PHEW-S/T, LP, 1981, JAPAN

Finally, following my posts of her "View" and "Himitsu No Knife" albums, here's the much requested debut release by this idiosyncratic Japanese vocalist, though with Holger Czukay, Jaki Liebzeit and Conny Plank featured as members here (and Conny engineering and co-producing), this is as much a krautrock record as it is a document of the Japanese underground. Never one for particularly showy vocal gymnastics, it's more often the warped context in which her vocals maneuver that catches the ear then her technique per se. Interestingly, it really goes to show what spending a long while away from an album can do to distort your perceptions, as I'd originally cited her follow-up LP "View" as being "Every bit as appealingly quirky as her others", a notion quickly dispelled by exposure to this gem, self evidently a stronger piece of work and considering the personnel, for all the expected reasons. Jaki and Holger's sinuous undergirding here anticipates their work on the following year's "Full Circle" collaboration with Jah Wobble and also glances off various other Can-related interventions into new wave praxis (like Michael Karoli's work with Bits) while still leaving room for truly peculiar gestures that reference her totally twisted "Shokyoku" single in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto from the same period.

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