Maher Shalal Hash Baz

http://www.dominorecordco.com/artist.php?artist=47

Check out the 'Tenno' album by Noise - a 1980 album by Tori and Reiko Kudo; a very strange and disturbing affair indeed: white noise Farfisa or Vox organ somewhere between Messiaen on bad acid and "Sister Ray" on same, ghostly trumpet stabs, stray percussion and Reiko's Nico-esque broodings on death. This album is the great lost Japanese underground artifact. (This was rereleased on CD in Japan a few years back; not sure if it's still available, but it's definitely worth tracking down.)

The entire Tori Kudo story is an interesting one: having to flee Japan owing to his involvement in a terrorist group that attempted to assinate the Emperor and now is a Jehovah's Witness.

Here's a sufficiently eccentric and revealing interview with the man:

http://noise.as/main.php?p=13

I have fallen in love with this band. I just picked up the double LP "From A Summer to Another Summer (An Egypt To Another Egypt)" over the weekend and it's all I want to listen to. Been a fan of that Siwa-issued Tori Kudo LP for a while, and this is similar and even BETTER.

i tried to like it, i really did, but i can't get into it at all. on the other hand a lot of the nagisa ni te stuff is lovely

The Bill Wells and Maher Shalal Hash Baz album is a cut above I think... really special and beautiful. Some of their own stuff is a bit hit and miss but that's a nugget.

Nah, the Bill Wells one is nowhere near as good as From A Summer... still brilliant, but not as swoonsome. I suppose this may just be disagreement stemming from the old 'which did you hear first' question, but I do reckon that FASTAS(AETAE) is genuinely better (as well as being a superior acronym).

"swoonsome"

i'd totally forgotten this band, from a summer to another summer covered quite a long period of time didn't it? i recall liking the newer stuff a load more than the early. if they did anything else as good as unknown happiness subsequently i'd like to hear it.

I think From A Summer... coveres the early/mid eighties through the nineties up to 99? I could go double check, but I get the feeling it's extracts of tapes and whatnot rather than a straight reish of full releases?

I got the Faux Depart cd. Don't like it. Hard to remember anything about it though, being 22 tracks and most of them under a minute.

http://www.anost.net/bibliothek/images/product_images/popup_images/880918079622.jpg

this was such a beautiful record.
is anyone else keeping up with reiko's new albums?

I've only heard bits of the recent Reiko albums, but I really liked the one with Keiji Haino, Licking Up Dust. Reiko sings beautifully, seemingly oblivious to Heino's anarchic cracks of a snare. The tension created is stunning.

yeah - i've only heard some of licking up dust; it's almost a full band sound in places, even if it sounds kinda skewed. the other two, hito and particularly kusa, are the ones i was really referring too - songs get cut off by hoovering in the background or general dissolution. the last song on the record's 100% classic, though, a tori piano lament with this cold, full vocal from reiko, that kind of reminds me of time takes me so back from the above lp. i'm not sure about licking up dust, but i think the other two are archival releases of stuff recorded in the house in the past couple of years.

there was a little wire article about her a month or two back.

i just discovered "osaka bridge". amazing stuff which reminds me of the penguin cafe orchestra somehow. there is an incredible human warmth in that music. maher shalal hash baz really struggle to play their instruments. and the brass ensemble doesn't always hit the right tones but that makes their music even more loveable.

another obvious reference point could be bregovic and his brass band(s). maher shalal hash baz differ significantly in two respects though. 1. they have swallowed a bucket of sweeping pills 2. their music is introverted, lyrical, romantic stuff, not suited for huge dance parties. could be allright to chill out after the feast in the first hours of dawn though.

i meant sleeping pills of course but sweeping pills sounds good too ;-)

thx osaka bridge for being my friend when none of the others are around.

aww

anyone at the recent cafe oto shows?

heard some reports; think maher were a fourteen-piece. a guy who's seen them a lot said it was the best he'd ever seen them.

i caught reiko solo at the shows last year and was blown away, so kinda sad not to get to that one this time around.

there were thirteen (i think?) at atp: four melodicas, clarinet, trumpet, two guitars, two basses, toy drums, trap kit, congas, mbira, steelpan. one of the melodicas was the drummer doubling, though.