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VARIOUS ARTISTS / Amaterasu (Fractal TWIN Volume 1) / 2CD
Fractal 021
Dusted Magazine - website (USA) http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/1168
Compilation albums are tricky. In general, they
seem to come in three categories: style, themes, and random (as in a
label sampler). Amaterasu walks a fine line between the three. Named
for Japan's Heaven Shining Great Deity, the Shinto sun goddess, the two
CDs contain a number of song titles referencing the sun - a rather oblique
connection; sonically, this compilation runs the risk of disconnection.
At its heart, it's really a geographical assemblage, with 14 artists
(15 songs) from Japan brought together under one roof. The stylistic
variations here run from old-school psychedelic rock to improvised sonic
textures and noise.
It's a great introduction to the variety of contemporary Japanese music, of course,
so anyone curious about the spectrum of artists included will find it naturally
valuable. I believe these are also all previously-unreleased tracks, so fans
of any of the artists here will want to track it down. Hopefully in the process,
they'll discover new names to pursue as well, since I've always maintained that
compilations are best used to attract people familiar with a few of the names,
and lead them to unfamiliar others.
So what do we have here, then? The first disc starts on the decidedly rock side
with Overhang Party's "Sasori”, a slow, droning extended track with
some deep psychedelic acoustics. Tsuyama Atsushi (bassist with Acid Mother's
Temple, among many others) contributes a strange collection of spacey, echoing
voices and synths, mysterious stuff with fuzz-noise guitar that comes and goes
amidst electronic blips and quieter, floating moments. Iuchi Kengo's "Sunstar" is
all arrhythmic synthesizer sounds clustering and overlaying one another, distinctly
at odds with the next track, from former Angel'in Heavy Syrup vocalist Itakura
Mineko. "Heart of the Flower" is simply delicate folk guitar with Mineko's
breathy vocals. Zeni Geva guitarist Tabata Mitsuru contributes over ten minutes
of hyperkinetic planetarium-style synthscape, similar to the squiggly synths
of Space Machine (aka Maso Yamazaki of Masonna), next up with "Triangle”.
Nagai Seiji, of Taj Mahal Travellers, follows with "Object A”, ten
minutes of low, rumbling atmospheric noises. It has moments that get pretty thick
and intense, but it's never overly abrasive. The disc concludes with Acid Mother's
Temple leader Kawabata Makoto's "Beausoleil”, over 14 minutes of ebbing
and flowing waves of sound texture, much like the ocean pictured in sound.
The second disc places more of an emphasis on both rock-styled songs and avant-garde,
less on electronic soundscapes. Kuriyama Jun's "House of the Rising Sun" opens
the disc, and amazingly, not only is it actually a cover of the old chestnut,
but it's great. This stellar cover is presented in a truly hazy, reverb-soaked
reefer coma. Miminokoto follow with a live recording, a thick garage-rock psych
jam that's on the more energetic, punky side of their work. I haven't heard anything
from Totsuzen Danball in quite some time. Their contribution is a spaced-out
track featuring chanting over prog-rock-influenced guitars and sparse percussion.
The only artist to be featured twice, Itakura Mineko offers a second song with
more delicately-picked acoustic guitar with her equally-delicate vocals. Mukai
Chie's "Solo Improvisation" is twelve minutes of er-hu drone and scrape
with eerie vocals, all of it with a vaguely gypsy feel to it somehow. Sax legend
Urabe Masayoshi's "Alto Saxophone Solo Fragment" self-describes nicely
-- it's eleven minutes of harsh, echoing sax. Avant-guitarist Miyamoto Naoaki
offers up a long sample of his eerie guitar feedback textures, often sounding
more like woodwinds or synthesizers than guitar. The great Kousokuya close the
disc with "Heigen”. Kaneko Jutok's great psychedelic group, recorded
live, finish things with deep, slow, ominous psychedelic rock, extremely sparse
and haunting.
If you're looking for an introduction that covers a fairly wide spectrum of what
the Japanese independent scene has to offer, Amaterasu could be a good place
to start, as it covers a little of everything: psychedelia, ambient, avant-garde,
even a bit of folk. The vast majority of the selections are very high-quality,
from artists at the forefront of Japan's underground. But if you prefer compilations
that cohere along stylistic lines or have more than a geographical theme, you
might be disconcerted by the wide variety here.
Mason Jones
Revue & Corrigée - n°58 - Décembre
2003 (France) :
L'époque est sombre, personne ne songerait
à le contester, un peu comme si le soleil s'était à
nouveau enfoui au plus profond des cavernes, comme nous le rapporte la
mythologie shinto, Amaterasu y était resté terré
jusqu'à ce qu'une danseuse lascive au son de musiques tapageuses
ne le tire de son recueillement et revienne éclairer le monde.
