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• Debon
part 1 (23.28) total time 45.56 mins £9.00 |
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• Side A (24.32) total time 47.02 mins Jewel case with numbered card insert SOLD OUT |
On this occasion Paradigm Discs has decided to reissue 2 LP's of what can only be described as rock music, minus the drum kit. These two records are something of a mystery. No group information was ever given, and no production date or location is indicated. It would seem though, that these records are both by the same group of Japanese people and that they were recorded in the mid seventies in Japan. In common with Magical Power Mako, the musical influences here are much more Germanic than anything Japanese, with long hypnotic free form rock hysteria, comparable to Faust in the use of experimentation and heavily fuzzed electric guitar. The emotional wordless vocals echo those of Damo Suzuki from Can. But unlike Can the rhythms are wrought from hand drums, sleigh bells, tambourine, bass drum and other simple means. Hard blown harmonica is a strong feature on this somewhat crazed mantric rock along with recorder, flute, zither, mandolin, acoustic guitar and synth. There is also a strong use of tape loops, electronics, environmental sounds, backwards tapes and what sounds distinctly like the hysterical laughter of Stan Laurel.
REVIEWS
ALLMUSIC
Obscure Japanese under-ground rock group from the 70s re-issued
here in 1999 to an unsuspecting western world which could not have known
of the wayward experiments going on in Tokyo at the time. A perspective
of the Japanese underground becomes clearer on hearing this wild dose
of free-form rock. While Fushitsusha, White Heaven and Magical Power
Mako may be names from the 90s Tokyo underground that drew heavily of
West Coast Psychedelia of Blue Cheer, Karuna Khyal is a precursor to
those groups in that they embraced such a storm of noise some decades
earlier.However the tape experiments and treatments are much more prominent
in this recording. Evidence that Captain Beefheart, Faust and Guru Guru
have a considerable degree of influence on this leftfield ritual of
sonic mayhem. (Skip Jansen)
ALTERNATIVE
PRESS (August 1999 / No. 133)
These mid-'70s releases - by interconnected musicians about whom nothing
is known - represent two of the highest peaks of Japanese psych-prog
weirdness. Brast Burn's Debon is an intricate con catenation
of cascading sleigh bells and hand drums, windswept Himalayan acid atmospherics,
bottleneck acoustic-guitar twiddle and Damo Suzuki-like mantric babble.
All of the above is held aloft by a synthesist with a terminal case
of pitch wheel woozies and is strategically embellished with outbursts
of tumbling bass drums, spiraling flutes and recorders, and some exquisitly
hallucinogenic electric guitar. Coming on like an eternal cosmic caravan,
the whole damn thing is soaked in a higher-key music of the spheres
vibe. Yes, Brast Burn are indeed the real goods, and they will
suck you into a hypnogogic reverie. Karuna Khyal are, by contrast,
an altogether more psychotic proposition, quite capable of inducing
frontal lobe fatigue in those lacking a hardy constitution. Great monolithic
slabs of damaged, half speed Beefheartian swamp dirge, replete with
squawking, overblown mouth harp, collide with undulating waves of Throbbing
Gristle-esque electronic distortion, as the group stridently trudge
across your neuroreceptors and eroding your sanity. Attempting to reconcile
the contents of those disparate dispatches is a losing game. If there
ia any thread connecting these excursions, it's in the mantrically intoned
vocals that wend their way through both of these outings; though the
volatility of the vocal delivery on Alomoni 1985 renders even
these ties tenuous. Suffice to say, both of these forays into the outer
reaches of sound are perched near the zenith of radical innovation (Eric
Lumbleau)
AVANT
(Spring 1998)
Originally released on Voice records, Debon and Alomoni 1985 exhibit pure, unadulterated, mid 70's 'everybody must get stoned'
music; best appreciated at very loud volume in a basement flat at 4
o'clock in the morning when most of the party-goers have left, in 1975.
