I’m sure I may have mentioned this before, but I am now convinced more than ever that Kawabata Makoto never sleeps, cos’ here he come again, this time as part of three piece band (The unpronounceable) Xyosfbigkou. Featuring Nanjo Asahito on bass, Yoshida Tatsuya on drums, and the insomniac Kawabata on guitar, the trio kick up a righteous storm of noise as they work there way through Acidmothers noise, jazz-tinged improv and plain old Psychedelic chaos. Although there are separate tracks, the gaps between them just seem like punctuation as the band amphetamine their way through the album in a Hendrix meets Coltrane meets Sun Ra kinda way. Mad but brilliant. Rumbles October 2006 / TERRASCOPE
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Welcome return for Nanjo Asahito (High Rise et al) and Makoto Kawabata's (Acid Mothers) original power/jazz/skronk trio featuring drummer Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins et al). Studio recordings, tho I'm guessing they're archival as I don't think the trio are actually functional anymore (tho back when they were together they were still gloriously dysfunctional). Most of the tracks here sound like later Transonic, with the clean jazz/Beefheart sound amplified and less of the groaning amphetamine riff downs that were eventually farmed out to Mainliner but man, this trio really turned my head around back when they first toured the UK in the early-90s and it feels swell as hell to have something new from em to grip. Highly recommended.volcanic tongue


Those who've been paying any attention at all to the extremes of the Japanese prog/psych underground should already be familiar with the band Musica Transonic (responsible for five prior albums on hometown Tokyo label PSF, and one also on Fractal, their last one which came out five long years ago). At the very least, you know the three musical madmen who make up this power trio: drummer Tatsuya Yoshida of Ruins, guitarist Kawabata Makoto of Acid Mothers Temple, and bassist Nanjo Asahito of High Rise. This heavy duty improv freakout summit of theirs is thus a veritable supergroup. All three of these guys have also played together in the band Mainliner. If all that means something to you, then we're pretty sure the news that there's this new 2007 album released on the cool Polish label Vivo ought to be just about enough to get you to want a copy! Or, read on...
This long-running act hasn't changed too much this time 'round. Imagine a hyper-active Blue Cheer abandoning the biker-blues riffs to play instrumental freeform jazz instead. Psychedelic skree spills forth as the band settles in to a variety of unsettled grooves. Passages of moody noodilyness collide with amped-up ADD frenzies. Essentially the album title XYOSFBIGKOU (and equally jumbled-looking track names like "Rtufujowvyt" and "Qoixvudgdoasv"), while cryptic, actually give some sense of what Musica Transonic is about. All caps (loud!!), can't understand it (crazy!), but must make some sense somehow to someone (chops?). You'll feel jumbled too after listening to this sonic spooge, sounding somewhere betwixt Lightning Bolt and the Wes Montgomery Trio or something.
This recording is not as blown into-the-red as their early stuff, though no less spastic, and also is not nearly as lumberingly "metallic" as their last one, the aptly-titled Hard Rock Transonic, but boy do they grind it out with lots o' feedback on the title track at the end of the album! http://www.aquariusrecords.org