Worshipping japanese hardcore since the day before yesterday!
Masturbation’s 12″ titled Higaimōzō, meaning persecution complex or paranoia, was released on ADK records in 1984. Musically, its 6 tracks are pretty similar to their 7″ from the same year: dark, brooding and ominous, often atonal, mostly slow, a crude mix of punk, hardcore and post-punk. As far as I know this was their last release during their existence; most of their stuff was later re-released on a couple of compilation CDs, with bonus live tracks thrown in.
Zolge (sometimes called The Zolge) played an interesting mixture of dark punk, hardcore and deathrock. There are obvious parallels to bands like The Mobs or maybe even early Danse Macabre, but none of these comparisons really fit. The Zolge were musically a bit weirder (and cooler imo) in what they were doing, with less blunt Oi! or metal influences. “Crisis, My Guest” was released in 1984, and the Zolge kept on releasing music into the nineties.
If I am not completely mistaken, Tōkyō Rockers was originally a video documenting Tōkyō’s 78/79 punk scene, with this LP of live performances being released by CBS/Sony as the soundtrack. All the bands are kind of experimental, somewhere between Post-Punk, New Wave and Punk. Friction are jangly, noisy and aggressive on this recording. They kept releasing stuff at least up into the nineties, I’m not sure if they ever split up. Mr. Kite, who seemed to have named themselves after a song by the Beatles (ack, again), are slower and more quiet, and only released one 7″ of their own. Mirrors are mid-tempo punk with somewhat dissonant guitars; they later released two 7″es. S-Ken produced psychedelic pop music with wah-wah pedals and synths, and managed to release on LP afterwards. Lizard! (exclamation mark!) are the undisputed winners on this comp with two awesome, bouncy synth-heavy tracks. Sadly missing from this compilation are SS who also recorded live tracks for this release. One song (Mr. Twist) can be found on youtube for all those who want to know just how much more awesome this -already awesome- LP could have been!
Posting this 7″ somehow feels completely out of step with the theme of my blog, yet here I go… Thug Murder are one of the very few (if not the only) melodic street punk bands I actually enjoy listening to. Maybe it’s because they’ve got lots of energy and the occasional thrashy hardcore song; maybe it’s because they really sound like they enjoy the music they are playing. Anyway, they seemed to be kinda popular some time in the early 2000s after touring with the (ack!) Dropkick Murphys before splitting up after only one LP and a 7″. The LP is still widely available for cheap, this 7″ is a bit harder to find.
This 2009 posthumous release of Paintbox’s 7″es came in three versions, as a CD, as a double LP and as an LP. As this here is only the single LP version, it has less tracks than the other two. Still, it’s got Paintbox’s S/T 7″, their The Door/Provided Railroad 7″, the Back Reporter 7″, the Cry Of The Sheeps 7″ (drool, drool!), an awesome cover of Ghoul’s Judas/Intro off the tribute to Masami, plus their Poison Idea tribute.
狂気の日本 