Just to set the stage with a round of maximum cognitive dissonance, this album initiates with a sphincter clenching Arena Rock gambit that would make Loverboy wince. Ah, but these high voltage Japanese oddballs are just setting you up for a fall. Down a rabbithole as it turns out, what with the sudden intrusion of three dimensional polka dotted electro-pop quirk of a sort that some of you might refer to as Zolo. It's but the first in a long and befuddling series of genius caliber rug-pulls from a group who can count both Chris Cutler and Henry Kaiser as worshipful adherents to their wild muse, both having at one time placed this LP in their top 10. Led by percussionist, composer and visionary Kiyohiko Senba, Haniwa-Chan played an alternate and smaller scale iteration of the sort of music he composed on a mass scale with his orchestra-sized ensemble Kiyohiko Senba And His Haniwa All-Stars (both posted on MS previously). And with tracks like Owannaino on here, Cutler and Kaiser's case is not a difficult one for someone to make. Spinning on a dime with pinprick accuracy and rubberized dimensionality, it's literally one of the most astonishing cuts I've ever heard; like some trans-dimensional equivalent of a Rube Goldberg device collapsed down into it's quadraphonic and holographic audio equivalent only to be suddenly ramrodded by an out-of-the-blue intrusion of charging Beetle Juice-like Danny Elfman orchestral bombast before finally reconstituting Rube for another round of airborne whirligig motion. Astonishing and intensely disciplined displays like this are just par for the course with this crew though; arbiters of that rarified realm of uber-weirdness that only fellow 80's Japanese outfits like After Dinner, Wha Ha Ha and Killing Time were plying, though for all the overt displays of compositional outlandishness, there's plenty of winsome cuteness to offset it all in neon pink air quotes. You can thank an anonymous blog friend for enriching your life with this treasure. Go grapple with this one and get back to me, folks...
Get it via Rapidshare here
***NOTE: THERE'S A MIRRORED MEDIAFIRE LINK IN THE COMMENT FIELD***
thank you anonymous blog friend for this sudden intrusion of three dimensional polka dotted electro-pop quirk of a sort that some of you might refer to as Zolo :)
ReplyDeletegreat stuff. may i recommend mediafire over rapidshare and megaupload?
ReplyDeleteI am speechless over this. The first five seconds is misleading, to say the least. Often, when you hear music that pushes the boundaries through time changes and rapid genre-hopping it is merely interesting. This goes way beyond that. This is going to be on repeat for a long time. Can't thank you enough.
ReplyDeleteYessss! I'm so excited to hear this. The other Kiyohiko Senba posts on MS were utterly amazing!
ReplyDeleteMy favourite Japanese album of all time. 20 years ago I played weekly tracks from this on the local radio. Will get the vinyl on the deck tonight.
ReplyDeleteNestor Burma
Usually, I hate anything that sounds like the soundtrack to anime. But, I really like this. Is quite a beautifull album. Thank-you. It put a smile on my face :)
ReplyDelete--TymexPyres
Fantastic blog...!!!
ReplyDeletegreat! thanks.
ReplyDeletethis is great! THANKS
ReplyDeleteYour blog and so many others have inspired me to start my own. http://redchapterjubilee.wordpress.com/ Not sure how to contact you otherwise to let you know about it, so I figured I'd do it this way.
ReplyDeleteTotally thrilled to see this here. I looked for this album for years and finally found the LP - which is missing a few tracks off the CD. Looking super forward to hearing 'em now.
ReplyDeleteThis is up there with the Togawa Juns, After Dinners, and Phews of the early 80s madness in Japan.
ReplyDeleteThanks for introducing me to yet another fantastic album!
has anyone else had a probelm with loads of malware from chewbone... which is shame cos i use that site liek every day
ReplyDeleteThanks for another load of weird and incredibly fun Japanese insanity! Kinda like if Samla Mammas Manna were a Japanese pop group :-)
ReplyDeleteregards
Chris
The first track reminds me so much of the riff from Foreigner's Hot Blooded.
ReplyDeleteSpeechless me too! This stuff is so hard to find and so valuable. If anybody knows how to get any more stuff of Kiyohiko Senba (there's a project named Senba Sonic Spear, I guess...) please share! I even find this hard to get in the market.
ReplyDeleteThis guy is rather a magician, I can't get the seam between the many styles and moods he sew. And the singer is awesome, any more info about her?
Big thank!
This...is...awesome! I so rarely find music I enjoy as much as this.
ReplyDeleteThis is great. 'nuff said.
ReplyDeleteLove this herky-jerky album. Just excellent. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteReminds me of Chakra a bit at some points, still very original and mindblowing album!
ReplyDeleteMediaFire mirror.
ReplyDeleteThese are new MP3s sourced from the CD that do not have the annoying pause between tracks 1 and 2, should play fine in gapless players now.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteMaybe someone has this album in lossless format??
rg