Described as 'rock music, minus the drum kit' there are several interesting
moments here. The group were Japanese but the musical influences are
more Germanic than Japanese, Faust immediately spring to mind, as do
Pink Floyd, Santana and The Doors, making it on the whole a peculiar
cocktail. To anyone raised on the blues of John Lee Hooker and Muddy
Waters it's strange hearing the blues sung with a Japanese accent -
in the same way it looks odd watching Ninja films dubbed into English
(although no translation is supplied, it's possible to make out 'Oh
yeah' and 'OK babe' - one can only hope the Japanese blueser is singing
about his girlfriend, his car, his dog etc.) But despite the obvoius
cultural differences there are moments when this band manage to cut
something far closer to the origins of Blues than The Doors. Then again
there are the sections where the sleigh bells kick in and the recorders
start tooting - the listener is plunged unprepared into a mystical hippydom.
Whereas Beyond The Black Crack offers surplus silly bedroom splicing,
demonstrating a refreshing lack of pretension, it is the occasional
rough edges and musical jokes that save Debon and Alomoni
1985 from becoming completely self -conscious nonsense. Debon
Part Two plays tape loops against each other at different speeds
adding a Nancarrow-ish twist to the confusion; mad person vocals, dog
barks, cuckoos, bird cheeps, monkey screams and bursts of thunderous
percussion help to disrupt the chilled out grooves. Unlike say, Keiji
Haino, whose hollow and uninspired axemanship in the name of 'free'
music bores, close listening to some of these tracks can detect unusual
polyphony between the guitar and accompaniment. The use of stereo is
often playful with wide separation offering independent events at the
extremities while a focal point (usually a repeated figure in the centre
of the mix) holds the sonic chaos together. The textured layering of
echo, reverb and backward recordings against forward recordings provides
contrast to the more rock inspired sections. The big riff was embedded
into the seventies rock artillery - here it becomes the basis of pseudo-mantras;
the length of the tracks supporting a climax over many minutes that
could well be used in a hypnotic Voodoo ceremony where the village virgins
dance themselves into a heightened state of sexual frenzy and bite off
chicken heads. The age of the recordings, combined with their lack of
high end EQ lends them the kind of darkness modern lo-fi bands, with
their top notch ADAT recorders, dream of attaining. On Alomoni the lead
vocal (you can tell by the over-dubbed yelping that Beefheart has been
an influence) is fed through a band-pass filter to simulate telephone
quality - reminiscent of that found on early Residents records. Here
it's less quirky, more bluesy; not so much eye-ball head as up for head
- but in the end the music just sails too close to hippidippidopeydung. (Richard Hemmings)
BANANAFISH
14
Also around 1974, I believe, or 1975, perhaps, 'Debon' by Brast
Burn and 'Alomoni 1985' by Karuna Khyal were first
released on Voice Records. These utterly charming buffet tables of canned
sauerkraut, flambéed tonsil declarations, brown and green stringy
mess over in the corner, and freshly prepared song salad with a dressing
of giddy delay euphoria, would have been the most satisfying solution
for many a connoisseur's hunger pangs for multitracked solitary psychedelic
songster, had the LP's not been pressed on oregano-flavoured vinyl at
the height of Japan's obsession with spaghetti westerns. Most of the
world has waited 25 long years for Paradigm's reissues on inedible plastic
and gold. It can be a trecherous and sometimes lonely road to follow,
bypassing the fast-food rest stops of mixolydian jamming and redundant
rock repetition, opting instead for such scenic hamlets as Tape Tomfoolery
and Obfuscation Hill, but these albums travel the route with ease. Undoubtedly,
many modern backward glancers will gleefully devour these like finely
aged cheese, but isn't it odd how many people spread brie on Ritz crackers?
I said no stoners... we're allowed to have one. (Alesandro Moreschi).
FREAK EMPORIUM
CATALOGUE
BRAST BURN
Quite an unbelievable find! This mysterious record has lain undiscovered
since the mid seventies when (it is guessed) it was recorded by a group
of unknown Japanese musicians and then released privately by Voice records.
