New Wave / Post-Punk

He made his debut at the age of 17 on Vanity Records. He is also a member of Tristan Disco, a no-wave dub obscure unit. A pioneer in the world of Japanese techno, Takayuki Shiraishi compiled a compilation of his rare recordings under the name MLD between 1983 and 1986. This is a piece that confirms Shiraishi's unique and offbeat style that crosses over from post-punk to dub to industrial. This is a must-have for fans of Mannequin Records and Minimal Wave. Mastered by the French genius Krikor Kouchian, limited to 500 copies.

Daydream Nation was Sonic Youth’s sixth full-length, their first double-LP, and their last for an indie label before signing with Geffen. 

Widely considered to be their watershed moment, the album catapulted them into the mainstream and proved that indie bands could enjoy wider commercial success without compromising their artistic vision. 

More recently, Daydream Nation has been recognized as a classic of its era: Pitchfork ranked it #1 on their “100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s”; Spin listed it at #13 on their “125 Best Albums of 1985-2010”. Daydream Nation was one of 50 recordings chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry in 2006 and it was voted "One of the Greatest Albums of All Time" by Rolling Stone. 

It includes a cover of Miharu Koshi's classic "Parallels" and a Giant Claw remix! This is the first release from Orange Milk, the most important underground label in the U.S. run by Keith Rankin (aka Giant Claw) and Seth Graham. The debut album by Kyoto-based female artist/singer NTsKi has been co-released with EM!

Long-awaited LP reissue of Phew's first solo album "Phew"! An album that has been etched in the history of rock not only in Japan but also in the world! 

Why did the world's leading musicians want to create "sound" under Connie Plank at that time?
Kraftwerk, Noi! The album "Phew" (released in 1981) was produced at the legendary Connie's Studio, which produced masterpieces by Kraftwerk, Noi, DAF, Eno, and others, with Phew, formerly of Arndt Sally, in attendance.
The album was produced by Phew, formerly of Arndt Sully, at the legendary Coney's Studio, which has produced masterpieces by Coney Plank and others.
This album is a combination of Connie Plank's outstanding engineering and Holger Shukai's editing skills. This innovative sound world is a unique sound that has not faded away even today.
This is a complete recording with the original German editing, including the unreleased song "Kodomo".

Originally released in 1982, Kakashi is another high water mark in the 80s Japanese underground. This album, which has gathered cult status in recent years, is the project of musical visionary Yasuaki Shimizu, and considered to be a highlight of his solo career. Shimizu was the bandleader of Mariah, who also saw their album Utakata No Hibi reissued by Palto Flats in 2015. Kakashi offers a similar blend of saxophone experimentations, jazz fusion and ambient dub excursions.

Released on Cherry Red in 1981, Threat To Creation spotted the collaboration between two mystical entities : Creation Rebel and New Age Steppers. Forerunners of the british dub scene the two bands shared several members, a who’s who of the On U-Sound school and key figures of the Bristol and London scene. Adrian Sherwood is – obviously – the man behind the desk a craftsman on its own, a character with no borders and one of the most sought after producer of the time. The supergroup is ran by post-punk stalwarts Bruce Smith (The Pop Group) on drums and Keith Levene (PIL) on guitar. Ari Up of The Slits sits on piano and organ, while masters Crucial Tony is both on bass and guitars. Members of African Head Charge – bass player George Oban, Eskimo Fox and Style Scott on drums – are welcomed addition to the line-up. Threat To Creation is still recognizable as an album ahead of its time, a futuristic blend filling the gap between the Jamaican heritage, the so-called (post) industrial revolution and the studio witchery of the whitey man.

