Nippon Aural Dynamite A Introduction To Japanese Noise Shaun Case One of the things I really value, beyond health, wealth, and power, is the ability to truly confuse people. I'm not talking about your run-of-the-mill reaction--"Eh? Whatever." I'm talking about full-bore, both barrels blasting, head-scratching perpetual pondering. Take the whole Kennedy thing, for example. I have absolutely no opinion on the question of who, if anyone, helped out with the shooting, why it happened, or whether or not Kennedy is actually still alive and visiting the grave of Marilyn Monroe alternate Thursdays with a bag of Crunch Tators1. What really tickles me pink about the case is that _we will never know the answer._ The whole thing stinks. Even though every available scrap of evidence has been gone over a thousand times, after the days' receipts are totalled, the whole thing makes absolutely no sense at all. None! All we can do is wonder, and make films about it. This is also what I love about the Beatles: We will never understand why the only good Beatle had to be the one go first. You may well disagree with me about some or all of the above (especially the Beatles part) but that is Ok because I am a member of a small but wiry band of worshippers who are privy to the fact that the world is ending a week from this Thursday. Thus, I am writing all this purely for my own amusement. If in fact the world does _not_ end in eight days, and this essay _is_ printed, I will almost certainly be blacklisted from the zine world, in addition to having sold my home (at a considerable loss) for cash to help the Bhagwan put on the second-coming bash. I'm not going to think about this any more. It depresses me. In the world of music, there is one form that reigns supreme in its ability to truly confuse, nay, truly astound people, and that is Japanese Noise. The utter weirdness factor is so high as to be almost unmeasurable. In fact, on the Internet's new-music list, a new scale has been invented to help corral some of the form's wackiness, which occasionally exceeds even that of academic politics2. The DUNG scale, as it is called, after the infamous Darryl Dung, who first characterized Japanese Noise as "shits with a beep" goes as follows: Sound: electronic -5 ... +5 guitar Noisyness: Masonna -5 ... +5 Paula Abdul Value: incompetent -5 ... +5 genius Due to its unwieldiness and through ignorance, this scale is rarely used, but it does illustrate that there is more to describing the content of a Japanese Noise recording than simply assigning it a single number. In fact, although there are not as many types of Japanese Noise as there are Japanese citizens, there are an awful lot, and I will sagely draw broad strokes with my fat black magic marker and divide the genre into three categories: the Harsh, the Bizarre, and the Minimalist. You will have to trust me, O non-existent reader, that these are good categories, because if this was a dry, technically correct essay with facts, footnotes, and figures, and simply dripping with supporting evidence, you would be bored by now3, and would have put it down unless it was the only thing available while you were on the toilet. Truth be told, these three categories are quite accurate, and can be shown to be isomorphic to the set of all best-fit category types for the genre. See? Didn't that suck? Before I dive into each category, I'll make some amazingly fact-filled sweeping generalizations about Japanese Noise. First, interestingly, what is commonly called "Japanese Noise" isn't a particularly Japanese style, nor is it necessarily noise. However, the genre has caught on in a big way in Japan, and there is a lot of attention focussed on the records coming out of there now so it makes sense to examine them. Historically, we all know there is nothing new under the sun, so I will simply namedrop Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and John Cage, and leave it at that. Second, one of the nice things about exploring this genre is that practically everything you buy becomes a collector's item. The printing runs are typically a thousand, so even if you buy something expensive that it turns out you don't like, you can sell or trade it quite easily. It's not at all like being stuck with "All the best from WALES" disc or anything by Danger Danger. Third, almost everything comes out on CD, and the artwork is typically either completely beautiful, or hopelessly ugly, but is almost always very, very