Rumours of the greatness of this psychedelic masterpiece have circulated
for years (largely propagated by Nurse With Wounds famously obscure
"list" on which Brast Burn feature) and it has finally seen
re-release in a beautiful hand numbered CD issue of just 500. So, now
that it's available what's it actually like? Well,... it's simply astonishing.
Split into two long sequences, the music runs right up to the edge of
sanity and screams wordlessly in the face of madness then jogs back
to a lone hill top to lazily invent the form of psychedelic acid folk
that Ghost have made an entire career from. There is utterly freaked
out, acid-drenched genius at work on this record. Strains of Kraut rock
run throughout, Can, and particularly Damo Suzuki's vocal style, are
certainly valid comparisons, but this music really does seem to be running
a race of its own, clouded in pot smoke, and headed in the wrong direction
but glorious while doing it. Highly Recommended.
KARUNA KHYAL
Behold: a true hidden treasure. Buried deep in time, this obscure artifact
is something of a revelation. No group information was ever given, and
no production date or location is indicated, however, it would seem
that this record and the "Brast Burn" LP (also reissued by
Paradigm) are both by the same group of Japanese nutters and that they
were both recorded in the mid seventies in Japan. But all you really
need to know is that it is stone cold fantastic, a wild and manic trip
full to the brim with hypnotic jams constructed from all manner of eclectic
instruments. The tribal blues sound is augmented with fascinating tape
experiments, electronics, environmental sounds, moaned (howled) vocals
and a host of musical delicacies, as dangerous as they are delicious.
The influence of German bands such as Can, Faust and Guru Guru is evident
throughout, so too is the influence of the good Captain (Beefheart that
is) whose gut wrenching blues dirges find compadres in this unearthed
swamp. Deranged psychedelic music for anyone with a passing interest
in Kraut rock, the new Japanese psychedelic scene (most of whom owe
these pioneers a great debt) or great music from the edge of the solar
system. This CD reissue will hopefully bring the band some deserved
attention, but with a hand numbered pressing of a mere 500 it is just
as likely these issues will soon become artifacts in themselves. Highly
Recommended.
HEAD HERRITAGE
One of the great lost Krautrock
albums of the 1970s....... .......by a Japanese group! Brast Burn were
included on the 'legendary list' that appeared on the sleeve of the
debut album from Nurse With Wound, 1979's startling "Chance Meeting
on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella" (United
Dairies). NWW mainman Steve Stapleton had put together a list of the
major players amongst everything Krautrock, experimental, avant-garde
and like-minded artists to make a young 'post-punk' audience hungry
for more brain-popping musics and to let a new audience into the bliss
that is Krautrock. As a teenager in the early 70s, Stapleton actually
travelled to Germany as an exploring fan, staying at Conny Plank's Studio
and also partying with Guru Guru, no wonder his life took the turn it
did. On the publication of Mr. Cope's 'Krautrocksampler', Stapleton
expressed his joy about the book, as it would trigger certain labels
to re-release many hidden gems onto CD. Brast Burn's "Debon"
album was first released on Voice Records in the mid-seventies and it
wasn't until 1998 that Clive Graham's Paradigm label brought it to the
surface once more. Apparently, it was remastered >from the original
vinyl, but don't be put off, Graham has done a fantastic remaster job,
altogether with a great sleeve, (first edition 500 copies). There is
something more to add to the mystery when he asks if anyone has any
information as to the whereabouts of the group, where the album was
recorded etc. The album is made up of two long pieces (you guessed it)
"Debon parts 1 & 2". A faded in Synth pulse starts the
album off which morphs into an orchestration of fuzzed Guitar, echo-drenched
Percussives, reverbed Bass Guitar , Pianos, Acoustic Slide Guitars,
Zithers and all manner of Taped sounds, slowly letting the rhythm set
a steady pace for the Vocals to begin. Well now, the lead Vocals always
make me smile! Friends of mine have always come up with some corking
descriptions: 'Damo Suzuki on Crack' , 'James Brown in Space' and er...'Shaun
Ryder's Dad'! Whatever description they should have, one thing is for
sure, the Vocals are certainly inspired. Whilst the rest of the ensemble
weave a bobbing chant of what sounds like "shoo-am-I, Shoo-am-I,
Shoo-am I Shoo", the lead Voice interjects with grunts and 'yeahs'
whilst an Organ or Synth sounds like a cross between a bumblebee and
a stylophone, all the time the lead Voice gets more strained, eventhough
you can almost tell he is lying down! Electronic wind sounds signal
a different direction for the track now and is flagshipped by a sound
which is made, I think, by (a Tape Loop of ?) reverbed Electric Guitar
strings which are struck to make it sound like an odd sort of ritual
bell. Flutes and Tin Whistles flutter to the wind electronics and Sleigh
Bells, backing an almost out of tune Synth (of course, this makes it
all the more strange!). Tinny sounding Taped Church Bells herald the
last segment of 'Part 1' and a more positive rhythm from the Hand Drums
then glides in with more infectious chanting before a small explosion
brings it to a halt. The second half of this extraordinary (monged?)
