Today My Life Changed (RFI: Rallizes Denudes)

they're amazing. i have some information on them @ home that i'll post later. good luck finding anything, at least without paying with vital organs.

(and whatever you do -don't- read that horrid pitchfork series on the japanese underground. reads like a goddamn highschool essay. eeesh.)

This is psychedelic music with huge power. I have their LIVE 77 double set, which is fucking great. Far better than almost any music that was released during that period (must thank Brian Palmer for providing me with 'directions', it took a while to download but well worth it: Though someone seems to have to have taken out the tracks from its original location since I downloaded it).

Unfortunately, I don't have that CD writer so I can't make any copies (though a friend of mine is getting one and has offered to) but I'm sure someone else here has it. Enjoy the video.

I'm gonna need a copy of Heavier Than A Death In The Family as well, for "People Can Choose" and "The Night Harvesters."

http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/les.rallizes.denudes.html

I remember there was a 'grey area' 2LP reissue as well about two years back. I think it can be located by trawling eBay; there are a couple of LPs up now, but I'm not sure if they're the same set as on the 2CD. (There's also a 10CD live set up if you're really obsessed.)

(There's also a 10CD live set up if you're really obsessed.)

Haha, yeah, I saw that. I'm not there yet. YET.

Babelfish translation of "Flame of Ice" lyrics:

Pattern A:
Like thing solving in everyone and not making open and first visiting as for you the flame of the ice which lives leads away you with the other side of the mirror where secret produces you we love which keeps falling will remain and will be able to bloom, the black we friend where (we has known the bloom of the decomposition which is not) your death which here is the angel of the darkness whirls the fact that it blossoms and dances as though it is insanity, when (as for we - it keeps burning) (as for we it keeps exceeding the limit) (darkness it gets near) (the blood - crossing) (keep returning to in the mirror)

Pattern B:
You the breaking which lives the petal which scatters break with the other side of the mirror and the mirror which scatters break and becoming your dream countless fragment which scatters, fall in we The black we friend where we love which falls remains and is not black we friend you carried the fragrance of the blood and the tide which carry the fragrance of the blood and the sand as though it is insanity, As for you the flame of the ice which lives leads away you with the other side of the mirror If the dream which is invaded the soldier of the dream where the dream darkness which is invaded returns as for the soldier of the dream which fights as for the fight which fights very long your freedom is not forgotten fight grasping the freedom which continues lets flow the deep-red blood

cover of IN: etc., vol. 2 (1996 EP):

http://www.yk.rim.or.jp/~ubud/rc4.JPG

Actually, based on your remarks about the 10-CD set, I'll probably just monitor ebay with extreme vigilance until a copy of the 2002 CD bootleg Heavier Than A Death In The Family appears -- it's the only release that definitely has those two tracks, from what I can make out of the Rallizes discography page.

amp-frying, my-entire-record-collection-means-nothing-to-me-now godlike brilliance

YES. I'm ordering that Le 12 Mars 1977 reissue NOW.

Guess I'm looking for Oz Days next!

Rad!

The drummer that pdf is talking abt is sabu toyozumi (they played in '97) -- the gig ws issued as a 2LP thingy on QBICO, its a gig where the participants should've stopped after half an hour but y'know how ppl keep clapping at these gigs...

http://www.fusetronsound.com/label.php?whomart=LESRALLIZESDENUDES/TAJMAHALTRAVELLERS

The quantity of live and studio material released over the last few years suggests that SOMEONE has access to an archive which, surely, must belong either to the Rallizes' only permanent member, or to someone who was very close to him. The biographical information available certainly doesn't suggest a band that was ever big enough to attract a following of bootleggers and/or obsessives.

Anyone ever hear what the big M is up to these days?

Even any good rumours?

with many thanks to ILM

Looking back at my post all those years ago they are not merely channeling the velvets. Twin guitars encircle the rhythm section you'd have to point to post-ornette jazz but also I've heard some other distortion-less tracks where its all v indie sounding, v easy going. so the guitars giving it this other dimension is something MBV did 20 years later. AND you have these guys who wore black but wore make-up too. don't know enough about fashion full-stop to know who they might be referencing here.

as to the the points above - you only need abt 20 dedicated fans to rec every show, and they were around for a v long time, so while mizutani and a cpl of his assoaciates might have a big stash it wouldn't surprise me if a few of those bootleggers were the ones who let out gems like this '93 show I have (the highlight being a 40 min perf of 'the last one') (but again I always return to 'live 77' and even though I'm tempted to say that its all you need its not like I ever followed this advice so why should you?)

what about those baselines huh?! Not only do they function as an anchor to hang yr ears to when it might just be getting a bit much but they have this really NICE melody to them ('night of the assassins' esp); love the way that, when, on 'people can choose', the bass pattern actually jumps out at you half way through to give the track its 'life'.

God, yes. All respect to Hiroshi (assuming that's him on that track).

xpost

mcd yeah I'd say they are more 50s rock n'roll w/their biker jackets (wasn't mizutani and other rallizes members in gangs?), more of a knife-fight feel (w/'happening' type material thrown in, and the first happenings took place in the 50s? :-) yes, its all getting slippery). xero I'm not too sure about a stooges comparison, everything about them sounded v tight and alert whereas rallizes are kinda easy-going.

this one's the epic though: les rallizes denudes rfi

you guys are great

I'm wondering about the source of the recordings because a twenty year careeer with no releases, then a glut ten years after, really just doesn't seem to compute. Is it the association with Keiji Haino?

