The best phonkay electro jam. The futuristic atmosphere on this still electrifies today.
Jonzun Crew weren't just a a sequenced synthetic studio concept though, they liked to intermingle their technology with live playing making them perhaps a precursor to the original intentions of post-rock or maybe more accurately cyborg-rock. This term which never really took off was meant to categorise bands who mixed hands on real time playing with computerised and programmed technology, a man-machine music. Something about Jonzun Crew's electro funk is definitely different to most electro 12"s of the time giving them more of a timeless, swinging and expansive sound linking them to contemporaneous live funk groups like Gap Band, Zapp and Midnight Star.
*You gotta think INXS were fans as those instrumental sections in that break from 3:20 onwards bear an uncanny resemblance to a couple of tunes off their 1984 LP The Swing namely Melting In The Sun and Burn For You.
**Space is the place now more than ever (in our fantasies) as the abolition of liberty continues in the de-civilisation of the west era here on earth. If an autistic child being arrested in her own home for wrongthink doesn't alarm you to the horrors of our dystopia what more can I say.
Anti-nuke lyrics, industrial-style metal bashing, middle eastern synth breaks, a vocoder chorus and a prime electro beat. 1984 giving you more.
*Breakdancing, roller skating and the possibility of nuclear annihilation. Now one of these things is back in fashion when really what the world needs more of is roller skating and breakdancing.
For a start this is Disconcerto the opening track from the 1979 LP Cosmic Connection and not the title track. It's a synth-pop number done in the space-disco style with classic vocoderized vocals. Plenty of nods to the future here as well as many of its time traits. For synth history nerds, proto-house heads and those cataloguing every tune to ever use vocodered vocals. What a vibe, good stuff.
Yoshida Minako - Tornado (1980) That synthetic bass hook sound so beloved in tunes previously posted like Yarbrough & Peoples Don't Stop The Music, SOS Band's Just Be Good To Me and Chaka Khan's Ain't Nobodyrears its funky head here.
This is disco slowed to such a crawl that it's barely even boogie. Whatever it is, it's one of the great R&B tracks of 1980. The amazing thing is, it has gone unheard outside of Japan for thirty years until probably the mid-2010s when ye olde funky Japanese disco started getting western attention.
The synthetic bass is slowed to a veritable creak, you can hear the tape's been manipulated and decelerated filling Tornado with eeriness and dread. This slow jam is also notable for its exquisite vibraphone usage....oh and not to forget Minako's impeccable vocal arrangement executed immaculately.
This vibe says freedom and being a 70s baby it matches my wrapped in an Hawaiian shirt forever soul.
Masayoshi Takanaka - Tokyo Reggie (1976)
Hang on this needs to be the theme tune for our daily battles against the poisonous nonsense they are selling. I will be demoralised no further because samba jazz funk fusion. Remember when the government and media didn't demonise you for having normal boring viewpoints.
Masayoshi Takanaka - サヨナラ…FUJIさん (1976)
Bless Masayoshi's soul.
Breeze-y with nonchalant cowbell goodness!
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly."
Fuck the humourless anti-human death cult, live life in abundance.
Anyway Masayoshi Takanaka's debut solo LP Seychelles (1976) which contains the above three tunes was reissued a couple of months ago. Once again however if you missed out it's already going for silly prices. Although unlike Tatsuro Yamashita you can find many Takanaka records on Spotify and youtube.
I first heard this guy seven or eight years ago on that Nippon Funk compilation. He's since become a bit of a cult figure on the internet because his tune An Insatiable High (1977) went viral.
All bets are off folks. Enjoy the devastating demoralised euphoria of the greatest apocalyptic post-punk jam of them all. What even is this? What are the band actually doing? These random, out of tune, clangorous, gunk ridden and grinding sounds are strikingly moved around creating a potent dark dissonance that is unexpected and rare. Avant rock noise in excelsis.
Since discovering this thirty three years ago the intensity of this aural obliteration never gets any less astounding. Flipper conjure absolute revelatory black magic on One By One. It's negative, defeatist, bleak yet exciting...invigorating. The most utterly exhilarating downbeat gloom ever put to record.
More intense thick slabs of bass in your face from the 80s. This one might just be the peak for me. Everything about this...
Demented Australian subterranean rock (feedtime, Salamander Jim, Lubricated Goat, Thug, Box The Jesuit, Fungus Brains, Venom P Stinger, Black Eye Records et al.) was at a supreme level at the time. Unfortunately for me I was still in high school in the middle of Woop Woop so I didn't get to experience this post-Birthday Party/post-hardcore noise-rock first hand during its scuzzy prime. Indeed King Snake Roost were done and dusted by 1990 before I'd reached the big smoke.
The menacing funky bass here is provided by Michael Raymond who's obviously indebted to J J Burnel and Tracy Pew. I don't really know that much about him. The debut King Snake Roost album From Barbarism To Christian Manhood seems to be the only record he ever worked on. While KSR recorded three LPs in their time and were somewhat renowned because ex-Grong Grong and Bloodloss legend Charles Tolnay was the guitarist, this first LP in particular, artistically belongs to Raymond. He wrote the music and lyrics for six of the album's eight songs including Dead All Over. Then he appears to disappear from the music scene entirely never to return. Did he die or just retire? Déjà vu.
KSR would go on to infamy and acclaim with their following two LPs and subsequent signing to Amphetamine Reptile Records after Michael Raymond's departure. For me though From Barbarism To Christian Manhood is their highlight.
