Underground Japanese rock has always interested me. From the harsh noise of artists such as Merzbow and Incapacitants, the hardcore punk/noise rock of bands such as Boredoms, BBQ Chickens, Melt-Banana, and Ruins, psychedelic/stoner jam bands such as Acid Mothers Temple and Flower Travellin’ Band, and early electronic music groups like Yellow Magic Orchestra, there has always been something unique and intriguing about this type of music that I can’t find anywhere else in the world. While there are left-of-the-dial Japanese bands who wear their influences on their sleeve (it’s hard to imagine Flower Travellin’ Band’s “Satori” without Black Sabbath’s first two albums and the blues), there has always been a sense of adventure and restless innovation that keeps my eyes peeled for new talented artists and bands from Japan. Today, I have found a new band made up of bassist Lonesome Death Dick, drummer Ikuro Takahashi, and the band’s leader/guitarist, Suzuki Junzo. Together, they are the acid rock outfit Suzuki Junzo.
Now, music and sound can have several effects. A Top 40 song or a simply-constructed song with a verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus formula may give you instant gratification with an immediate and catchy chorus. But sometimes music or sound can also be used as a drug/mind altering experience including many varieties of electronic music or psychedelic rock and pop or even binaural beats–two sounds playing at the same time to create auditory illusions.
Suzuki Junzo’s newest release on Nod and Smile Records, “Shark-Infested Custard” functions the same way the aforementioned binaural beats do, and is a mind-altering, meditative avant-garde blues/psychedelic adventure. The opener, the 21-minute opus “S-E.M.J,” is song that begins with a lone acoustic guitar that repeats throughout the song and builds into a trippy and noisy psychedelic jam featuring guitars played with an E-Bow, offbeat drums with an emphasis on interesting fills, groovy bass, and a structure that reminds me of a song that could have appeared on one of Swans more soft and meditative albums like their most recent album, “The Glowing Man.”
The second song, “Skins of Silver Spoon” opens with dissonant harmonium chords, and is shrouded with glitchy bells and gong sounds played at random intervals of time. Despite that, this is the closest to an accessible or “traditional song.” It’s an acoustic ballad, and has low and passionate vocals from Suzuki as well as ominous and sour guitar chords, and clocks in at around four minutes. The closer, “Shark-Infested Custard (To Henry V.)” is an ambitious sixteen minute avant-garde blues jam, with shuffling drums, noisy and abrasive guitar solos sprinkled throughout, and ends this three-track album on a grooving and noisy ending.
The listening experience I had with this album was unusual, confusing, and disorienting, but also wonderfully bizarre and rewarding. On paper, one would think this album has very straightforward ideas that drag on far too long: blues jams, dynamics, acoustic guitar passages, and rudimentary riffs for three songs clocking in at exactly forty two minutes. However, rather than these basic ideas growing stale over time, they turn into a bizarrely meditative and druggy experience. I would highly recommend that fans of underground Japanese rock and experimental music in general to check this album out. Peace.
