) Used CD $25.00 (Out-of-stock)
Three tracks of drawn-out ache from 1997 that linger somewhere between pain and an unyielding disturbance of comfort. With Merzbow’s Masami Akita playing drums on one track, Junko screaming on two, Kosakai adding electronics to one and Mikawa adding same to all three tracks, Hijokaidan resolves fits of chaos into manageable textures and sounds, never moving too far away from pure intensity. Sealed
Jojo and Junko
(Alchemy - ARCD117) Used CD $15.00 (Out-of-stock)
The second volume in the Hijokaidan rarity series. Two track from No Paris / No Harm (Alchemy 1988), plus a live recording from The No Music Festival in Canada 1998. Sealed.
Romance
(Alchemy) Used CD $20.00 (Out-of-stock)
A single harsh-mad track, seventy-seven minutes from 1990. Loud, freeform, relentless.
Unlimited Edition
(Alchemy - ARCD120) Used CD $20.00 (Out-of-stock)
The third volume in the Hijokaidan rarity series reissues Limited Edition (Alchemy 1987), the first with the Jojo / Junko / Mikawa. Incudes a bonus track fro No Paris / No Harm (Alchemy 1998). Sealed.
Konomama Shinde Shimaitai
(Alchemy - ARCD124) Used CD $15.00 (Out-of-stock)
Hijokaidan mastermind’s 2000 album that goes from harsh outbursts of guitar feedback accompanied by painful vocals to cold, hushed vocals over eerie synth drones, to drum / noise freakouts scarier than anything on a black metal record, to the pulsing krautrock-inspired. Guests include drummer Takeshi Ishida and Naoko Otani on keyboards and drums.
Kimi Ga Shinette Ieba Shinu Kara
(Alchemy) Used CD $25.00
Debut solo album of noise songs from 1997 by Hijo Kaidan founder. Titles translates to I Will Die if You Say So. Sealed.
Donarichirasu Baku No Koe Wa Amarinimo Chiisai
(Alchemy) Used CD $25.00
Solo album from 2002 by Hijo Kaidan founder. Heavy, dark words, backward noise guitars, growling vocals and violent cries. Title translates to My Bawling Voice Sounds So Quiet. Sealed.
Minna Shinde Shimaeba Iinoni
(Alchemy) Used CD $25.00
Second solo album of existence transcending noise from 1999 by Hijo Kaidan founder. Electric guitar distortion, screaming, blown blood. Title translates to I Hope We All Die. Sealed.
The Very Best Of Jojo
(Alchemy) CD $12.00
Sonic malevolence, brute force, the far reaches of noise and word condensation.
Feedback Of N.M.S.
(Alchemy) Used CD $40.00
“A continuous force of low-end rumble with high-pitched clashes of frequencies,” according to Tiny Mix Tapes, “With what sounds like ongoing screaming for much of the three tracks presented. ‘Curse Of Ceauşescu’ takes almost thirty minutes to unroll, yet you barely feel it lasting that long…. Incapacitants themselves call their style hard noise. I call it ‘relentless, collapsing art’ — it should be on permanent display at all museums, schools, and mental hospitals the world over.” From 1991
No Progress
(Alchemy) Used CD $35.00
“Stupid, primitive and totally demented, but it comes out as a perfect soul-cleaner for a civilized man who has to push his instincts into backward.” Dedicated to Takuya “Synapse” Sakaguchi
New Movements in CMPD
(Alchemy) Used CD $18.00
“Unusually fragmented and stripped down, ‘20 Years of Corporate’ throws … high-end scathe and low-end rumble into the background, and foregrounds the concrete sources: voice, shithawk screeching, single unprocessed feedback waves, unidentifiable crumbling brick structures, and other crackling intrusions,” notes Jason Kushnir about this 1996 disc. “ ‘High Yield Cult’ … equalizes the high/low-end relationship and attempts to simulate the sound of speakers getting shredded by [a] overblown, maxed-out…, overindulged layers of cannibalistic low-end compression…. ‘PT Team, What’s That?’ … burbles to life and roars into a furious rage…. Ultra high-end, brutally beatific delirium unloads layer upon layer upon layer.”