NTsKi is a Kyoto-based artist and musician. She began making music while living in the UK and began working in earnest in 2017 after returning to Japan. She works seamlessly to create tracks with gentle but somewhat eerie vocals and a mixture of diverse musicality. In 2021, she was selected by Bijutsu Techo as one of the newcomer artists who will open up the 2020s. Her collaboration with 7FO, released through EM Records, was selected as one of the best of the year by Shintaro Sakamoto. In addition to her self-produced works, she has participated in the works of Giant Claw, CVN, Shokuhin Matsuri a.k.a foodman, Dengaryu, KM, etc., and has released through overseas labels including TAR and Orange Milk. Also, she has contributed music to the Japan Pavilion hosted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry at SXSW 2019, where Yoichi Ochiai was the general director, virtual singer te'resa, and an Australian bag brand. On August 6th, 2021, her debut album "Orca" will be released via Orange Milk / EM Records.

Liquid Liquid continued toward dance-floor perfection with their third EP. 1983's Optimo features the band's best-known songs and remains a high water mark for post-punk aficionados. The title track positively erupts when the bass enters, forcing even the stiffest person in the room to move. While it would be an understatement to say that "Cavern" may sound familiar (due to its gross sampling in Grandmaster Melle Mel's "White Lines"), Liquid Liquid were indeed the originators of this iconic New York riff.

Emotional Rescue completes the reissues of International Noise Orchestra with a final 6 track EP celebrating this true multi cultural project that takes elements of Afro, Balearic, Dub, Indian, Jazz, Soul and a touch of Pop in a global fusion.

The switch between pop and heavy drum jamming is showcased on opener, as the band take Lennon & McCartney’s Come Together and create a club meets Arabic mix. Pre-dating the post-Acid House “World Dance” years, Richard Strange returns with his unique delivery over a percussion meets rock guitar love in.

Returning to the band’s earlier Internationales Geräuschorchester incarnation, the soft piano opening of Vit Quai Non from their 1983 debut, gives way to Wolgang’s climbing solo acoustics alongside Joël Allouche’s masterful tabla.

Savage Progress’s Glynnis Thomas returns with her distinctive vocals over one-drop drumming for the encompassing title track, Marching In Time, before returning to their debut and the overlapping drum solos of Bum Bum Krach.

To close, the band revisit their signature shuffle, a now languid Groovin Up Slowly is delivered as some leftfield Japanese Gagaku solo. All Will Be Changed sees Richard Strange close with a fitting mantra to this 80s MIDI pop meets avant-garde artistry finale. Listen!!

Finally, Massicot's second album is here! As ever the groove is the key to Massicot's sound. Simple, seductive, and human. The band choreograph their way around the spaces between traditional spiritual story telling mysticism of Northern European pagan folklore and Latin and Middle-Eastern inspired polyrythms topped off with a little post-punk. As ever the arrangements are full and juicy whilst formed from the simplest elements. The bouncing percussive tapestries are coupled with thick pulsating basslines which form the meandering but tightly-wound rolling beats. Over which goes the accenting citric guitar hooks and the soothing Latvian chant-like choral vocal melodies. Massicot create a carnival dance that locks in the mind whilst luring the body. In true collaborative spirt this record is released in conjunction with our sister-label Spurge Recordings and also the good folks at Bongo Joe (Geneva) and Red Wig (Hamburg). No borders, ever.

RSD Drops limited edition with obi. Aesthetic techno-pop album in collaboration with Haruomi Hosono, following the previous album "Tutu". In addition to the original, it includes Barbara's chanson "In the Forest of Santamant". This reissue was pre-mastered by Haruomi Hosono and cut by Toru Kotetsu. The second album on the Alpha/YEN label (1984).

Los Angeles-based Iranian-American producer and DJ Maral introduces Push, her debut full-length album due on Leaving Records October 16 2020. Push is a confident step forward from Maral’s club & mixtape work into a powerful collection of original songs. Push’s palette includes a collage of Iranian Classical & Folk samples, and explores genres of experimental electronic production touching upon noise, punk/post-punk, and dub. Maral writes, “I think it represents me wanting the music to Push people towards thinking about sound/music in a different way and me pushing myself to create something new - different than my last record. As well as this feeling towards society - of wanting them to Push to be better and more forward thinking in how we can make the world a better place.”

