From the earliest appropriations of Western psych up through what amounts to the current day and making a stop at the boarder of the Fluxus movement, Japanese rock group’s have traversed difficult territory where any mode of psychedelia meets free improvisation. Like any number of Western group’s, these J-Rock adherents occasionally miss the mark completely and fall into a self indulgent, and self congratulatory mess that only few people can fool themselves into listening to.
Noticeably absent from this round up as well as an early exploration of this music, focusing perhaps on older and even more obscure groups, is Acid Mother’s Temple as fronted by Kawabata Makoto. But that’s only because the band’s kinda boring and apes the style these other group’s settled upon prior to ACT being formed. Either way, hopefully, these few acts serve as proper entrance to a music that’s as wide reaching as it is endless difficult to fully comprehend. And there will be no references to Zen…anywhere.
This group is probably one of the less renowned ensembles coming out of the J-rock tradition. It’s album cover makes it seem as if what’s inside might be a take on Eastern classical forms. It’s not, though. Instead, there’s as much heavy instrumental psych as anything else on the list here. Instead of the band pummeling listeners, though, People take the time to ease into the tripped out explorations which comprise the group’s only long playing recording.
There’s a mythical aura about this group. At one time band members were even rumored to be in talks with the Velvet Underground’s Moe Tucker about performing together. That would have been a good match. It didn’t happen, unfortunately. But what LRD was able to do on its own – and mostly in live recording scenarios – is take some ripped of, revved up R&B concept, turn it upside down and slather it in feedback. Good stuff, if a bit repetitive and long winded.
Kinda overrated as far as I’m concerned. While the band’s album covers might make it seem that there’s nothing other than spaced out rock stuff, a great deal of this is just dressed up prog. It’s wondrous, though, that a band simply due to its associations with this weird sub-sub-genre could garner an international following decades after releasing work. That again goes to show that folks are sheep. Good segue.
Printer-friendly version