record ("Debon part 2"!) begins with Acoustic Guitars circling
a forgotten nursery rhyme toon along with a cuckoo sound and dogs barking
in the near background, ushering in more Voice gruntings and some very
strange sounds sliding to and fro, so many things happening but at the
same time there is a good sense of space amongst all the sounds. A 12-string
Guitar comes in to send things a little off-kilter whilst the Voices,
dogs and cuckoos swirl around your head. This is a must for headphones,
it's like there was a bunch of seasoned stoners on an expedition along
the vast ice carpets in the tundra, consigned to being totally lost
but evoking their gods through herbs and music (okay, so it's a normal
weekend for some!). They've experimented with the Percussion to great
effect, using it through various electrical processes and it's easy
to see a line of evolution through to modern day Japanese groups especially
Ghost and the more laid back material of the Acid Mothers family. When
Can discovered Damo Suzuki busking on a Munich street and asked him
to join them all those years ago, I think there was an instant (kosmische)
connection between Japan and the European left-field musics that started
some sort of mystical lineage... hey! perhaps it's best NOT to listen
to Brast Burn with headphones on...you will certainly travel- that's
for sure, and far out (man) at that... Brast Burn are apparently
linked with Karuna Khyal, some people say they were the same band, they
had the next release on Voice Records and were also treated to the CD
remaster courtesy of Paradigm, the album being "Alomoni 1985"
and a more psychotic outing altogether! If you enjoy Faust and
Can (especially the E.F.S. sketches) and are partial to the aformentioned
Ghost and Acid Mothers albums of recent years, then you'll certainly
enjoy this music here and as I've already mentioned, all praise must
go to Clive Graham for doing such a great job on the CD presentation.
Where are they now ?? (Jim Tones)
MOTION
Spend any time immersed in the strange world of Nurse With Wound, and
you'll encounter talk of "The List." As central to the NWW mythos as
Le Comte de Lautréamont's Maldoror is to the parallel mythology
of Current 93, The List is a page of names that accompanied the first
NWW album, 1979's A Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing
Machine and an Umbrella. Reaching out to like-minded outsider souls,
NWW doyen Steven Stapleton compiled an exhaustive checklist of Krautrock,
European progressive, 20th Century, psychedelic, improv, Zeuhl, concrète,
jazz, noise, RIO and avant-pop artists, all of whom met the qualification
of NWWs central apothegm: "Categories strain, crack, and sometimes break,
under their burden - step out of the space provided." The Freeman brothers
(of Audion Magazine/Ultima Thule fame) took it upon themselves to annotate
and extrapolate Stapleton's list, providing a buyer's-guide of NWW-fan-friendly
recordings but frequently adding to the confusion in the course of their
speculations. Stapleton notes a certain Brast Burn - right between
Brainticket (whose music NWW plunders frequently and with glee) and
Brave New World. By way of explanation, the Freemans offer only a terse
"A Japanese Faust" and posit that the band, along with Karuna Khyal (who, while not included in The List, released an album on the same
Voice Records label), must have been interchangeable concerns. If the
accepted lore isn't deliberately misleading, Brast Burn and Karuna
Khyal are indeed one and the same. Could these Voice Records artists
represent a Janus-faced collective entirely at peace with its inherent
contradictions? Might the tribal Sturm und Drang and stomping lunatic-fringe
revelry of Karuna Khyal's Alomoni 1985 and the beatific
grace of Debon be two sides of a single fabulous tale? As both
albums have languid slide guitars and tape loops in common, the possibility
seems more likely with every spin through Debon. A telling point
of reference here could be Magical Power Mako, another perplexing entity