Cette compilation est une nouvelle offrande faite à Amaterasu,
regroupant les principaux pourvoyeurs de la came psychédélique
et autres vagabonds célestes qui hantent la scène downtown
japonaise. Le rock psychédélique n'aura jamais vraiment
cessé son boucan au Japon, continuant sous d'autres formes extrêmes
ses métamorphoses nottamment à travers certaines perversions
noises (CCCC, Incapacitants, Merzbow...), chez quelques grands irréguliers
comme Keiji Haino, ou encore dans une multitude de groupes d'allumés
notoires comme : High Rise, Boredoms, Overhang Party, Acid Mothers Temple...
Fractal compile ici quelques figures importantes de cette scène
: Chie Mukai, Kousokuya, Makoto Kawabata, Overhang Party, Kengo Iuchi,
Space Machine, Totsuzen Danball, Seiji Nagai (ancien membre du Taj Mahal
Travellers), Jun Kuriyama, Naoaki Miyamoto, Mineko Itakura et étrangement
Masayoshi Urabe. Etrangement Urabe parce qu'il a peu à voir avec
le psychédélisme cosmique d'un Kawabata, peu à voir
avec la lumière du jour et la fête dionysiaque. Et que le
morceau donné ici (extrait d'un concert dans un squat parisien
qui fut un bloc de colère) n'est que la destruction rageuse des
croyances new ages de certains acteurs de cette scène. Magnifique
trou noir qui aspire dans saforce centrifuge la béatitude hippies
de certains. Au soleil correspond la lune et les astres noires, Chie Mukai
et Masayoshi Urabe sont de ceux-là.
Compilation de groupes comme autant de caravanes soniques dérivant
dans la nuit psychédélique, l'électricité
allumée, le grésillement des amplificateurs, guitares sorties
comme des narguilés qu'on se passe de mains en mains, à
tordre la vision et à se dissoudre dans l'éther. Au bout
du voyage, nous aurons moins froid. La voix de Mineko Itakura (entendue
dans le projet de reprises de Jojo Hiroshige : Slap Happy Humphrey, reprise
de chansons de Morita Doji, icône pop des années 80, et dans
le groupe rock Angels of Heavy Syrup) apporte aux deux disques un moment
de paix bucolique, une douceur gracile aux parfums folk seventies. Autour
gravitent des funambules électriques, des enfants vaudou et des
ombres noires. Dérives acides et ballades lysergiques avec Kengo
Iuchi, Overhang Party, Kousokuya, Jun Kuriyama, Atsushi Tsuyama, Makoto
Kawabata et mantras de sinusoïdales cosmiques de la Space Machine
(aka Masonna). On pourrait finir avec cette pièce de feedback de
Naoaki Miyamoto, longue modulation de larsens s'étirant dans la
poussière cosmique, sublime !
Michel Henritzi
www.stylusmagazine.com - 23/09/2003 - Website (USA)
Amaterasu is a solid and unassuming collection, displaying
several distinct faces of modern Japanese rock that have been underrepresented
amid the recent interest in the Japanese underground. The collection,
despite featuring a contribution from Acid Mothers Temple mainman Kawabata
Makoto, stays well away from AMT's loony lo-fi grandstanding, and similarly
ignores the noisy avant-gardism of Boredoms or Melt-Banana. Instead, these
16 mostly long tracks, spread out across two discs, are mostly low-key
and subtle without losing the edge of experimentation that has long made
Japanese artists among the most unpredictable and original in the world.
All the artists included on this compilation were asked to submit their
aural interpretations of a symbolic myth from Japanese folklore involving
the goddess Amaterasu. Though the conceptual framework is charming, it
also has very little to do with the songs; the booklet claims that Itakura
Mineko's pair of breathy acoustic tunes provide a "spiritual centre"
to the two discs, when in fact they're an unnecessary (but pleasant) comedown
amid all the towering waves of feedback surrounding them.
The album begins accessibly enough, with Overhang Party's massive stoner-rock
anthem "Sasori," which is all shimmery psychedelia with some
classic-sounding virtuosity slicing sharply through the haze. It'sfollowed,
brilliantly, by Tsuyama Atsushi's much more abstract "Confession
of the Sun (Taiyo-Zange)," which delicately layers acoustic and electric
guitars with speaker-shifting effects and wordless howling for a textured
warmth that occasionally explodes into red-hot bursts of distortion. Both
tracks conjure compelling images of the sun and warmth with their distinctive,
distortion-cloaked guitar styles.