“I try to incorporate the philosophy behind Iranian classical music, the importance of improvisation, by letting my samples play around with each other until they become friends. And if they click, that makes a good song,” says Maral. Push bursts with an urgent psychedelic energy, but its songs also grapple with a somber undercurrent. “The history of Iranian music has a lot of melancholy in it. So much of Iranian history is sad. Since ancient times, Iranians were always fighting off invasions.” Push heavily features the Setar, an Iranian lute instrument that Maral has played for years and the instrument of choice for Sufi mystics who use it to transcend beyond the notes. Maral adds, “The quiet nature of the Setar allowed it to flourish during times of invasion when Persian culture and music was banned and needed to be played/passed down in secret.”

The songs on Push feel vividly personal yet constantly besieged by harsh walls of distortion and abrupt shifts. Maral describes it as the sound of fleeting music, where “imaginary band members are being pulled back and forth by a supernatural vortex - suddenly they disappear and reappear as something new. I wanted this record to sound like I was in a band with the samples - where the samples are each a band member. I kind of see myself as the drummer in the band but also I have the lead vocal duties on ‘Sweet Thing,’ ‘No Type,’ and ‘Let The Distortion Sing.’” Releasing tracks with her vocals is a new step for Maral, who reworked the tracks “Sweet Thing” and “No Type” from experiments spanning 4 years with producer So Drove at the Red Bull Music Academy Studios in Los Angeles. They are both love songs, “Sweet Thing” a reassurance to a partner that being together will be “the sweetest thing,” and “No Type” a reinterpretation of the Rae Sremmurd song to say that the partner is “just my type, only thing that I like.” Maral describes Push’s sweeping, transient nature as “this feeling of driving in a car with the windows down and you have your own music playing but also can hear what’s going on outside, and the way those sounds can meld together to create a beautiful song for just a couple of seconds and disappear.”

Push’s marked punk and dub influences are reinforced by intriguing guest features from dub legend Lee “Scratch” Perry and Penny Rimbaud, co-founder of Anarcho-Punk band Crass. “The Penny Rimbaud song came about from me contacting him to show him Mahur Club and to tell him how much Crass has had an influence on me, sonically and philosophically,” Maral writes. “He suggested we collaborate and sent me a poem that I created the song around. The poem is about the events in Iraq and Gaza but can apply to much of the Middle East and the role of western imperialism in that region.”

Maral writes, “At the time that I was making the record, it was when U.S.-Iran relations were really bad. The songs with the Iranian samples have this feeling of spiritual melancholy that is an ingrained part of being Iranian, and I made them thinking about the horrible impacts the sanctions and in general USA’s actions have had on the country and how it just never lets up - the western imperialism that is hell bent on destroying the people in the guise of ‘saving them.’ The songs are kind of my battle of not letting the negative thoughts overcome me and wanting to pass down the beauty and feeling of perseverance that is a part of Iranian culture and music.”

Evocative, eclectic, intimate, and rhythmically complex, TRANSA contains everything that has made Caetano Veloso the most distinctive and, arguably, most important voice in modern Brazilian music. The album was recorded during Veloso's political exile in England but released in 1972 upon his return to his homeland. Though the songs are not overtly political, they seem allegorical, celebratory, and plaintive at once, and point to a tension between the artist's expressive impulse and the strictures of his native country. This tension is further heightened by the presence of lyrics in both English and Portuguese. The beautiful, desperate "You Don't Know Me" may be the world's first bilingual bossa nova/folk-punk anthem of identity. The jazzy "Nine Out of Ten" gives way to the gear-shifting "Triste Bahia," which features webs of accelerating Brazilian percussion. A spare treatment of the classic samba "Mora Na Filosofia," the cosmic ditty "Neolithic Man," and the 12-bar "Nostalgia" (ending with the wise line "That's what rock & roll is all about") close out the set. TRANSA is a jewel in Veloso's discography and a must for anyone interested in Brazilian pop--or brilliant, original pop in general.