strange. See figure 1--the artwork for the Space Streakings disc. Finally, like in the rave/techno genre, compilations are king. The best way to expose yourself to noise is to buy some comps. There are many available that are quite good, and they are excellent guides for discovering bands that you would like to explore further. Enough generalizations! On to specifics! "They were doing something awful to poor Bing while he wasn't looking. He sounded like his head was made of sheet metal." -- Bruce Sterling There is only one possible musical source for the Sterling quote above, and that is the "harsh" category of Japanese Noise. This first grouping, which is often called "power electronics," is characterized by the use of white noise, feedback, screaming and screeching, and heavy use of effects and/or cutup. This creates a rather intimidating wall of sound, which would normally be listened to by regular folks only while completely unconscious. In the scheme of annoying music to irritate the unannoyable, this is near the pinnacle on the Matterhorn of sound. The only acoustic form I can think of that would be more irritating is the campaign speech. "If there's one thing I hate, it's all the noise, noise, noise noise. They'll make ear-splitting noises deluxe on their great big electro Who-cardio shnoox." -- The Grinch The Grinch (of "Stealing Xmas" fame, ja, ja) has his dander up about the second form of Japanese Noise: the bizarre. Down the mountain, the Whos awaken on Christmas morning and immediately begin making a cacophonous aural stew that drives the grinch nuts by randomly riding around on six-Who instruments replete with drums, horns, and cymbals, banging away more or less at random with their eyes closed and sappy smiles on their beatific Who-faces. In the Japanese Noise version of Whoville Xmas, we typically find gibbered vocals, oddball instruments such as toy pianos and foghorns, a frantic, almost comical pacing, and a fascination with the word "anal." Staying true to Who form, these bands also occasionally perform with their eyes closed. (See figure 2, the insert for the Boredom's _Soul Discharge_ CD.) "Fahoo forays Dahoo dorays" -- The Whos The Whos, on the other hand, have a different view of what their schtick is all about. Their deal is to stand around an immensely tall Christmas tree with joined hands, and gently croon nonsense words before mowing on the Roast Beast. This corresponds to the third form of Japanese Noise--the Minimalist. This form is characterized by drones, unobtrusive cutups, and the use of natural sounds such as water, stones, or the atonal use of the human voice. Funnily enough, the artwork in this genre also tends to match the content. See figure three, the insert for Agencement's _Viosphere_ CD.) Given all that, I'll present you with a couple of reviews, list some essential titles, and list some mailorder places where you can find some of these goodies. And that, as they say, will be that. Reviews! Merzbow - Great American Nude/Crash for Hi-Fi - ARCD-035 Live in u.s.a. 1990 Power Electronics. This is a very pure release compared to the output of many other noise artists; it is all noise, all 77 minutes of it, and you can't ever really tell what the sources are (with one exception; see below.) The album is an 8 track live disc, each song recorded live while Merzbow was on tour in the US in 1990. The disc starts with a track called RRR Loft, Lowell, MA (19/9/90), which is slow and predominantly pink noise, and gets noisier and more varied with each track. The final cut, which is the only studio cut on the disc, contains bits where you can make out the original sound sources, but most of it is a highly textured noise collage -- 17 minutes of highly textured noise collage. You really have to listen to this disc all the way through in one sitting. The progression from pink to texture takes you into the disc gently, and leaves you feeling like you have accomplished something when it is over. You almost have to listen to this disc actively. If you put it on in the background, it will distract you and demand your attention. The tracks are not in chronological order, so the arrangement is no mistake. The sound on it is wonderful; it is very clean, with exceptional reproduction in both the low bass and high treble ranges. The short, unnoisy sections are free of tape hiss, and even make good use of stereo. Very highly recommended. Violent Onsen Geisha: Excrete Music Vanilla 9 (Vanilla Records) Bizarre. 