Worshipping japanese hardcore since the day before yesterday!
Nikudan, the Human Bullet, one of the true greats of early 80s japanese punk. A unique mix of snotty punk, post-punkish dysphoria, and chaotic artiness. This LP is a recent bootleg a 2002 CD of previously unreleased recordings. It’s got a couple of unknown songs plus different versions of songs off their other records. Sadly the LP version misses a number of songs compared to the CD, and the tracklist was all mixed up.
1984’s Proletarian Sports by Niku-Dan is probably their most accessible release. It’s still the same cool mixture of weird punk and post-punk, but the songs are more upbeat, danceable and melodic than the ones on their self-titled 7″ and the split 8″ with Gas. Side A has 4 punk numbers with fucked up/great song titles like “Cinderella Scatology” and (roughly) “Stocking Collection Incident”, while side B has two more complex post-punk songs. And what about the great combination of the record’s title and the cover artwork?
I have no idea, whether Tim Yo would have been more merciful reviewing the first 7″ of Niku-Dan (which actually means Human Bullet, not Meat Hunter) compared to his review of their Split 8″ with Gas. The music on this flexi in my opinion is just as good, but a bit more accessible. The song structures that seemed to have bothered Tim Yo so badly are not yet as complex and the songs are more punk. Anyways, this is a great punk/post-punk 7″, so get it!
Instead of describing the Gas + 肉弾 Split 8″ myself, I just let the late and great Tim Yohannon of MRR do the talking. His review is just too good not to share:
“GAS is sort of a Japanese SIOUXSIE-in-more-pain-than-usual, with an accompanying hard post-punk backup. But watch out for those rock guitar solos and wah-wah pedals! NIKUDAN (MEAT HUNTER) is heavy on complex structures, high production, and atmospheric hard post-punk. All you “hardcore is passé” BIRTHDAY PARTY freaks will like it. I don’t.”
I guess I must be a “hardcore is passé” BIRTHDAY PARTY freak then!
Btw. Nikudan means something more like Human Bullet, not Meat Hunter.
狂気の日本 