For a current Japanese band with a definite Rallizes influence, check out Up-Tight.

-- Soukesian

You can still read Google's cached version of that review: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:eP5t8gIyiN8J:headheritage.com/unsung/albumofthemonth/611+denudes+%22your+real+new+favourite+band%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

Ah, Head Heritage, one of my favourite and most-visited music sites! JAPROCKSAMPLER sounds like a good thing. (Wonder if Cope has plans to one day complete the Axis-psych trilogy by writing WOPROCKSAMPLER...)

Heavier than a Death in the Family?? or

Live 77??

Hiroshi Na (Rallizes bassist) in Dec. '05, and that Hiroshi has been releasing 3" CD EPs.

yeah, there's a ton of Nar CDRs. i've got one of very early recordings (early daze or something like that) that isn't too good. some of the later stuff is pretty heavy psych blowout material.

Not for a few years (it sold out almost instantly), but somebody will bootleg/rebootleg it soon, or already has. Check eBay or GEMM.

http://www.forcedexposure.com/bin/search.pl?search_string=rallizes&searchfield=artist

i want the real deal!

Live 77 sounds great and has more though and with this band you definitely want more, don't wait, just get it

and yeah, live 77 is the pinnacle. when i was obsessive i collected it all on mp3, now i am going for the full collection on LP. then, when i am through, i can kill myself happily.

then again might not be.

Very limited made-to-order Japan-only release.

happy bidding

Now listening to the Cable Hogue Soundtrack discs. Every time I think I've heard everything I need to hear from them, a new track or two pops up that sparks things up again. "Fantastique" off disc 2 is great.

that track is the highlight. the rest ranges from ok to recorded-in-a-tin-can

Never seen Cable Hogue, but if Rallizes are on the soundtrack it must be some fuckin' western.

I find that Les Rallizes Denudes is WAY heavier, fuzzier, etc. than Flower Travelin Band.

Also, I've come up with another reason to dig Rallizes. Even with the bizarre renderings you get from online webpage translators, the lyrics are really good! You can tell that a Japanese/English bi-lingual poet could really transform them into something wonderful.

'now i have nowhere forever/now i have eternal/and it should continue forever'

'only the flowers bloom/beyond the silver swirl/you have your hands Sashinobe/beyond the vortex silver/kindness to feed the flames of wild life'

That's pretty impressive stuff.

Fuzzier definitely, heavier I would disagree with. But my definition of heavy would tend more towards Sabbathy, metally stuff.

So far I'm pretty much down with all of the Univive releases I've heard, which is most of them. "Wild Trips" hits me as particularly brimful of awesome, but they're all worthy listens. Any problems with sound quality, editing or whatever is more than compensated for by brain twisting performances.

The 50's greaseball vibe underpinning their sound really sets them apart from other guitar freak-out bands, I think. There's a real doo-wop/girl group thing that pops through from time to time. As mentioned upthead, "The Night Of The Assassins" bass-line is from Little Peggy March (and maybe a bit of "Dream Lover" in the vocals?) and there's another one that reminds me a bit of "Rumble"... but then again maybe I'm just projecting onto it what I want to hear - it's got an open-ended blank canvas quality that makes them really appealing.

I hadn't really picked up on that greaser vibe before, but I can see where yr coming from. There's nearly as much Brando Wild One [in the look at least] as there is psych/hippie, projecting a bit of a VU/Stooges/pre-Ramones sense of "style." This mirrors the contrast of their psych/punk/metal dynamosludge music w/ the dreamy poetics of the vocals and lyrics. Nice.

Live 77 should have topped the alternate 70s album poll.

The good Captain makes an excellent point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHpLkDYfjew&feature=related

^this = good

Should be adopted as a national anthem somewhere

OTM

Love Rallizes

as good a place as any to say please everybody boycott those Phoenix bootlegs, it's the Radioactive scumbag again under a new name.

Double Heads

But I just revived also to say how much I love that video, never given enough about what psych bands do with visuals in general. Very much the 'sound of confusion n' all. xp = hmmm...

"Fantastique" on that Double Heads bootleg is truly and totally amazing, even for Rallizes. not sure of too many other instances where they really ROCK that much.

since this was revived i've been sort of living in the univive sets. just listened to naked diza star for the first time and the last disc features two cuts from a show where they had a saxophone player. the last disc also features two or three different drummers, one of whom completely upends every fixed idea i had of "field of artificial flower," transforms it into all rolling dyanmics

dynamics*

as good a place as any to say please everybody boycott those Phoenix bootlegs, it's the Radioactive scumbag again under a new name

more discussion on this here:

les rallizes denudes rfi

Listening to Part 1 of double heads: fantastique is good, but the '102' track has that smoky 3am in a cave vibe that keeps building interminably then lets go - the usual tricks applied again and again for what now?! 35 years?!

Really enjoying Double Heads - great sound, wild performances! Yes, Mizutani's characteristic tricks are in full effect, but I'm hearing things in the sound I never heard before . .