Quietus
(Alchemy) Used CD $30.00 (Out-of-stock)
Comparable, according to All Music Guide, to a “type of chemical weapon designed to mentally or physical paralyze opposition soldiers.” From 1993
Jurajium
(Alchemy) Used CD $12.00
Solo noise album from 1997 by early Hijo Haidan member, who plays synthesizer, keyboards, tape, and electronics. Jojo Hiroshige guests on electric guitar.
TATSUYA KITAJIMA & SHISHOW BAND
Aishite Kurenai No Nara
(Alchemy) Used CD $24.00
Delicate monologues layered over dark and heavy folk from Osaka, 1999
Noskl In Ana
(Alchemy) Used CD $20.00 (Out-of-stock)
Two tracks from Mad Onna cassette (1989), one from Like A Vagina cassette (1988), one from Masonanie 2 cassette-and-seven (1990), an outtake frm Mademoiselle Anne Sanglante Ou Notre Nymphomanie Auréolé CD (1993), an alternate mix from Masonna vs. Bananamara LP (1990), and three previously unreleased tracks, one of which is a live recording from Gilman Street, Berkeley. No obi
Ejaculation Generator
(Alchemy) CD $25.00 (Out-of-stock)
(Alchemy) Used CD $20.00 (Out-of-stock)
Who better than to shriek “eat shit dungeon synth” than Japan’s one-man hornets nest Maso Yamazaki. No one bests his hyperactive grotesque expression, glass-shards studded smoothie of truncated wailing expeditions, near-microsonic bursts of feedback, and no-fi scrabbling. Thirty-three tracks in thirty minutes.
Mademoiselle Anne Sanglante Ou Notre Nymphomanie Auréolé
(Alchemy) Used CD $20.00 (Out-of-stock)
A psychedelic touch from 1993: cascades of electronic noise and vocal belching.
Vestal Spacy Ritual
(Alchemy) Used CD $30.00 (Out-of-stock)
“Analog synth explorations form a lot of the instrumental passages here,” notes Mars Hottentot, “usually under a haze of good ol’ fuzz pedal … to keep it in the realm of harsh noise.” From 1998
Rainbow Electronics
(Alchemy) Used CD $35.00
“A trip through a cold, engineered universe of interstellar supermachinery and titanium celestial bodies … [where] grimy harsh noise tides couple with eerie, reverbed screeches and scrapes of iron objects…, steady drumbeats briefly emerge from the static and disappear just as quickly, stretches of subdued electronic drones buzz along sleepily…, [and] into something more violent.” One track from 1990, seventy-three minutes
Mercurated
(Alchemy) Used CD $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
“Masami Akita keeps his palette thick and abrasive on this 1996 record … all wah-wah-infected scree and electronic static.… All four tracks spend the majority of their time scraping along upper registers, which makes Mercurated’s relentlessness all the more punishing and impenetrable.” Foil printed on hologram stock. Sealed
Great American Nude / Crash For Hi-Fi
(Alchemy) Used CD $40.00
Seven of the eight tracks were recorded live during a tour of the USA in 1990, and as Evol Kween The Musical notes, “pretty much the entire album trades in an endless wash of squeak, hiss and rumble, as if Masami Akita [and Reika A are] forcing hundreds of sounds through a meat grinder and the end result is a raw mince…. The … live environment gives this hot mess some room to breathe…. [Y]ou can actually hear how the acoustics of each venue affects what [they’re] spewing out.”
Metalvelodrome – Exposition of Vivisection
(Alchemy) Used 4xCD $175.00 (Out-of-stock)
Admired by Rate Your Music for the “sheer size and scope of this set” from 1993 and its provision of “enough space to encompass pretty much every style Masami Akita has ever worked with in one way or another… [without sacrificing the “prominence [of] his rapidly developing, nowadays infamous style of screeching waves of mind-shreddingly loud harsh noise. Great highlights are to be found throughout all of the record, though special attention should be paid to … ‘Neon Worms’, which probably broke a few international records in abrasiveness at the time…, the terrific trio of shorter tracks … starting with ‘Electric Moon Tum-Tik’…, [and] the lengthy first track of the third CD, which goes from noise through sound collages and free improvisations done both live and in studio.” Includes poster and O-card.
