Japanese Imports [Part I]: Everything and the Kitchen Sink

by Ari Abramowitz
31 March 2006

Punk, psych, and prog are usually on different wavelengths. To a large extent, punkers tend to snicker at psychedelic-heads for being meandering hippies on the wrong drugs and at proggers for being pompous overblown musos who have lost the immediacy of early rock & roll. Proggers tend to look down their noses at punkers for being incompetent no-talents who play punk because they can’t play anything else. Psych-heads may lean one way or another, but tend to be on their own trip, oblivious to the outside world.

But maybe there’s more common ground here than common knowledge would suggest. DEBBIE HARRY and CHRIS STEIN of BLONDIE are known to be big fans of prog-rockers KING CRIMSON, iconoclast JOHNNY ROTTEN had an icon of his own in angst-filled progger PETER HAMMILL, and JOEY RAMONE and JETHRO TULL’s IAN ANDERSON had their own mutual appreciation society. Psychedelic space rockers HAWKWIND are often seen as proto-punkers. But for my money, there was no place that bridged—or rather, merged—the musical worlds of punk, psych, and prog more expansively, imaginatively, and organically than Japan did in 1987-1992 (roughly)—a movement that continues even into the present.

At this time, Japan was such a fertile bed that it gave rise not only to orchids and cherry blossoms, but also to William Blake’s universe-containing grains of sand and their mountainous brethren. I don’t think I’ve seen this kind of all-over-the-map diversity anywhere since maybe the late 60s/early 70s. Without speculating, at least for now, as to “why Japan and why then?,” it is mind-boggling to hear all of the stuff that exploded from one scene: punk/grind/doom (CORRUPTED), noise (MERZBOW), jet-set lounge pop (PIZZICATO 5), light psych (ANGEL’IN HEAVY SYRUP), heavy psych (HIGH RISE), prog (dozens), turntablism (OTOMO YOSHIHIDE), and the uncategorizable (SPACE STREAKINGS).

Artists playing one style would frequently also record work in another—or several other—styles. The genres tended to feed off of each other, leading to an enthralling poly-racial environment that largely continues, if in a somewhat flatter curve.

TATSUYA YOSHIDA makes for probably the greatest individual exponent of “it’s all music, so why not do it all?” philosophy. First and foremost, he’s an original and dazzling drummer: stylistically omnivorous, usually very busy and fast, sometimes aggressive, sometimes funky, and almost always experimenting with off time-signatures and bizarre and abrupt style changes. He even gets this really cool smacking sound out of his snare that I’ve yet to hear anywhere else. Second, every style of music he plays seems to organically sprout out of him. He is no dilettante poseur, hopping from one style to the next as fashion or ego dictates. Somehow, every style of music is close to his heart and he does honor to each and every one.

On a compilation from the early ‘90s called Devil from the East, no less than 17 (!!!) different groups are displayed, all featuring Yoshida from 1983-1993. This ranges from the prog grandeur of HUNDRED SIGHTS OF KOENJI to the new wave of YBO2 to the industrial noise of DISSECTING TABLE to the masturbation punk of GEROGERIGEGE to the crush metal of ZENI GEVA—etc., etc., etc.! All of this doesn’t even include the at least half dozen (probably more) projects that he’s done since then. Yoshida even takes the beautiful, rock-formation photographs that grace the covers of most of his albums.

There is also his most well-known band, RUINS, which features Yoshida and a continually revolving cast of bass players, that plays a mutant form of stripped-down progressive rock, influenced by the monumental MAGMA and filtered through a punk/hardcore rawness possibly akin to MINOR THREAT.

This kind of work load is obviously not for everyone. But what’s more amazing is the level of quality of most of his zillion bands. There are a few missteps among these projects, but very few. Yoshida is the extremely rare artist that can make this work and there are three simple reasons he can do it: he is preternaturally talented; he genuinely loves prog, hardcore, psychedelic rock, avant garde, punk, noise, metal, ambient, pop, and New Wave; and perhaps most importantly, he has invested insane amounts of effort, discipline, and time in practicing his playing and in listening to the history of music, so that he is able to play that history and its parts in the spirit in which they were meant to be played.

While Yoshida’s excellence is uncommon, his nethod of full committal to his muse—with spirit and discipline—strikes me as a very Japanese trait. I would venture to say that this is the diametric opposite of the cynicism or nihilism that was (and is) one of the biggest drivers of Japanese musical adventurousness. A bit of punk/alternative nudging has also helped. But perhaps the biggest factor (and this is purely speculative and probably unoriginal, too) is that he lives in a civilization that has been exploded, literally, and then rebuilt from the ground up, beginning with the symbols and lifestyles of the Twentieth century. but still based upon the roots of a few thousand years of history. The name “Ruins” seem to make this point very clear.

I know—we haven’t even yet brought up the most influential Japanese rock band of the past 20 years!

[Part II: Boredom as Energy to follow]

Filed under psychedelic punk