1 track, 52 and half minutes. This starts out with a bunch of birds twittering and cheeping happily away, with a guy mumbling something in Japanese (I think,) then making an odd sexual groaning sound that gets a little more involved each time he does it. Then there's a brief crashing sound, and then the OH SO JOYOUS NOISE! It's much more textured, much richer than Merzbow; where Merzbow is a kind of dense fuzzy white noise assault, this is a harsh, varied, always busy kind of sonic shrapnel ocean. There are little bits and pieces you can pull out, like feedback slipping in and out, highly processed screeches which rise up and fade out quickly, etc. If Merzbow was creamy peanut butter, this would be chunky with orange marmalade. Then, it's back to odd Japanese voices, then a different kind of noise: feedback + oscillating distorted shortwave or something, plus other goodies. Pop songs, children talking, Sesame Street-type music with horrible shouting, and other small items give the listener a break between the lengthy noise segments, each of which is easily identifiable and, well, just really fascinating and listenable. VOG is a strange, private artist; the liner notes for this release consist of the sentence: "Compiled from various unreleased tapes intended for release, including work done after their <>." Overall, way key stuff. Have a second helping, won't you? Short lucid summary: Like swimming in a pool full of broken mirrors. Agencement: Viosphere Pico-03 (Pico) Minimalist. 2 tracks, 40 and a half minutes. This whole disk is made up of violin sounds, accomplished entirely (if memory serves) by tape cutup. The entire disk has a similar sound all the way through, of little bits and pieces of violin playing spliced and layered. It is a nice mellow disk to listen to while doing something else, but can be listened to actively as well; there are little surprises waiting, like a cutup run of sound, a cute squonk, or a pleasing little tone. Very nice. Essential Titles: Power Electronics! Solmania: Psycledelic (Alchemy Records, ARCD-066) Motorcycle, feedback, and extremely violent high-energy noise guitar. Merzbow: Great American Nude/Crash for Hi-Fi (Alchemy Records, ARCD-035) Reviewed above. C.C.C.C.: Loud Sounds Dopa (Endorphine Factory, EDP-003) Like Merzbow, (white-noisish) but gentler, more "ambient." The Bizarre! Space Streakings: Hatsu-Koi (Nux Organization, Nux-D5) One of my favorites, this record features vocals, guitar, trumpet, kazooka, bass, discoattacker, dragonballz, alto saxophone, bazookahorn, and a dizzyingly fast pace. Utterly fabulous. A good place to start. Violent Onsen Geisha: Excrete Music (Vanilla Records, Vanilla-9) Reviewed Above. Otomo Yoshihide: The Night Before The Death of the Sampling Virus (Extreme, XCD 024) This is 77 tracks of short vocal-based treated and untreated samples, all named after Japanese corporations (Toyota, Akai, Matsushita, etc.). This is extremely weird and good to have, even if the artist is a bit snippy with potential reviewers who write reviews exactly like this one. The Minimalist! Agencement: Viosphere (Pico, Pico-03) Reviewed above. K.K. Null and Jim O'Rourke: New Kind Of Water (Charnel Music, CHCD-6) Seven guitar duets comprised primarily of drones and dissonance. This disc is absolutely hearbreakingly beautiful. It's unearthly--ethereal-- yet extremely solid and compelling. Highly, highly recommended. Compilations! Land of the Rising Noise (Charnel Music, CHCD-9) Dry Lungs V/2 disc set (Subterranean, SUB72-2) Come Again II (Furnace, SR9342) All of these are really good samplers, musically, although CA-II contains some rather pointless and uninteresting liner notes on the subject of "Japanese Noise." "Bring the noise!" -- Public Enemy Mailorder Sources! Japan Overseas 6-1-21 Ueshio Tennoji-ku Osaka 543 Japan RRRecords 151 Paige st. Lowell, MA 01852 Subterranean Records PO Box 2530 Berkeley, CA 94702 Relapse Records PO Box 251 Millersville, PA 17551 Red Stream Records PO Box 342 Camp Hill, PA 17001-0342 Forced Exposure PO Box 9102 Waltham, MA 02254-9102 Anomalous Records 6737 Bright Avenue Whittier, CA 90601 Charnel Music PO Box 170277 San Francisco, CA 94117-0277 http://www.msen.com/~ecook/charnel.catalog.html Revolver Records 290-C Napolean San Francisco, CA 94124 Footnotes: 1. Actually, I would be interested in knowing about the Crunch Tator part. 2. If you know anything about academic politics, you know what I mean. Hoo boy! 3. Or possibly dead.