Fushitsusha bootleg archive

 
Busyness with wrestling the great firewall and some personal matters meant that I couldn't post here for a little bit. I did, however, find an old empty cloud I have, so I felt like putting it to some good use.

Fushitsusha are a legendary band from the Japanese underground. Any description besides "experimental" would feel incorrect to apply to their vast body of work, which started originally as a duo between Haino and synthesist Tomio Shiraishi in 1978, but would very soon reform as a power trio, an instrumental line-up which would change from time to time, but is their staple. Of course, Haino is a multi-instrumentalist (known to be able to play more than 80 instruments), and this was often reflected in performances, and while the bass guitar and drumkit backing band would sometimes have it's form changed, be it through addition or subtraction, it has become their best known configuration since it started. Various members have come and gone, but other than Haino himself, the most well known member is bass guitarist Yasushi Ozawa, who's signature fuzzy yet clear tone had been a staple since he joined the band, some time in the 80s. Their first official release would go on to be recorded and released in 1989.

Contained within are various bootlegs I could find, mostly in lossless compression, directly taped at live shows. The archive is split into two: unlabeled bootlegs, and the Secret Black Box. With regards to the unlabeled ones, most of these came with .txt files with some context, sometimes revealing a wealth of information, sometimes revealing a distinct poverty of it. Others come with more than just a .txt, others come with absolutely nothing besides the raw files. Secret Black Box is a recording of a single live show, performed on the 13th of December, 2003, after the departure of drummer Ikuro Takahashi. The band simply carried on as a duo between Haino and Ozawa, and with regards to its contents, I will let the words written by an anonymous bootlegger speak here:

I'm going to finish this Fushitsusha series off with the granddaddy of all marathons, which clocks in at about 7 hours. They took no breaks other than to get set up at different instruments from time to time. After the August marathon, I knew to prepare myself: don't drink any liquids for a few hours prior, bring some food, extra tapes and batteries. I should have brought a pillow, given the chairs they had there. I once asked Haino how he did this show with no bathroom break. His response: Shhhh'.It's a secret. I lasted about 5.5 hours, but the splice is pretty much unnoticeable. 

The bootleg on this archive, however, was recorded by Phil Snider to demonstrate the capabilities of the aRCHIVE records label. A copy was directly given to Haino, who was impressed enough that he had approved for some of his following recordings outside of Fushitsusha to be released on it. The box set itself has reached a legendary status among Haino bootleggers, both due to the care taken when recording it, and the performance within. There are plenty of bootlegs due to his open approval of bootlegging his performances, which are often traded around as CDrs, but this one represents an apex, of sorts, that no bootleg had reached yet.

Out of dedication to quality curatorship, I will update the archive within reason. The cloud drive's limit is 20 gigabytes, of which almost 16 are already taken up by the unlabeled ones, and Secret Black Box is 2 and a half on its own. Some serious work was put in by all these traders, and while I may be the one assembling the collection, ultimately we have them to thank after Haino himself for being able to hear any of this. The nature of the anonymity of most of them means we most likely never can, though.

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Atsushi Tsuyama Archive + short descriptions

 Here's who I consider to possibly be the most overlooked musician in the history of the artform. Atsushi Tsuyama had appeared periodically since the early 80s on recordings and in various obscure bands, though he rose to a sort of minor stardom in 1997 when the band Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. needed a bassist. They had just released their debut CD, which had years worth of session bass work, so when they wanted to start performing live, he joined the band without any struggle. Despite of this intended role, he would quickly take over as lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, both on stage in the studio. He would leave the group in 2015 to dedicate himself to his job as a mountain ranger in Nagoya, which he had been doing part time for 40 years prior. Nevertheless, his output has not ceased, and this archive will also sadly not cover albums released during his tenure with AMT, it would probably reach a terabyte. The rest of his music still retains his core characteristics - an unbelievably effective blend of goofy humor, serene elegance, and unbridled experimentalism, switching between all of them at the drop of a hat.

Here's a quick summary of each project in the archive - a full, comprehensive guide will be written eventually. 