Metamorphor Chorus
(Alchemy) Used CD $20.00 (Out-of-stock)
“Unlike later works,” notes Mars Hottentot, this 1991 disc “jumps all over the place: phased-out drubbing…, hyper brief, speed scrap metal…, harsh noise / old school industrial factory fire…, doomed Pink Floyd slowed to a crawl, reversed and scrapped…, and vicious jet engine blast….” With obi
Psycledelic
(Alchemy) Used CD $14.00 (Out-of-stock)
“Solmania stripped to the bone,” marvels Mars Hottentot. “The production is clear and spartan.” Given “that Solmania’s heavily modified guitars allow anywhere from three to five amplifiers to be engaged on a single instrument, producing numerous different sounds simultaneously, there may not even be any overdubs [on] this … extremely feedback laden album…, the kind that pierces eardrums at school assemblies when the microphone is placed too close to the monitor, the kind most sane people turn off immediately. Masahiko Ohno, revels in it. He plays with it, [jerking] the cone-shredding tones … spasmodically across the audio spectrum…, [along with] recognizable guitar blurts, rumbles and scrapes….” From 1993
Evil Bed
(Alchemy) Used CD $18.00 (Out-of-stock)
“Possibly Ohno’s most stylistically consistent effort yet,” according to Nightwrath. “It is a bit harsher than usual…. [G]uitar scraping goodness…, traditional harsh noise immurement…, trebly sheets of distortion.” From 1996. In card jacket with obi
DLO
(Alchemy) Used CD $18.00 (Out-of-stock)
“[M]utant guitar noise [boiled] down into shorter, shockingly well considered chunks,” says Mars Hottentot. DLO smashes together everything Solmania does “in a half-sentient Large Hadron Collider. The results are fantastic. The loops … are a dominant force here…: clicks, pops, scrapes and pulses are cycled against each other but never allowed to become boring…. As a free guitarist, Ohno proves his virtuosity beyond doubt here…. “Ovals” maintains its twelve-minute run time examining high tension scraping on multiple tracks…. Unlike his raw, ripped mid-period…, DLO returns to the effect boxes with a vengeance, “Bug Flutter In Toxic” and the robotic “There and Back” are so effected into synthetic oblivion, they barely resemble guitars at all. The album’s other long distance thrasher, “Push Comes To Shove” is … a non-stop torrent of screeching guitar sludge, sputtering Ginn hiccups, and breaking strings.” With obi
Trembling Tongues
(Alchemy) Used CD $18.00 (Out-of-stock)
“Forty some odd minutes … of highly abrasive sludge, fuzz, feedback and buried screaming (through the on-board guitar microphones, of course),” says Mars Hottentot. “Trembling Tongues continues down the same uncompromising path as Psycledelic, but … seems to have more going on; the action between the ear-splitting feedback is bit more frenzied…. As far as noise guitar records are concerned…, Solmania is … brutal. There’s nothing here for the casual listener to hang on to — no psychedelic, trippy effects or wild production flourishes — just harsh, scraping, guitar torture. The effect is that of a giant, slow, grinding woodchipper being fed a steady diet of death metal guitars and full-blast amplifiers.... The standout … ‘Sunshine Overdoze’ … is about as close to psychedelia as this record gets; pulsing waves of feedback get chopped into something almost approximating melody and rhythm.” From 1995. With printed clear plastic insert and diecut traycard
SS LIve
(Alchemy) Used CD $50.00
1990 CD reissue of 18 live tracks from March 1979 by Japan’s first hardcore band, plus another 18 previously unreleased from June ’79. $50 Some songs are repeated, the recording quality varies, but you have to love how primitive it all sounds, especially when it feels like it’s missing structure or at least created via group improv. Loud wails and chants, ultra-fast guitars with the gain on maximum, constant rapid-fire drums through nearly every song. Primal aggression at its finest.
World Record
(Alchemy) Used CD $15.00
1992 comp with tracks by Controlled Bleeding, Solmania, Nihilist Spasm band, Hijokaidan, Freudwerk, Merzbow, Borbetomagus
Good Alchemy Video
(Alchemy - ARVC14) Used VHS $20.00 (Out-of-stock)
See for yourself what all the fuss was about. Live footage from the early to mid-’90s of Masonna (Bears, Osaka; IMP Hall, Osaka; Zoukei-Center, Osaka; Takutaku, Kyoto; Club Quattro, Osaka), Incapacitants (Shimin-Plaza, Toyama), Merzbow (East Gallery, Tokyo; 2B, Eindhoven), Solmania (Metro, Kyoto) and Hijokaidan (Fandango, Osaka). Released to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the label in 1995. Includes insert. Caveat emptor: never been played. No promises.