I always get the feeling that the Japanese know how to take things to another level. For example, they may not even have been the pioneers in punk. But is there any rawer scene than the Burning Spirit era?
With noise, I don’t even need to be working out big theories. Everyone knows references like Merzbow, Hanatarash, Masonna, KK Null and the Incapacitants. Or Keiji Haino and gems such as Les Rallizes Dénudés or Fushitsusha.
I woke up today with a fucking headache. As I like the strategy of fighting fire with fire, I decided to grab one the best 80s noise albums in Japan: “Viva Angel” by Hijokaidan. There’s always something comforting in feedback and its modulations, I don’t know why.
Anyway, good soundtrack for another weekend staring at the wall. Enjoy.
I also leave you with a tiny excerpt from David Foster Wallace, taken from the first paragraph of “Girl With Curious Hair”.
IT’S 1976. The sky is low and full of clouds. The gray clouds are bulbous and wrinkled and shiny. The sky looks cerebral. Under the sky is a field, in the wind. A pale highway runs beside the field. Lots of cars go by. One of the cars stops by the side of the highway. Two small children are brought out of the car by a young woman with a loose face. A man at the wheel of the car stares straight ahead. The children are silent and have very white skin. The woman carries a grocery bag full of something heavy. Her face hangs loose over the bag. She brings the bag and the white children to a wooden fencepost, by the field, by the highway. The children’s hands, which are small, are placed on the wooden post. The woman tells the children to touch the post until the car returns. She gets in the car and the car leaves. There is a cow in the field near the fence. The children touch the post. The wind blows. Lots of cars go by. They stay that way all day.