Devo 's Hardcore documents the group's beginning as pre-punk outcasts in the fertile Akron, Ohio underground rock scene. Spawned at the nearby college of Kent State, site of the infamous May 4 Massacre, Devo formed as a conceptual art project armed with a radical philosophy of de-evolution. Mothersbaugh brothers (Mark, Bob, and Jim) and Casale Brothers (Jerry and Bob) along with drummer Alan Myers soon whipped up an otherworldly brand of "devolved blues" that could hold its own alongside the beatnik groove of 15-60-75 (aka The Numbers Band) or the primal rock poetry of the Bizarros.

Recorded on various 4-track machines and in tiny studios, basements, garages and between 1974-1977, Hardcore  Reveals Their strikingly clear vision: rock n 'roll stripped bare of its collective cool and jerked back into propaganda fit for the post-modern man. It's no surprise That These transmissions would soon catch the eye and ear of Brian Eno who later produced Their landmark 1978 debut album. Noisy synth, strangled guitar chops, and a primitive rhythmic thud power the early Devo sound. Threaded beneath it all are lyrical themes of post-McCarthy paranoia, middle-class ephemera, and Devo 's long-running topic of choice: sex, or lack thereof.

Few moments in pop music history can match the grinding, pent-up energy of "Mongoloid" and the spastic bounce and sputter of "Jocko Homo" (two anthems presented in Their earlier and superior versions here). Cult favorites like "Mechanical Man" and "Auto-Modown" make Volume 1 essential listening.

Superior Viaduct and Booji Boy Records are proud to present Devo 's Hardcore  to a new generation of spuds, lovingly packaged with Moshe Brakha's stunning cover photography. As David Bowie said in 1977 Devo is indeed "the band of the future."

When С крыш наших домов (S Krysh Nashikh Domov), the debut album by Molchat Doma, was released in 2017, it announced a bold new voice in underground music. The album found a passionate audience on Bandcamp and other streaming services and was released on CD and cassette. Sacred Bones Records is proud to present the album on vinyl for the first time.

Molchat Doma (translated as “Houses Are Silent”), founded in 2017 in Minsk, Belarus, stands at the intersection of post-punk, new-wave and synth-pop. Dark yet danceable, and with a heavy dose of goth ethos, their music is reminiscent of the masters that predate them, but make no mistake: Molchat Doma creates a sound and meaning that is immediately recognizable as all their own.  

The band is comprised of Egor Shkutko, who sings the Russian lyrics in his deep monotone, Roman Komogortsev on guitar, synths, and drum machine, and Pavel Kozlov on bass and synths.

Flaming Tunes' sole release is perhaps the finest elegy to the '80s home recording ethos that you've never heard. Originally released in 1985 on cassette (with individually hand-colored covers), this self-titled album grew out of the collaboration between childhood friends Gareth Williams and Mary Currie.

Williams is best known as a member of English art-rock band This Heat. After leaving the group in the early '80s, he travelled to India where he studied classical Kathakali dance – an experience that would profoundly shape the music of Flaming Tunes.

In an old Victorian house in South London, the duo recorded during the day while Currie's young son attended school and Williams conducted tape treatments at night. They were joined by various guests including This Heat guitarist Charles Bullen as well as long-term collaborators Martin Harrison and Rick Wilson.

Using whatever instruments they had on hand (clarinet, piano, bells, etc.), Flaming Tunes create lo-fi melodies around simple arrangements, oblique rhythms and densely layered natural sounds. The results are a mesmeric collage of instrumental daydreams and sideways pop songs, floating into one another in a hazy confluence of late '60s Canterbury psych-folk and early Residents experimentation.

