Vajra - ふるゆきのまえにちるはのいみもしらず

Vajra - ふるゆきのまえにちるはのいみもしらず (1995)

This was Vajra's opening salvo and it was infernal to its psychedelic core. 

We've got both Keiji Haino and Kan Makami sharing insane vocal and guitar duties while Toshiaki Ishizuka takes care of percussion in this trio.

I think it was Keiji Haino who said in the pre-Napster/pre-Spotify 90s that he'd listened to something like thirty three thousand LPs so it's no surprise that this instrumental odyssey could be claimed by at least ten different genres: Psychedelic, avantgarde, cosmic, no-wave-y post-punk, improv, goth, shoegaze, folk, noise rock, black metal, post rock, drone etc. In a way I feel like it's closest to Swans in spirit and sound than anything else though.

I guess I'm talking about the song up until the 5:16 point where it then proceeds to become another song entirely. I still don't know what this second stage is exactly...some kind of absurd avant folk blues.

Haino and Makami are very rarely about comforting the listener with musical compositions similar to what you've heard before so whilst the first five minutes here seem to have a past within their present and future the remaining 27 minutes of Vajra's debut LP doesn't have such easily navigable coordinates. You need to be a fearless psychonaut to venture beyond this track which has the English translation Before The Snow Falls, Falling Leaves Have No Meaning as it was included on that Virgin comp Cosmic Kurushi Monsters sans the second part if I recall correctly.  

Vajra - Tsugaru (1995)

In the 90s I used to wonder; why isn't Keiji Haino (and his myriad of projects) a massive indie star on the same sort of level as Sonic Youth or at least as popular as Boredoms. After listening back to Vajra's brilliant 1995 cd Tsugaru today I can understand why. Maybe his other outfits Fushitsusha or Nijiuma could have been big though as they had more accessible potential whilst still being immensely dark in tone. 

I finally caught Haino live sometime in the early 00s in Melbourne and I have to say it was the least fun show I think I've ever been to. I honestly don't know how he did it. I can listen to the most unlistenable rackets at the best of times but on this bleak winter's evening on a week night he improvised the most discomforting dysphoric music possibly ever created. Haino assembled the most aesthetically displeasing sequence of sounds these ears have heard. He made Neubauten and Masonna sound like Herb Alpert but hang on perhaps that's a misnomer as noise artists actually often create music that's incredibly pleasing as it might have psychedelic or cathartic properties. No the music on this night while not sounding like a cross between Polka and Celine Dion style pop had a similar revolting aesthetic affect on me and my mate. Then again maybe we'd just smoked too much pot, drank the wrong amount of beer and were a bit grumpy.