The greatest rock'n'roll tune you never heard. I first heard this on a Dr Boogie compilation 20 years ago and assumed it must have been a golden oldie that I somehow missed well... my dad must have missed thus not passing it onto me. However a quick look on discogs reveals this 1962 one off 7" single from Bobby Verne only started popping up on compilations during the 90s. Where the hell was it for 30 years?
Anyway what an incredible slice of mysterious lost rockabilly, complete with an array of premium atmospheric twangery, a sublime sax solo and a menacing undercurrent. It does not get better than this! Pop culture perfection right here folks.
Haha haha ha bahahaha. This is still so fuckin funny. Ironically it's also absolutely thrilling rock and roll-wise: The drama, the performance poetry, the seething vitriol, the scathing denunciation, the unbridled wit - all instinctual and within a genius innate dark art rock jam worthy of the most insufferable turd. This is taken from the second record of the double Great Truckin' Songs Of The Renaissance LP which was the performance poetry, prankster collage, lo-fi tape art record as opposed to the first disc which was more on the commercial new wave pop genius tip.
I Hadn't heard this since the 80s when I was in high school. Fuck I thought The Doors were naff when I was a teenager. My older brother liked them. He even had a fucking Jim Morrison t-shirt and permed his fucking long straight brown hair to emulate him or was that Barnsey or Hutchence or was there even a fucking difference. This is the funniest! I was just writhing in my chair in pain with laughter causing asthma. I love how it had a go at all the rock stars we liked Nick Cave, Hugo Race, Mozza, Bob Smith and even hilariously Albert Camus. Even though we were all somewhat fans to varying degrees of these "private school depression idols" we also knew they were absolute tools. I didn't become a bona fide Doors fan until after the 90s. I actually got drunk with Hugo Race once during the 90s and he was so normal it was weird, top bloke he was.
In my year eleven class level in 1988 there were probably 80 to 100 students and there was just me and my best mate Nicole who were into this record. Then again I didn't take a poll of the other kids and really, I didn't know any of them from a bar of soap so maybe there were a hundred owners of Great Truckin' Songs Of The Renaissance LP. I mean surely most of us saw that insane live performance on Rock Arena so...
*I have to say I don't think I fully comprehended the genius of This Is Serious Mum as a band, as a musical entity. I mean as comedians, pranksters, satirists, conceptual artists, polemicists and shit-stirrers they were obviously supreme. BUT I didn't recognise their music melded with these other outstanding attributes as the fascinating beast that it actually is.
**Listening to this today has made me disappointed in myself. The fact that I understood and loved a track such as this should have, for one, shielded me against being seduced by retarded French theorists for more than a decade. I mean it is a pure Aussie instinct to smell the bullshit from a mile off. I was a pure sarcastic Australian kid and many said this was to my detriment but fuck me it was my best characteristic. Even my best friend said my sneering cynicism was too negative. The fact that I ever became enamoured by any nonsense, poisonous ideas and mind viruses over the years is a fucking embarrassment. And hey I'll take the shame but hey at least I admit it.
*** I didn't really fanatically follow This Is Serious Mum after this record. I think my rationale must have been: You can't be a good band musically if you're funny. So while I appreciated them on a clever, comedic and satirical level, I could not also see that they were just as interesting musically and in fact the two concepts needn't be separated. I realise this makes me look stupid and yeah what a twit I was. I guess I was trying to shake off the image of being the doyen of sardonicism...yep what a cunt! I can see parallels to 80s NZ renegades like Axemen and Headless Chickens as well as new wave mavericks like Mental As Anything, R Stevie Moore and They Might Be Giants. TISM though have their own internal logic causing an idiosyncratic classic pop sound.
****The only ever overseas review of Great Truckin Songs... I saw was in Melody Maker but it was actually written by an ex-pat. I've always wondered what people who have never lived in Australia must think of TISM and wether they actually get it. Then I realise why the fuck would I care about that!
When thick slabs of bass ruled. In the 80s groups like The Birthday Party, PIL, Hunters & Collectors, Flipper flung menacing bass in your face and we couldn't get enough.
Runaway is an outstanding moment in The Moodists funny little catalogue. Actually it might be even better heard in the context of the first side of their Thirsty's Calling LP. In that scenario it's even more startling because what had gone before in the previous four songs had been more dense, energetic and upbeat. But Runaway strips it all back and slows everything down to a menacing crawl. This restrained seething atmosphere becomes an incredibly intense mantra. I mean for the first one minute and fifty four seconds it's just unadorned bass and drums while Graney's vehement tone builds in fervour as his vocals start overlapping and responding back. Then when the mangled guitar enters, the song is engulfed in a fabulously ferocious cacophony.
So while other Moodists here Mick Turner, Clare Moore and Dave Graney went onto further fame and acclaim during the 90s and beyond in acts such as The Dirty Three, The Coral Snakes etc. the star of the show here is virtually an unknown these days. Veteran bass player Chris Walsh was however an integral character in the Melbourne punk and post-punk milieu. He was even around in the pre-punk proto-punk days.
Previous to joining The Moodists Walsh had been in groups Judas Iscariot And The Traitors, The Reals, The Negatives and The Fabulous Marquises etc. with various legendary Melbourne musicians including Garry Gray, Ollie Olsen, Mick Harvey and Edward Clayton Jones. If I have this correct I think Chris Walsh's best mate in high school was Tracey Pew. Anyway his last bass playing credit seems to be on Dave Graney & The White Buffalo's 1989 LP My Life On The Plains. Then he appears to disappear and never reappears. Did he die or just retire? Anyway what a legend.
