Saturday, October 3, 2009

V/A-A SLICE OF LIFE, LP, 1984, VARIOUS






A quite excellent comp of arty post-prog Japanese underground acts alongside one Veetdharm Morgan Fisher, previously (sans the prefix) the wicked genius behind The Hybrid Kids, though his three cuts here are from the period after he became a Rajneesh disciple and musically headed straight for his navel, chiming koto in hand. His quarter of the wax aside though, there's plenty on this compendium (curated by Pneuma of Trembling Strain) to get excited about, starting at the outset with Soft Weed Factor, a group whose stately but charged post-Canterbury maneuvers clearly reflect serious time spent contemplating The Muffins. Elsewhere, Haitokusha create a delirious racket that first sounds like Koenjihyakkei channeling James Chance, before settling into a MX-80-like post punk churn and Ubazakura chime in with some very sweet acid folk moves, with delicate female vocals set against plangent and ever-so-slightly askew acoustic group motion in a way suggestive of their contemporaries Che Shizu at their most tonal.

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4 comments:

Oozlum said...

Haitokusha post punk churn and Ubazakura very sweet acid folk moves, with delicate female vocals made this record pretty enjoyable! Thank you very much for your good work.

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

Speaking of Trembling Strain/Pneuma, any possibilities of a post? Any other Belle Antique releases would also be welcome. Thanks!

Cheers,
Monschau

Anonymous said...

>starting at the outset with
Soft Weed Factor, a group whose stately but charged post-Canterbury maneuvers clearly reflect serious time spent contemplating The Muffins.

No, Soft Weed Factor was obviously influenced by SOFT MACHINE (thus their name, which was taken from a tune from SOFT`s-"Six"). Of course The Muffins were acolytes , as well.

>after he became a Rajneesh disciple and musically headed straight for his navel, chiming koto in hand.

and what does playing a koto have to do w/ Rajneesh/Osho ?
...Nothing.

nice attempt

vdoandsound said...

anonymous-

"No, Soft Weed Factor was obviously influenced by SOFT MACHINE (thus their name, which was taken from a tune from SOFT`s-"Six"). Of course The Muffins were acolytes , as well."

Hence, the phrase "post-Canterbury moves". Seems to me that should suffice, specifically when the sound is a ringer for The Muffins, not the Softs, making them something like Canterbury twice removed, which was the point of phrasing things that way.


">after he became a Rajneesh disciple and musically headed straight for his navel, chiming koto in hand.

and what does playing a koto have to do w/ Rajneesh/Osho ? ...Nothing."


It has nothing to do with being a Rajneesh disciple and everything to do with making new age music of the era. Lucky you that you unfamiliar enough with
generic new age sounds to miss the fact that chiming kotos are just about second only to peruvian panpipes as cheesy world music signifiers in this kind of music, the very kind Fisher would go on to make after adopting the prefix Veedtharm. And it's exactly the sort of new age stuff he's contributed here. Or maybe you didn't listen before you wrote in?