Spilling ink over the obscurity of Japanese psych rock in 2024 feels like a waste of breath with the internet and a recent reissue series lifting some of the mystery that has long shrouded Les Rallizes Denudes and well and truly folding this group into a canon of underground rock. And in some way, it’s a bit of a relief cutting away so much of the BS and leaving the music.
Collecting cuts from two studio sessions in 1972 and 1980, this LP presents LRD in (relatively speaking) hi fidelity. Long form and minimally composed tracks consisting of careening walls of guitars, ghostly vocal utterances, harmonica skronks, and weird phaser effects mixed with feedback. Cult of band/personality/mystery aside, this is a killer document of one of the best to do it!
-Mitch