electr-ohm
Coming from the small country Holland, Japan and other countries in the far east were always covered within mysterious clouds. Way (way!) back in the 80's when I still listened to metal there was the band Loudness who were for me one of the first revelations from Japan.
As I got older and the music I played got a bit more intelligent - to say it very carefully - I discovered Merzbow, Dissecting Table, Contagious Orgasm and other Japnoise acts.
And now, after another long journey of exploration, a 'new' aspect from the Japanese culture is back in my CD player. And as I am really late with disovering the electr-ohm label - shame on me, they've been around since 2001 - I am luckily still in time to tell you all about the brilliance that is this sampler.
From the sixteen tracks on this CD ten are from Japanese origin. The other six are from France, Germany, Belgium and Holland. And when we go namesdropping you will be surprised when those bands are (amongst others) Flint Glass, Empusae, Lith and Noize Creator.
The one (for me) known Japanese name is Sunao Inami. His track on the Notochord sampler rocked my world with its minimalistic Vromb / Autechre-like sounds. And also his tracks on this sampler are quite intelligent; No samplemania, but straight forward complex rhythmpatterns that keep on confusing you, combined with high frequencies and lead lines.
A few of the other Japanese artists are In center of circle, who is on the CD with two tracks. His tunes are basically built from very nice Raster Noton like glitchnoise. Yumi Matsui, whose track is probably the most experimental track of this sampler, creates ambient contactsounds, glitchlike idm - or idm-ish glitch - with a nice minimal bassline. And finally I would like to mention the track 'acdeefhlmmnoooprsty' by Daisuke Ohkoshi. This track is just as weird as the title; Incomprehensible leadlines creating an opening in the mind for the freakazoid patterns and tweaks to enter. Sadly it is just over 1 minute !!!
I wouldn't be surprised if this CD made it into my top 10 of this years releases.
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