of Japanese origin and synchronous (mid-'70s) activity. Like any good
artistic enigma, MPM inhabits a creative realm to which others gain
entrance only at his bidding. Since 1974, MPM has charted his own cosmic/kosmiche
trail of self and spiritual discovery through music, with each record
as different from the last as it is from everything else. It is to the
kaleidoscope of MPM's finest work that Brast Burn's helical psychedelic
configurations return. Spread across two lengthy (22+-minute) tracks,
broken into shards and melted down, Debon is a mandala of jingling
loops, multi-tracked and harmonized lamasery chants, Kenji "Damo" Suzuki-styled
declamations, electronic glimmers, gongs, sacred bells, and fuzzed-out
synthesizers. Brast Burn further plaits Debon with breathless
flutes and recorders, subtle musique concrète embellishments, percussive
shudders, and guitars, guitars, guitars - electric and acoustic, clean
and lavishly effects-laden, strummed and struck, slicing and gently
sliding. The laundry list of elements, worthy of Ashtray Navigations
or Simon Wickham Smith and Richard Youngs, actually evokes a similar
effect - at once improvisational yet utterly musical. Nor is it much
of a stretch to draw the line connecting Brast Burn with such
scions as Ghost or Trembling Strain. Favoring consciousness, clarity,
and contemplation (as opposed to Karuna Khyal's fits of angst
and drunken choler), Brast Burn communicates sensitivity to the
Zen virtue of negative space, layering the natural white noises of wind
and water to cancel out lingering entropic traces.The epic gestures
of the earlier track culminate in raga-like repose - a spiritually exhausting,
soul-wrenching prayer ritual concluding with the revitalizing serenity
of meditation. It might all be too hippie-drippy/sounds-of-the-'70s
for some, if not for the full zoological spectrum of curious critter
voices (elsewhere identified as Stan Laurel samples!) and toy-like musical
accents littering its picked and plucked figures. Tape designs and interrupted
narrative aside, there's far more evidence of early Popul Vuh - particularly
during the tracks climactic throes of euphoric axemanship - than there
is support for Brast Burn's ostensible "Japanese Faust" reputation.
Of Paradigm Discs' Voice Records reissues, the exhilarating Alomoni
1985 may be the more immediately arresting album. But Debon's fascinating, multidimensional charms are not to be overlooked by devotees
of psychedelic arcana. 1999 saw the unearthing of another coveted relic,
thanks to the efforts of Paradigm Disc's Clive Graham. As with the label's
reissues of (the possibly related) Brast Burn's Debon, Trevor Wishart's Menagerie, and The Reverend Dwight
Frizzell & Anal Magic's Beyond the Black Crack, Karuna
Khayal's Alomoni 1985 is something very special - unburied
treasure, indeed. The MO on Alomoni 1985 is thoroughly corrupted
rock & roll, steeped in ragtag R&B and crisscrossed by croaked vocal
mantras and deliriously dizzy slide guitar. On the first of the albums
two 20+-minute fractured tracks of rambunctious, bass-led "song," Alomoni
1985 invites comparisons to nothing less than a low-rent Faust Tapes
- less dependent upon Faust's bucolic demeanor and rigorous studio-as-instrument
directive - or a particularly gone Magic Band outtake (free from the
Captain's authoritarian censorship). And while KK is at least more deserving
of the "Japanese Faust" descriptive misleadingly bestowed upon Brast
Burn, even this seems bluntly dismissive of a unique, remarkably
potent brand of madness. Liberally laced as it is with dated Canned
Heat-isms, copious shofar-squawk harmonica riffing, grim oompah/cosmic
jug-band plod, smears of visceral feedback, and truly insidious tape-work, Alomoni 1985 is most uncannily analogous to the early catalog
of Hapshash & The Coloured Coat. An LSD-besotted English trio, H&TCC
recorded one of the freakiest records of its day, 1967's giddy Hapshash
& The Coloured Coat Featuring The Human Host and The Heavy Metal Kids.
