"Mysterious but lovable"

November 23, 2023 6:10 AM

Unraveling One of Rock’s Deepest Mysteries: Les Rallizes Dénudés [NYT, archive link] by Ben Sisario, is a good, short introduction in English to the Japanese underground rock band, who never released a studio album. Bandleader Takashi Mizutani passed away late in 2019, and since then his former bandmate Makoto Kubota has been restoring existing recordings. Now there is an official website, with an oral history, photos and more. The latest release, of a performance at Kawasaki's Club Citta' in 1993, has been remastered in high fidelity, a process Kubota likened to, according to a Pitchfork review, "restoring an ancient Buddhist statue". A good introduction to the band, Citta' '93 is available on various streaming services, and also YouTube and Bandcamp.
posted by Kattullus (12 comments total)

put guitar through a ton of reverb and then put it though lots of gain at extreme volume and record the results on some lo fi equipment wherever the gig is at - noisy, intense with single notes that sound like they're going to swallow the world - it's great in small doses, but don't expect notable songs or a lot of variety

still, if you wonder what neil young and crazy horse would be like if they took it even farther - well, something like this
posted by pyramid termite at 7:00 AM on November 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I agree, pyramid termite.

Philosopher Isaiah Berlin had a lovely parlor game of an essay where he posited that all artists could be classified as either hedgehogs or foxes, based on an ancient Greek line of poetry that said that foxes know many things but that the hedgehog knows only one big thing.

Takashi Mizutani, unlike Neil Young (a fox if there ever was one), only had one big idea in his life, but he explored that idea as fully and thoroughly as it could be explored.
posted by Kattullus at 7:18 AM on November 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

So, you’re saying he was a …. Sonic Hedgehog?
posted by Rumple at 7:46 AM on November 23, 2023 [8 favorites]

I finally tracked down the origin of the "restoring an ancient Buddhist statue" quote, it comes from the liner notes to the Citta' '93 album, which some kind soul has posted on Reddit. Kubota's description of how he remastered the album is fascinating.
posted by Kattullus at 7:57 AM on November 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

previously
posted by ovvl at 9:07 AM on November 23, 2023

The most interesting thing about Rallizes was how the shows and songs became less and less structured over the years. What started as a noisy pop band ended up being a massive and confrontational wall of noise. A perfect example is the song The Last One. They played it frequently over the years. In the 60's it's a lumbering base for a freakout style guitar solo, by the 80's it became a wall of harsh noise which rarely had any discernible structure. I like both of those kinds of music so it's a real treat to sit down and listen to 10 or 12 versions of the same song played live over the course of a few decades and appreciate the path it takes between the two. This slow slide toward chaos became a kind of blueprint for other Japanese bands. Guitar Wolf's live output has become louder, more noisy, less structured, and more chaotic over the years. Kawabata Makoto & Acid Mothers Temple have been at it in the same way for about 30 years as well. Their song Pink Lady Lemonade is very similar to The Last One in regard to the frequency with which it gets played and how far from the original song's structure it has drifted over time.

So yeah, these individual shows are great but if they're interesting to you then you might get some satisfaction from digging a little deeper into the catalog for some context.
posted by Siempre La Luna at 12:39 PM on November 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Wow Makoto Kubota really got around! I was surprised that the Quietus interview mentioned the Sunsets but never had a word about the singer Sandii -- the band is probably better known in the West as her backing band. I think I saw him in the band when Sandii toured her pop/reggae/hip-hop/Malaysian dangdut album Dream Catcher. That was an amazing gig!
posted by technodelic at 7:28 PM on November 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Thanks for posting this! It's wild that Rallizes are in the NYT! I do wonder if the one guy who said that Mizutani would hate this is correct. Nobody who actually knew anything about the motivations of Mizutani has ever talked. Which I admire greatly. Got into this band 10-15 years ago, have some of their bootleg albums (which were the only ones ever available until now)... in particular one I have called "heavier than a death in the family" (!) has an absolutely incomprehensible yet crushing tune called "people can choose" on it that I love.

Somewhere I read something to the effect that Mizutani's approach, rejection of commercialization, etc, was due to some sort of falling out he had with the similarly radical Keiji Haino, with whom he was once close friends. Some sort of rivalry.

I absolutely love the totally over the top world of Japanese heavy rock and noise. Such a rich and extreme expression. Yamatsuka Eye driving a bulldozer into a club, hell yeah!
posted by SystematicAbuse at 10:48 PM on November 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

I liked the grittiness of the original bootlegs, but yeah these remastered versions are pretty groovy.
posted by ovvl at 6:58 AM on November 24, 2023 [1 favorite]

Acid Seven, a bandleader and prankster who was a regular at Oz, recalled Mizutani interrupting his stoic silence at jam sessions only to utter existentialist riddles. He described Mizutani once taking a drag from his ever-present cigarette and proclaiming, “The smoke coming out of my mouth is extinguishing my ego,” with no further explanation offered.

posted by Gerald Bostock at 8:48 AM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

an absolutely incomprehensible yet crushing tune called "people can choose" (it's my favorite too)
posted by Gerald Bostock at 9:04 AM on November 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Mod note: [btw, this post was added to the sidebar and the Best Of blog]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:32 AM on November 27, 2023 [1 favorite]