Atsushi Tsuyama (albums released solely under his name) - His 2010s solo works, which I consider to be defining of his solo style, are among the finest folk music I ever heard, though precise definitions are hard here, as many have some more experimental pieces in spots and an approach to folk that he refers to as "fake European trad", with occasional guest appearances from musicians close to him. The most obvious influences are Celtic and Occitan, but it's generally difficult to point it to a precise traditional school. Bonus points for the various approaches to lyrics, from (broken) English to Occitan to his native Japanese to gibberish. The 90s only had the 1996 CD Henry the Human Horse, again a collection of beautiful, almost chamber folk pieces, with some occasional more experimental tracks (the sound collage Slipper, for instance, in which his primary instrument is a slipper, comes to mind). The 2000s are his most experimental period as a solo musician, with 2001's Is This A Pencil or A Sheep?, also an acoustic guitar and vocal solo album, drenched in so much delay, reverb, and synth effects that it takes on the form of cosmic folk, along with the CDr Oiwai [御祝] (released on digital in 2006 as Raichou [雷鳥]), which contains everything from analog synth based ambient pieces, to overdubbed noisy rock n roll pieces, to more folk, to a Pink Floyd tribute piece, to a cover of the main theme of the 1966 spaghetti western film Django. As of writing, even after becoming a grandfather, he still records new solo albums, with this year seeing the concurrent release of an LP of nothing but acoustic guitar, and a CD of nothing but electric guitar, both firsts in his discography. An extraordinary musical mind and talent.

Akaten - One of the projects which remains largely unknown outside its homeland by comparison, but is relatively well known in Japan, and listening to the music it's not hard to see why. 赤天, meaning red heaven, is the name of both a fictional convenience store chain and the duo that invented it, formed in 1995, consisting of Tsuyama and Tatsuya Yoshida, a legendary kit thrasher of many bands in the Japanese prog, jazz, and experimental music scenes, and one of Tsuyama's most frequent musical working partners. They actually share instrumental and writing credits more or less entirely on all their releases, with the music itself being described as "convenience store punk [...] with the motto of irresponsibleness and perfunctoriness". What this means is that the music is a strange version of the typical avant-prog of Yoshida, done with poppier arrangements and plenty of synthwork (both men record guitars, percussion, and keys), done in a style resembling jingles and other forms of advertisements, frequently incorporating found objects, largely from things to be typically found in a convenience store (all their album packaging is meant to represent sushi boxes, except for their last, Chateau de Akaten, which instead resembles a wine label), which on stage manifests as a strange prop comedy act, and much of the lyrics are based around short Japanese puns (I suspect this to be the reason their attention is overwhelmingly domestic) with some unifying theme, most notably coherent when in the forms of suites: Wild Birds, Ramen Shop, National Parks, etc. It's very lighthearted and silly music that can put a smile on your face. Part of the Japanese New Music Festival.

Dare Devil Band - A band led by famous (by free jazz standards) Japanese drummer Shoji Hano, known for his physicality when performing, with Tsuyama, on bass guitar, bridging the rhythm and lead section, which consists solely of Kawabata Makoto, guitarist and leader of the legendary "trip music" collective Acid Mothers Temple, and frequent collaborator of Tsuyama. Get used to seeing his name. Regardless, this group is the only serious jazz effort from these 2, although it's in a remarkably free vein. The groups name comes from Dare Devil, an early 90's collaboration between Hano and the German legendary reedsman and defining player of the European free jazz genre, Peter Brötzmann. Hano intended for the name of the CD to be Wild Boar, but apparently something got lost in translation, and he found the word cool enough to use it as a band name. While it's very "out" by jazz standards, it can feel almost relaxed by the standards of Tsuyama and Kawabata. Almost. They had a CD on the legendary PSF records, Inomusha, recorded live in 2003, and several releases on the Chinese label UFO Creations, which aims to continue the legacy of PSF. These include the CD The Lost Tape, recorded during the promotional tour for the PSF CD held on the year of release, and a trio of cassette releases, recorded live across western Japan in 2015. Kawabata shows remarkable restraint compared to many of his other works, and Tsuyama gets to show off his chops on both electric bass and whatever instrument he was allowed to bring in, plus his standard vocalese. It makes for a pretty unique listen in the discographies of all involved.