Rumor has Hapshash's lysergic excesses leading members to death, insanity,
and, natch - production work for a major studio after only one other
(very different) album, 1969's fun, Moby Grape-flavored Western Flier.
H&tCC's legacy long outlived the band, as Hapshash's music and communal
lifestyle directly inspired the first stirrings in Germany of what would
become Krautrock. Heaping complication upon confusion, the smoking second
half of Alomoni 1985 winds through a noisy tribal exorcism-cum-hoedown.
With a bacchanalian commotion of scrappy percussion, a dozen shades
of vocal damage (overtone chants, wordless mumbling, tuneless singing,
raucous whoops and hollers), gusts of modulated (wind? synth?) noise,
and spurts of volatile, psychedelicized improv, KK bursts through the
free-music barrier - albeit in a stomping, stumbling Cro-Magnon fashion.
No-Neck Blues Band adherents take note. Surviving lore about KK, however,
places Alomoni 1985 quite a few years earlier (maybe), in Japan
(maybe), with an unknown (maybe), substantially more menacing quantity
either cut adrift of its contemporaneous musical timeline or orbiting
decades ahead of such. Consider that such modern concerns as Ectogram,
Ulan Bator, Ghost, and all aforementioned and kindred souls could sticker
their names on the cover of Alomoni 1985 without anyone batting an eye.
It just doesnt add up, does it? In fact, so many questions concerning
KK persist that the CD tray includes a plea (from Mr. Graham!) for any
information about this enigmatic crew. Alomoni 1985 may lack
the provenance needed to calibrate its actual historical import, but
the album remains a compelling oddity - brash, bristling, baffling,
and all but inexplicable. One is left wondering what might have become
of Karuna Khyal, whatever year's model Alomoni 1985 represents. (Gil Gershman)
OPPROBRIUM
Brast Burn was a legendarily obscure Japanese ensemble that existed
in the first half (I presume) of the 1970s. For many years, they were
known only as an entry in the notorious Nurse With Wound list, with
no way for anyone to check them out. Thus this CD. First off, I'll say
that it sounds really good. One would never guess that it was a transfer
from vinyl. Brast Burn has been cited/promoted at various times
as the "Japanese Faust". I feel that this is incorrect. A better analogy
would be to the ritual/hypnotic Suzuki-era Can: to Soundtracks and the
Ethnological Forgery Series. But the analogy is imperfect because Debon ranges over fairly eclectic territory, taking in slide blues, parodies
of 1969-71 Pink Floyd, and some truly blasted overdrive guitar (here
the Faust reference makes a little sense). Side A is where they indulge
their jokier aspects - including an irritatingly persistent way with
the percussion (precursor to electronica/sampledelica?) and that "ironic"
slide guitar. Side B is a minor masterpiece, travelling from tribal
forgery to a lovely Near Eastern ballad thing to the fuzz extravaganzas
that eventually close out the album (abruptly). Individual indexing
of "songs" within the two (22-minute plus) "sides" would have been helpful. Karuna Khyal's Alomoni 1985 was also on Voice Records,
labelmates to Brast Burn (they were VO-1002 to the latter's 1001), Khyal were actually more Faust-like. It has been suggested that
the two were in fact the same band - my feeling is that there was some
personnel overlap at the very least. The album starts out (like Brast's)
in a bluesy jones - but the second piece owes its soul to 'Mamie
Is Blue' from So Far, with touches of Magic Band musette and primitive
rhythm machine thrown in. Third piece brings in the wankering overloads
of Faust's debut and from there it does not let up. Blues guitar filters
in periodically the tribalisms pick up - but so do washes of wah-wah/fuzzed
guitar. By any measure, this is fairly twisted stuff - and it keeps
on going! In a way, this is even stranger than Faust because it's hard
to fathom what the rationale for this music is. With Faust we pretty
much "get" what they were going on about - but this is almost anti-natural.
