Worshipping japanese hardcore since the day before yesterday!
The 12“ EP Icaros Descending was one G-Schmitt’s last records, released in 1988, one year before they disbanded. I’m not quite sure what to call the title track: it’s either a dark, 6-minute gothic tinged new wave song with an equally long, more adventurous reprise on side B, or it’s a 12-minute epos split in two halves. Side B also has the more electronic number Es (german for Id), but it’s dwarved in both style and length by the title track.
After a string of 7“ and 12“ e.p.s, this record from 1986 on Wechselbalg Syndicate was G-Schmitt’s first full-length release. Six great tracks of new wave and gothic rock between cold, adventurous, serene, dancable, melancholic and subtle, all made even greater by singer Syoko’s beautiful voice.
This is great compilation album of japanese mid-eighties gothic, new wave, post-punk and noisy avantgarde stuff. G-Schmitt are frail, beautiful and full of pathos, Madame Edwarda’s tracks definitely surpass the songs of their debut album, Auto-Mod deliver songs of dancable aggression and childlike wanderings (but less funk than on some of their 7“es), and Sadie-Sads’ tracks on this album are pure genius. And to make it all perfect, the title translates as…
狂気の日本 