Nankai Hawkwind - A group which had 2 shows ever, one in 1985 which got a 7 inch vinyl release, and one in 1989. The 7 inch EP has rather poor recording fidelity, but when you look at the band name and see that other members of the line-up, which include Yamatsuka Eye (Boredoms, Hanatarashi) and Naoto Hayashi (Hijokaidan), it shouldn't come off as a surprise that the A-side is indeed more or less a noisier version of what Hawkwind is known for, short and sweet. The B-side is just a recording of the audience though. For 3 minutes. Just one minute shorter than the A-side. I question what the point of releasing this was but I suppose it doesn't hurt.

Nishinihon - His least strange? It could be. A "hard rock group obsessed with the good old rock music of the sixties and seventies", formed in 1999, with Tsuyama on acoustic and bass guitars, backed by Kawabata Makoto's guitar and Ichiraku Yoshimitsu's drums (Tsuyama is explicitly advertised as the leader and songwriter here). Kawabata's shredding and Tsuyama's intricate (definitely by hard rock standards) basslines propelled by Yoshimitsu's grooves and fills, as Kawabata tears through scales and Tsuyama through his voice; the most experimental trait here is the vocal performances, which are reminiscent of his Captain Beefheart impression, though he occasionally does clean vocals as well, and there's also the on point Robert Plant parody on Let's Zeppelin. And perhaps I'm just seeing things, but Uchida U-Ya definitely resembles a rewriting of Guru Guru's Bo Diddley. If you're looking for more of his unique avant-garde fill, check elsewhere, but this is some damn fine, diversely written rock 'n' roll.

Omoide Hatoba - A band formed in 1987, with guitarist Yamamoto Seiichi (who would later join Boredoms) and drummer Chu Hasegawa. Tsuyama played bass guitar, though the band was heavily immersed in multi-instrumentalism, with many guest musicians as well, and it took until the 90s for any recordings to see release. Chu would leave after the release of Kinsei, and various guest drummers would fill in. I can count how many groups I can't even remotely square into any genre on one hand, and this is the first that comes to mind. Effortlessly and rapidly switching from rock to pop to funk to electronic to even jazz and blues or the plainly experimental, it's some of the most refreshing music I can think of. For anyone seeking ridiculous album credits, this band has some pretty good samples.

Psyche Bugyo - His main(?) band as of writing, with an ever morphing lineup, the only member that remains from the outset of the group being drummer Nani Satoshima (who would later join as the drummer of Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O., a position which he still holds, as of writing), the rest being mainly various people connected presently and formerly with AMT, with him handling many instruments, which always includes vocals and both acoustic and electric(!). The music itself is an attempt at rendering old-school style prog through a more modern psychedelic sound (some of their albums being sold in krautrock sections, apparently), with all their CDs being concept albums themed around Jidai-geki (Japanese historical fiction) parodies. Pentatonic scales are obviously abound, but it combines a sort of triumphant, cinematic sound with Tsuyama's trademark silliness. Compared to a lot of more old school style prog, it's just a lot of fun.

Ruinzhatova - A collaboration band between Omoide Hatoba and Tatsuya Yoshida's most famous band, the zeuhl duo Ruins, started in 1994. Features the full lineup of both bands (and reflects them both shrinking with time, Chu [Omoide Hatoba] having left after their debut, Sasaki Hisashi [Ruins] having left after their sophmore). Like every Tsuyama and Yoshida collaboration, this is hard to categorize, but this makes the respective bands seem very unimaginative by comparison, it's interesting in the same way that looking through bullet proof glass at a furious rabies patient juggling between mainlining PCP, banging against the aforementioned glass, and flailing around while screaming is interesting. There's honestly so much crammed into every release that I wouldn't do justice summarizing any of it in this text, it'll definitely be the most fun part of the guide to write about.