The second disc mirrors the first, leading off in a similar manner. Kuriyama
Jun's languid death crawl through "House of the Rising Sun"
may be the best thing here. A deliberate drum machine beat deep down in
the mix props up Jun's Hendrix- and Santana-inspired licks. Jun, singing
in slurred English so that only every tenth syllable or so is discernible,
doesn't even sound like he's in the same universe as the guitar; his ghostly
vocals fade in and out, cased in echo and reverb, and the song takes on
an even more sinister and morbid tone than in any of its previous incarnations.
Though bound to be a disappointment coming after Jun's masterpiece, the
power trio Miminokoto do a pretty good job of ripping out trashy sub-Velvet
Underground rock n' roll sleaze, while Kousokuya occupy similar territory
much less effectively. Urabe Masayoshi provides a fascinating improvisation
on alto saxophone, though the fierce, forceful bursts of sound he coaxes
from his instrument recall an eerie rainforest more than any sounds emanating
from a human throat. He times his exclamations for maximum effect, spacing
the sounds with suspenseful silence and varying the length, frequency,
strength, and speed of his blowing masterfully. The track is also enhanced,
unpredictably, by the scratchy lo-fi sound of the recording, which gives
Masayoshi's sax a raw, unnatural graininess that further removes his sounds
from the associations of his instrument.
Another solo improviser, Mukai Chie doesn't fare quite as well. Her er-hu,
presumably a traditional Japanese instrument, basically sounds like a
continually scraped violin, and the lack of variety in her 11-minute piece
robs her frantic scraping and seemingly very complex playing of any power
it might have held on a smaller scale. Despite these strong contenders,
though, Tokyo art-rockers Totsuzen Danball walk away with the award for
strangest contribution. Their "Konoyo Ni Nai Busshitsu" translates
as a sort of guitar rock Devo; it's nearly impossible to get a handle
on this multilayered, off-kilter pop song, and its ambiguity is probably
why it's so addicting.
While the second disc houses the set's more unpredictable moments, the
first disc, after the guitar rock opening of its first two tracks, opts
to submerge the guitar in electronics and effects. Tabata Mitsuru and
Iuchi Kengo both tend towards whiny, high-pitched incoherence, mimicking
the sounds of the onkyo scene without learning from that style's minimalism
and restraint. On the other hand, Space Machine – whoseairy, buzzing
drones sound like they were sourced from guitars – have the patience
to craft a piece that develops slowly and subtly, incorporating multiple
long tones and twittering, looped effects for a textural sound bath. And
needless to say, Kawabata Makoto's similar "Beausoleil," though
sounding very little like his regular outfit Acid Mothers Temple, is a
gorgeous drone that builds from near-silence to a roaring, glistening
crescendo as sparkly and dynamic as a crashing ocean wave.
Amaterasu, though far from perfect, is a nice summary of some lesser known
strains within the Japanese underground. Some glorious highs are counterbalanced
by a few truly grating tracks and a bunch of middle-of-the-road filler,
but that's true of any compilation. For anybody reasonably interested
in soaring guitar rock and psychedelia, this is well-worth picking up
for its handful of gems and a few surprising bonuses in the form of its
more oddball selections.
Ed Howard
The Wire - n°236 - October 2003 (UK)
Amaterasu ô-mikami, as Alan Cummings explains
in his concise and informative sleevenotes for the beautifully produced,
ambitious and eclectic compilation Amaterasu, is the sun goddess of Japanese
Shinto mythology, hence the plethora of solar references in the titles.
The collection’s 16 tracks, most all of them previously unreleased,
form a wonderfully diverse collection, taking in Overhang Party’s
lush post-60s psychedelics, Chie Mukai’s shamanic improvisation for
voice and two string fiddle, which could have been recorded between now
and a thousand years ago, the space age analogue synth fantasias of Mitsuru
Tabata (ex-Boredoms, Zeni Geva) and Maso Yamazaki aka noisenik Masonna
but here reincarnated as Space Machine, and Miminokoto’s raucous
garage punk.