All of these beguiling elements converge in a personal manner, quietly insistent in listeners' ears like the blood pulsing in one's veins on a warm summer day.

Personnel: Alan Vega (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Liz Lamere (vocals, keyboards, drums). Includes liner notes by Roy Trakin. After the dreary Deuce Avenue, Alan Vega returned to form with Power on to Zero Hour, which may seem a bit ironic since even more than Deuce, Power is cold, electronic, and dissonant. As futuristic as some of Vega's albums may have seemed before, this is the one that seems the most mechanical, primarily because Vega has stripped whatever human properties his music had before. Even his vocals, usually by turns manic and delicate, have a chilly, mechanical feel. Throughout the music is fuller than the spare minimalism of Suicide (or his early solo work), even though the album is a duo work from him and musician Liz Lamere, who also worked on Deuce. Here, however, the collaboration, while not as arresting as some of his other albums, is a bit more successful, mainly due to better songwriting. The hyper-kinetic "Sucker" is just one of many tracks that share a hopped-up drum and bass rhythm meshed with a catchy chorus. Vega also incorporates hip-hop rhythms; "Jungle Justice" even lifts the beat from Ice-T's "Lethal Weapon." Still, the relentlessly cold atmosphere tempers some of the musical inventiveness. Not a bad release, but not necessarily Vega's high point either. ~ Victor W. Valdivia

"Ein Weltleck in der Echokammer" is the tenth Schlammpeitziger opus and his second album to appear on the Hamburg-based label Bureau B. The first notes of the opening title track Weltleck instantly confirm that this is no run-of-the-mill record. Jo Zimmermann confounds expectations as he wraps the art-electro sound of Schlammpeitziger in otherworldly dub echo loops –a surprising, yet perfectly coherent development. Not that these eight sun-drenched tracks are exclusively in the realm of dub rhythm; they are also sprinkled with disco beats, beguilingly low-flying bass and dreamy, sweeping melodic arcs - everything for which we have come to love Schlammpeitziger. He launches us into outer space before bringing us back down to the prosaic dancefloors of earth.