Seikazoku - A band with an unknown exact origin, although the only story I could find about their formation (from a reputable Japanese prog reviewer, Keishiro Maki) claims they formed spontaneously in 1996 to do an improvised stage play(?), which got released as the album Out Takes '66~'78 (complete with fake liner notes based on the title). The members are Tsuyama, Yoshida, and Kawabata, with none as the leader, a true free improv group in their spirit and sound. The aforementioned debut credits Tsuyama with everything from bass to kazoo, Yoshida from drums to oboe, Kawabata from guitar to shamisen, with the instrumentation only getting marginally less colorful on the albums that followed. Has the same line-up as Acid Mothers Temple SWR, although they play notably different styles, which is why the other bears the Acid Mothers Temple name and is considered one of the primary units of the AMT family. Part of the Japanese New Music Festival.

Tarikuotoko vs. Sanmayakuonna - The band name (kanji: 大陸男対山脈女) translates roughly to "Mainland man vs. Mountain Range woman". A very interesting concept from Yoshida, who wrote most of the music, with the idea being that it's a band where much of the line up plays instruments they rarely touch, with Yoshida playing bass, for example. Their music is in an odd style which I could best describe as a fusion of zeuhl and new wave, definitely camp and goofy, but also highly enjoyable to listen to. I chose to include it here as Tsuyama was a permanent member of the line up, playing electric guitar.

Zoffy - His duo with Kawabata Makoto. Formed in 1997, the very same year he would join AMT, it's certainly among the absolute strangest things either men have ever been involved with. Describing themselves as "contemporary troubadours", it's really 2 concepts rolled into one: highly deconstructed covers of classic rock songs, and faux folk, both done with overdubbing instruments and also performed live, in either case with highly varying quantities of avant-garde elements. All of their CDs fall into the category of "difficult listening", it's at least up there in terms of experimentalism with Omoide Hatoba, but much much more uninviting. I've listened to them enough to consider it more enjoyable than the output of a lot of other groups listed here, but it's much more daring and will come off to the average listener as either an acquired, bitter taste, or a cheap prank.

Contemporary Music To The World

Yes, a good portion of this was written while dangerously sleep deprived. I'll clean it up eventually.

In search of the Bavarian cheetah: the case of Guru Mani Neumeier's Neue Abenteur

Above is the cover art for the 1983 LP Guru Mani Neumeier's Neue Abenteuer. The slightly punny German in the title translate to "new adventure", which fits the music contained on the record, as much as I can hear of it, anyway. You may have noticed that I don't mention the authorship of the album, because it's not certain, even from official sources: the Guru Guru website says this is Mani Neumeier's solo debut, while his personal site listed this as a Guru Guru studio album. It seems various internet databases can't decide either, ask prog archives and discogs, they will give different answers, as will rateyourmusic and babyblaue. No more helpful is the information on the packaging: the back cover says Guru Guru, the center label says Mani Neumeier. I remain undecided, myself.

Looking back, It's no secret that Guru Guru aren't sticking to the exact style that they started with since their formation in 1968. Say what you will about their music after the departure of Uli Trepte, they were always morphing, always evolving. While the debut release, UFO, is still a personal favorite, I have thoroughly enjoyed every album since. Guru Guru are possibly the only rock (with a loose definition of the genre) band to still put out downright amazing fresh recordings in their advanced age, all the while still putting on a great show on stage. 2000 Gurus was praised on it's release for the seamless integration of emerging musical technologies into the instrumental palette, and much the same could be said of their, as of writing, latest release, The Incredible Universe of Guru Guru. Mani is 85 years old and still shows no signs of slowing down.

The 80s are a particularly polarizing period of the band's output, though. 1981's Mani in Germani didn't sway the naysayers for their newer direction, new wave, you could say even, because that's exactly what the album opens with. This felt like a radical departure from the band's most well known sound of fuzzy, spacey, krautrock jamming, even more so than the already widely denounced disco and funk leanings on Hey Du. Of course, to claim that Guru Guru ever compromised for the sake of selling records is plainly ridiculous, Hey Du still ends with the 10 minute Atommolch, and in the case of Mani in Germani, Jupiter God and the entire B side are much closer to the aforementioned well known sound (and executed quite well, at that), but that didn't stop the complaints. "Sellouts!", cried the listeners who wanted to stand for some kind of underground conformity, rather than just enjoy good music, even though Guru Guru faded into obscurity by this point compared to their heyday. One can only count their blessings for the fact that Mani didn't care about money nor fame, whether it came from the mainstream or the underground.

