Sunday, April 20, 2008

DRAGON BLUE-HADES PARK, CD, 1998, JAPAN







In keeping with the spate of 90's Japanese underground posts being offered here of late, here's a quasi-supergroup from that scene's heyday (though so were most of the other acts of the era in that incestuous musical petri dish) fronted by the hoarsely hectoring vox of one-time Mizutama Shobodan frontwoman Tenko and featuring Tipographica's Tsuneo Imahori on guitar and Akira Sotoyama on drums, Ground Zero/Dying Ground bassist Kato Hideki and Otomo Yoshide interjecting his trademark turntable scramble. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes a bit wayward, the best bits here seize on a sort of galvanizing Massacre-like attack, though how much better this might have sounded had it not been saddled with a typically airless and murky Martin Bisi mix is anyone guess.


Note: Massmirror resolutely refused to work in my numerous attempts to use their service to upload this title, so it's been upped via Xirror instead.

Get it Here

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have this and the production virtually ruins it. Much better is the live Dragon Blue with the same lineup, which preceded Hades Park. Drawing on material from the Polkadots, Death Praxis, At the Top of Mt. Brocken, Slope and La Legende de la Pluie, it served as something of an overview of Tenko's muse and collaborations.

Anonymous said...

Your comment reminds me of Eric's Marble Sheep post from last Summer. The live Marble Sheep really rocked hard. But to be honest, I don't recall ever getting around to listening to their studio material (yet).

Anonymous said...

If I remember correctly, didn't John Zorn produce this CD? If so, it's astonishing that it has remained out-of-print for the better part of a decade. He should re-release on his prolific Tzadik label.

Anonymous said...

Can't wait to hear this one. Hadn't heard of this group.

FYI, I downloaded the file using Uploaded.to and it came through as Yuksek Sadakat - Katil & Maktul (2008)!! I used File Factory and it gave me the right file.

Thanks for the fantastic music.

Unknown said...

overall I agree with your assessment of this one - some brilliant moments, some ho-hum moments. it certainly didn't live up to the high hopes I had when I first found out about it.

Anonymous said...

http://rapidshare.com/files/109125743/Dragon_Blue-Hades_Park-Japan-1998.zip

fuzztunnel said...

Interesting you complain about the Bisi mix... I was just listening to my copy of the Semantics "Bone of Contention" LP and feeling pretty bummed out about the recording quality... only to find Mr. Bisi had a hand in the mixing.