But, as with Brast Burn, the album gets better as it goes along.
Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band turns out to be a third major referent.
The second side develops into a swirling maelstrom of So Far, Trout
Mask Replica and Ono's POB (as orchestrated by Brainticket?). Just so
you know what you're getting into. Between this and the Brast,
this is the "better" artifact - in fact, it could be considered one
of the most notable avant-rock albums of all time, if only for the unusual
and focussed handling of its influences. (Brian Doherty)
PTOLEMAIC
TERRASCOPE
I've stumbled across some very weird shit here. Both these records were
cut by the same Japanese duo of Karuna Khyal and Toshiyuko Nemoto
in 1975 and originally put out by Voice Records. Damo Suzuki comparisons
are tangible and the music is appropriately a blues/kraut/punk/avante
split. 'Debon' by Brast Burn explores the more out-there
forms of Can. Blues-ish slide guitar and sleigh bells from The Stooges' 'I Wanna Be Your Dog' rut in a dark alley for 20+ minutes whilst
a buzzing organ hoovers every pavement crack for signs of life. A Suzuki/Mooney
vocal mutters and stutters forth all kinds of non-sequiturs and phonics
before some Krishna devotee chanting finishes off 'Part One.' 'Part
Two' starts off barking and cuckooing at the moon to a jig-like
guitar, nothing focuses, it continually breaks down and fragments like
an acid casualty's psyche. Some of the mood swings it goes through include
an Indian (or Greek?) ballad and screeching atonality. Can's faked world
music experiments spring to mind if in idea only. Faust too. Also beginning
in a bluesy mood, Karuna Khyal's 'Alomoni 1985' is less
confusing but still pushing limits. Japanesque forms mix with harmonica
phrases from Captain Beefheart circa 'Mirror Man.' Tape loop and echo
experimentation is rife, as is the constant reprise of that blasting
harmonica. A schizophrenic Little Walter on the arty side of town, wondering
where he's left his rickshaw. All in all a harsh but very interesting
pair of reissues. Paradigm is interested in communicating with Khyal,
Nemoto, Voice Records and Nakano record shop to chase up further archives
or new projects. And on the strength of this, so am I. (Steve Hanson)
RECORD COLLECTOR
Details are scarce about this brace of 1975 oddities from Japan. The
original releases on Voice carried no group or production information,
but investigations by Paradigm boss, Clive Graham, has revealed that
the same group of musicians are responsible for both these highly interesting
discs. The Brast Burn album consists of two long pieces of mostly
acoustic experimentation, with a strong Can feel, particularly from
the vocals, which are a hybrid of Damo Suzuki and John Giorno. Tape
loops, sound effects and the odd burst of synth or super-fuzzed guitar
hold the attention throughout. Karuna Khyal produced the closest
I've ever heard to Japanese folk-blues, with slide guitar and harmonica,
before sliding into an echo-laden piece of musique concrète and
backwards blues. Previously bootlegged, these official digital remasters
deserve a wider audience and, with the growth in interest in the Japanese
underground scene, it's very likely to happen (Trevor King)
RESONANCE
(Vol.7 No.2)
I'm operating with a minimum of information here. I know very little
about Brast Burn and Karuna Khyal. Paradigm Discs who
have mastered these CD reissues from vinyl think that they may have
been Japanese art students. The albums were possibly recorded in the
mid seventies. Any further information will be gratefully received by
Paradigm. Brast Burn are cited as an influence by Nurse With
Wound. The two tracks Debon Parts 1 and 2 each clock in at just
over twenty minutes. In part 1 the opening vocal flourish sounds like
a Japanese James Brown and once you get over that shock it's quite appealing.