And then after Mani in Germani, came the subject of today's write-up, released on Biber Records, a small label in a village on the outskirts of the German Black Forest (seriously). Adding to the aforementioned confusion regarding the authorship of this album, the line-up is not identical to any other Guru Guru release, consisting of a strict quartet, with no members besides Mani himself being credited on any of their other releases, with the exception of Kraan guitarist Peter Woldbrandt, who additionally plays bass on this album, as well as being credited with just guitar on the 1975 revival album Mani und seine Freunde. The other 2 members are keyboardist "Lord Patexx", supposedly an alias for Thomas Balluff, of Exmagma, and "Chowmeier", a supposed alias for Philipp Meier, who played bass under the nickname Maggi for the band Fuckin' Gute Bürgerband [sic], who shares bass and guitar duties with Peter, and vocal duties with Mani, who is also credited here with the standard nonspecific drums and percussion.

The music itself, unfortunately, remains woefully fragmented to us mortals. There is one rip I could find, which I have put for download here. The problem becomes immediate when comparing the length of the mp3 files to the tracklist:



Ouch. Some of the tracks are notably longer, some notably shorter, and of special note is Sweet Lion, which is almost two minutes shorter on the rip. Believe me when I say I have searched quite extensively on the web, as available to me, and all of them seem to be taken from the same shoddy source: loaded with crackles and the worst amount of needle skips I have ever encountered. Part of me wonders if this is a manufacturing error, or the lucky soul who somehow got a copy of this is just really bad at ripping vinyl.

Nevertheless, what we do have is a "diamond in the rough" situation in our hands. It starts off with the title track(?), a vaguely bluesy piano ballad, with... something, in German, on top, before kicking into a punk number, of sorts, a first for Guru Guru, which the band keeps stopping and starting, before shifting into a great guitar solo, that's immediately interrupted by the track ending. None of this mentions the needle skips, which aren't as severe as the rest of the album, all things considered. Der König ist Goldrichtig is more in the Neu Deutsche Welle style, though not exactly employed in the same way as on Mani in Germani, which can also be said of Miniskus, Schleimemeier, and Losverkäufer, which reeks particularly of the period, in a good way, though, while tracks like La Bimba and Sweet Lion veer into an endearing silliness, with the former being a Reggae song, just like Rangga Rannga, and the latter largely uncertain due to the amount of skipping. Much of the rest is in a more Jazz-Rock style, Reach on and Der Nestor particularly sounding like something that could appear on previous Guru Guru albums, and if the oft-repeated line of "Dance Of The Flames is Mani trying to be Mahavishnu Orchestra" is true, then Panzerfaust is more like him trying to be Steely Dan, which again I mean in a good way. All of this, of course, is under the assumption that the labeling from the rip is correct, which in all honesty I doubt.

The whole way the album is packaged, including the crudely (but again, endearingly) drawn cover art, paired with the music itself, fills me with an odd sense of anemoia. It feels like Guru Guru/Mani's attempt at integrating with the sunny, optimistic, and cheery musical zeitgeist of the period, and the resulting music resembles a lo-fi snapshot of it, covered in grain. Does it make it sound dated? A fair bit, yes, but that's both not inherently so bad, and it adds an undeniable charm to the proceedings, it's just that the charm is largely imbalanced by how broken the only way to listen to it on the semi-open internet is.

Mani's own hesitancy to get any of the 80s Guru Guru albums reissued (the only one that got this privilege on a physical release is Mani in Germani, with Jungle being delegated to a digital reissue on Spotify and Amazon) has not helped in the search for this album, nor has it's price and rarity (the photo I got above is from a German eBay listing, where this LP sells for close to €150, without shipping of course). If anyone is intrigued by either my words or the rip I hyperlinked earlier, please contact me with a better rip: you can see how in the sidebar. Doesn't matter if it's your own or you got it god knows where, the quality is of course preferred to be as good as you can manage, me and the dozens of other 80s Guru Guru fans will highly appreciate it.