Dark Arts "This is an anthology, a selection of old and new. It's a collection of the past but moving forward. It's past and future." Dark Arts is one of those bands that for some reason got lost in the shuffle. It was founded in Columbus, Ohio, by a man named Bob Katt, the "cool, older guy" who went to all the concerts in town and had been in a bunch of other bands. Initially there were five members: in '83 there was Bob on bass and percussion, singer Sue Ann Mason, drummer Dave Green, Bill Bruner on guitar and Stephanie Payne on keyboard. Katt is the one who brought everyone together and came up with the name: they were the 'art' band and they were 'dark'. Keyboard player Stephanie Payne, just like Katt, was also present at every musical happening. Young and eager, she would turn out to be the motor and musical mastermind of the group. When she decided to move to Los Angeles, California, Sue-Ann and new member Larry Altvater decided to tag along. By the time they made their first full album, on Phil Druckers (Savage Republic and 17 Pygmies) label Nate Starkman and Son, they had split up. Payne decided to move on and continued the band by herself, ever finding new musicians. High Street After the fall of '80, when she was at art school, Payne became more outspoken, headstrong and flamboyant. Driven by her love for music, she would eventually become a forerunner in the local scene of Columbus. The place to be back then was the (now unaffordable) High Street area. To ‘go out’ at the time was simply walk this street up and down. She and her friends would hang out there, check out the record stores, do graffiti at night (Payne on high heels). This also meant getting into altercations and even get spit on by jocks. High Street lay next the Ohio State University campus, the home of the only real music club in the city, maybe even the state: Crazy Mama's. Everyone would go there for dancing and live concerts. Payne would scour music magazines and buy the weekly imports at the local record shops. Columbus youngsters would drive to Chicago or other cities to see the big bands and hunt for new music. There, Payne would beleaguer the city shop clerks, asking for their personal recommendations. Since what she liked was often not accessible, Payne took up DJ'ing at Crazy Mama's. "I played hard bands, because I liked pissing people off and then we could use our fists on the dancefloor. I would get into trouble because of this slamdancing. I'd also practice dancing at home, had to make sure I knew where all the breaks were, so I could look cool on the dancefloor. Dancing was so important back then, we called it 'going to church'." Whenever Payne discovered new music, she'd be dying to present it. Due to the lack of venues and accompanying new music, she became a promotor, brought several bands into town and founded her own club night under the guise of "School For Barbarians". The Art Band Asides from art school, promoting concerts, DJ'ing and record hunting Payne kept making music. Before Dark Arts, she played in The Girl Boys, a Janus-faced band that was either light, silly and acoustic but could also deliver a hard, dark, electric live set. The same applied to Dark Arts. Their wide-ranging music has a fey, nearly spiritual quality, drifting between folk music, ambient, Eastern European beat patterns and new wave. They were the 'art band' of Columbus, divergent, always changing their sets. They would print crafty flyers, project films and set up special lighting. "When we played live, we would bring out lawnmowers, pots and pans and pipes we would smash rhythmically with a mallet. Anything that made noise. And then there was also the kraut-influenced, more ambient Dark Arts. I loved percussion, I loved beautiful things, but then, I could also whip out a chainsaw, you know." Their first gig was in Bernie's Bagel & Deli, as Toy Division, playing Joy Division covers on toy instruments. Dark Arts' second show was a country and western themed performance. The next concert was held with a huge crowd, with 400 alternatives, punkrockers, people from Cleveland, Cincinnati and Payne's own mom in attendance. They were the support act for Big Black, Steve Albini's punk rock band, whom Payne had written a "big stupid collaged fan letter". He liked them and issued their first EP, A Long Way From Brigadoon on his Ruthless Records in 1985. Later that year Dark Arts opened for Cocteau Twins, who were on their first USA tour. After the move to L.A., Dark Arts was featured on the compilation The October Country (1987), issued on Phil Druckers label as well. Because of her work in the music industry and through Drucker, Payne encountered a lot of gifted musicians. She met most of the people on Reflections in a rear view mirror through Phil or because of her work in record stores and for indie distribution companies. In 1991, Carnival of Lost Souls (Nate Starkman and Son) was mastered by Biff Sanders and with him she later on created the 7" Jola Dool (1995), self-issued on School for Barbarians. Four years later Something Once Whispered to Cava - Cava referring to Payne's cat - came out on Falçata-Galia. "Melodies will come to me. I have a really old eighties Ensoniq ESQ-1 keyboard, it's ancient. I store sequencies in its memory banks, leave ideas in it, like snippets. Then something will just stick in my head and I go back to it and keep working on it and working on it." For the release concert of the Cava album, she gathered a live band around her. Payne played the dulcimer, piano, percussion, flute and melodica (amongst other sound-making objects), Sharon Berman accordion, ballophone, recorder and drums and Juan Wijngaard worked his self made hurdy gurdy, the recorder, mouth harp and percussion. During those living-room jam sessions, Dark Arts' most recent work came about. "There were always bands, before Dark Arts and after. It mattered less who I made music with, as long as I made it. Whenever opportunities present themselves, I make music. I'm forever writing music , continually meeting new people to work with. It's ongoing, it's something inside."

This Heat's Charles Bullen started this project with his friend Julius Cornelius Samuel after the band broke up, and the result is Lifetones, an eclectic mix of dub, post-punk, and krautrock that combines ethnic exoticism with UK streetwise elegance. The band's only release, "For A Reason" from 1983, has been reissued for the first time!

The title track, with its dubby strings and catchy chorus, makes you squirm in agony at the distortion of the acoustics coming at you in the latter half of the song, as well as the lo-fi sound of the equipment used in the post-punk era. In addition to the remastered original tapes, the album comes with a booklet with valuable photos and liner notes, and a gatefold jacket. This is a definitive reissue that will bring tears to the eyes of old and new post-punk fans!