Each disc is carefully structured around a disarmingly simple central
track by Angel in Heavy Syrup vocalist Mineko Itakura, blooding her first
solo recordings. The limpid beauty of her voice and acoustic guitar is
a sun around which the others orbit. 60s veteran Jun Kuriyama versions
“House Of The Rising Sun” no less, but there’s nothing
so familiar about the dark and forbidding “Heigen”, by the noise-blackened
psychedelic veterans Kousokuya. Subtle, thought provoking sequencing sometimes
produces startling contrasts : ex-Taj Mahal Traveller Seiji Nagai’s
hews an inscrutable block from the same stochastic granite as Xenakis’s
Bohor; it’s followed by Acid Mothers guitarist Makoto Kawabata’s
shimmering, evanescent “Beausoleil”, while Naoaki Miyamoto’s
masterly guitar feedback takes up where the heart-wrenching squeals of
Masayoshi Urabe’s alto sax leave off. Elsewhere, Acid Mothers Temple
alumnus Atsushi Tsuyama ploughs the rich topsoil of Japanese psychedelia,
scattering seeds seemingly blown across the Pacific from the late 1960s,
but he also includes the weird sci-fi bleeps of an early generation of
synrhesizers more or less forgotten in the West; it’s followed by
“Sunstar”, by Kengo Iuchi, who is apparently retreating from
his “tortured death folk” into stark Terry Riley-like minimalism.
You’ve heard the music now read the book : forthcoming from Fractal
is Johan Wellen’s weighty study of Japanese underground music, Dark
Side Of The Sun.
Dan Warburton
Aquarius Records SF - List 171, 19/09/2003 - Website (USA)
From mind-expanding psych drone to extended folk
meditations to (opium-)poppy songcraft, "Amaterasu" is all you
need for at least a few evenings, nights, and/or mornings of audio-induced
bliss. Subtitled, somewhat misleadingly, "A Musical Panorama of Japan",
this compilation is hardly an overview of everything from Taiko drumming
to J-pop. Not at all. Rather, it's a collection of stuff from the psych-pop-folk-drone
underground in Japan, in keeping with Fractal's previous releases of Japanese
origin like Acid Mothers Temple -- and many AMT-types appear here as you
might expect! It's a really fine collection indeed, well worth the 32
bucks to anyone enamored, as we are, of the retro-psych scene that's currently
so vibrant in Japan, as previously documented by PSF's Tokyo Flashback
compilation series for instance. There's sixteen tracks in total here,
many of them pushing ten minutes in length, and thus spread over two discs.
The fragile melodicism of Mineko Itakura, singing solo backed only by
her own acoustic guitar, is for us the gorgeous highlight of disc 1, though
there's plenty else on here quite worthy as well: Overhang Party, Mitsuru
Tabata, Space Machine, Makoto Kawabata, Seiji Nagai (ex-Taj Mahal Travellers),
and Kengo Iuchi. Disc two is also packed with cosmic-calibre talent, featuring
Chie Mukai, Masayoshi Urabe, Kousokuya, Totsuzen Danball, Miminokoto,
Jun Kuriyama, Naoaki Miyamoto, and more Mineko Itakura (yay!). Almost
everything is exclusive to this compilation, which comes complete with
English language liner notes by the knowledgable Alan Cummings, who explains
the concept behind the compilation -- Amaterasu is the Shinto sun-goddess,
and her mythology was the inspiration for these songs. Quite recommended.
All Music Guide (website : www.allmusic.com - September
2003 (Canada) :
This double CD compilation gathers a wide range of
underground Japanese musicians around the figure of Amaterasu, the Goddess
of Sun in the Shinto myth. But that’s only a record label concept.
The artists did not create their contributions in accordance to the theme
and there’s not much tying them together : their nationality,
their devotion to creative, genre pushing, resolutely non-commercial music,
and the quality of their work. Hey, that’s more than enough to turn
this compilation into a very nice springboard for further investigations.
The focal point of Amaterasu resides in the the avant-psychedelic rock
and acid rock sound generally presented by the labels P.S.F and Fractal,
but there are some highly noticeable side trips, includings Tabata Mitsuru’s
electronic piece “Sundazed by the Mirrors” and a chunk of free
improv on disc two, Urabe Masayoshi’s self-describing “Alto
Saxophone Solo Fragment” for instance. Fans of Japanese free rock
will be glad to find the likes of Kousokuya, Kuriyama Jun, Overhang Party,
Tsuyama Atsushi, and Totsuzen Danball (the latter a bit more oddball)
in the track list. The Acid Mothers Temple’s Kawabata Makoto contributes
an enlightened 15-minute guitar soundscape. Two delicate folk songs by
Itakura Mineko occupy the central spot of each disc and serve as pivotal
axes, the music shifting direction around them. All tracks have been recorded
between 1999 and 2002, only one of them (Totsuzen Danball’s “Konoyo
ni nai Busshitsu”) is identified as being taken from a previously
available album. Amaterasu paints a large, inclusive picture of the Japanese
underground (surprisingly, Keiji Haino and Kan Mikami are absent) while
keeping ties to the rock scene that the popularity of the Acid Mothers
has helped bring to a larger non-Japanese audience.
François Couture |