New Age Steppers" is the first release from UK dub genius Adrian Sherwood's ON-U SOUND label. The project, which brought together 17 of the foremost artists of the time such as the Pop Group, Slits, and Creation Level, with Adrian at the center, created an unprecedented sound that went far beyond the categories of rock, punk, new wave, reggae, and dub. This is the first vinyl reissue in 40 years of a classic album that undoubtedly represented the 80's scene and is still appreciated for its innovation year after year!

Familiar with Adrian Sherwood's production !! Members Janine Rainforth and Tony after the dissolution of The Pop Group, a famous band known for the feat of the monumental "Y (Last Warning)" that released post-punk into a truly free territory. The only work left by Maximum Joy, the treasure of Bristol formed by Wrafter, is vinyl reissue !! A radical world view that greedily mixes punk with funk, jazz, dub, soul, afro beat, and even reggae. And Maximum Joy, a legendary group who pushed forward with a unique sensibility to make it pop. The angry mixture groove that jumps over the boundary between black music and white music, and the horn and glossy bass that play cheerfully even in chaos create an outstanding sound field. Massive Attack ~ Young Echo, Bokeh Versions is a model of "Bristol Sound" symbolized by free and experimental music !!

Bastion, an unknown synth-pop band active in the 1980s in Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, a South European nation that was a member of Yugoslavia, released in 1984 on Yugoslavia's national label PGP RTB. Is the first vinyl reissue from ACC Records, a UK reissue label that started with the support of Resonance FM's radio program "A Colder Consciousness"! Bastion was one of the earliest electronic bands in Macedonia, and the self-titled work was disbanded shortly after its release. The lyrics of this album were written by the country's renowned film director Milcho Manchevski, and Bastion's songs are also used in his masterpiece "Before the Rain" (1994). A spacey synth pop with a lovely singing voice by two female vocals, and a sophisticated finish that is as stylish as the western band. Limited edition with remastering specifications.

The originally minimalist song, combined with the rhythm box that keeps ringing lightly and the lyrics that have been scraped to the limit, repeats in the brain, and finally hums "Love my misfortune". Dangerously addictive music. Handle with care. -Moppy (Soi48)

Love generously robs us, and love tears us apart ... all the crystals of loss that were once launched beyond post-punk are now regaining glare! A collection of phantom sound sources by the late Kiyoaki Iwamoto, finally lifted after about 40 years !!!-Tamotsu Mochida (factory worker and real industrial writer)

There used to be a musician who buried his past and disappeared. Its name is Kiyoaki Iwamoto. I don't know the reason. What we know is that we have left behind a "super-translation" cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart," which surprised even the minimum original songs and ECD.

Iwamoto appeared in the post-Tokyo rockers era scene and participated in that "Urban News" as a post-punk band . After the dissolution of Birei, he formed Guys Doll with Fuyusato Kudo and released "Hard Rock Album" (1984) under the joint name with Kudo. After that, the news disappears.

This work is the only solo work "SOUGI" (1983) that Iwamoto independently produced by Kojima recording, a rework of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Chisako and Junta, and NOISE "Emperor" by Tori Kudo and Reiko somewhere. It is the addition of an unreleased song by Rei Mi, which is reminiscent of. Iwamoto's four original songs, including the song "In the Sad Town" from the beautiful era, have a rhythm box, several chords played on guitar and bass, and short poems that look like they have been cut down. It is a characteristic of Japanese punk / new wave that frustrating emotions hit the inside of oneself, but Iwamoto's humorous vocals seem to amplify the frustration even more, and Joy Division's "super translation" has a nihilistic climax of loss.

Was "SOUGI" a "funeral"? ?? Michio Kakutani would have responded. The untouchables of the 80s indie film continue to shake us and bite those who want to be loved!