What follows is a long dreamy musical sequence of synthesiser, gong,
running water, flute, wind machine, understated drums, sleigh bells
and occasional chanted vocals. The music is high on texture and inventiveness
and displays a willingness to experiment in a very understated way.
Part 2 starts with a wonderful, almost nursery rhyme guitar part and
explores similar extended territory. Very hypnotic. This music is like
ivy. It grows on you. As for Karuna Khyal's Alomoni 1985,
the jury is still out. Is it the same people? Was it recorded in 1985
as the title suggests? They start off with some weird blues dominated
by some great pig-in-a-microwave harmonica. They sound like very early
Residents which is, I suppose, a recommendation. (Ian Shirley)
RUBBERNECK 29
In the words of Paradigm Discs boss, Clive Graham: 'these two records
are something of a mystery. No group information was ever given, and
no production date or location is indicated. It would seem though, that
these records are both by the same group of people and that they were
recorded in the mid-seventies in Japan.' The recordings in question,
now reissued on CD by London based Paradigm, are Debon by Brast
Burn and Alomoni 1985 by Karuna Khyal; both LP's were
originally issued om Voice Records. Although Japanese in origin, the
recordings exhibit strong Occidental influences; in particular, late
60s psychedelic rock and early 70s Krautrock. Can's groove based momentum,
Faust's warped lyricism, and Popol Vuh's mystical folkiness all come
to mind at various points during the 20-minute parts of Debon.
These possible specific influences aside, Brast Burn had a pretty
clear sense of their own group identity, and set about creating episodic
pieces that were lightly driven by a rhythm section of bass guitar and
sundry small percussives. Over and between these, a synth buzzes and
drones, an acoustic guitarist lets fly fragments of bent notes, and
a Damo-like vocalist leads safron coloured chants. Individually, the
playing is rudimentary, but the collective spirit and improvisatory
flow of events achieve some memorable sound-painting with studio tapework
supplying unexpected animal and meteorological FX. If, as Clive Graham
believes, the personnel who were once Brast Burn went on to become Karuna Khyal, then they were certainly in a more frenzied state
of mind when Alomoni 1985 was recorded. Imagine those Krautrock
tendencies now injected with Beefheartian blues (circa Mirror Man),
including shrill blown harmonica and Van Vlietesque distorted vocals,
but cranked up to monsterous proportions with a fuzzed rhythm section,
backward looped guitars and various other tapework aerobatics. In fact,
at times the mix is so raw and dense, it's hard to know which way anything
is moving. Yet there's method in their mayhem, and much that's both
menacing and exhilarating. Whoever they were, Brast Burn and Karuna Khyal deserve a second chance and, with some energetic
promotion, these 70s curios might even become cult hits (Chris Blackford)
The SOUND PROJECTOR 6
Two extremely strange artefacts from the deep Underground of mid-1970s
Japan Rock music. They were both released on the Voice Records label
(ie they're effectively home-made private press records), and it's suspected
that the same personnel were involved in both LP's, but nobody really
knows - these are genuinely mysterious obscurities! Brast Burn can be found on the original Nurse With Wound list, apparently (do you
actually know anybody who uses that particular shopping list as their
cultural yardstick for excellence?). Although there's an undeniable
1970s German Rock influence here - in particular Damo Suzuki with Can
- I think we should check in our 'rarer records than thou' one-upmanship
at the door, and simply join hands as we admit that these are two blisteringly
amazing records. True, they're somewhat disjointed and bitty, and appear
to be held together with string and sellotape in places - but this only
adds to the appeal and strange charm. We could almost guarantee you'll
be smitten and kayoed by their overwhelming oddness. Karuna Khyal's offering features two side-long tracks, in fact made up of a series
of suites and episodes, although side one's highlight is a long repetitive
loop track, with slide guitars, unintelligible fuzzed-out chanting,
and an insane burst of harmonica blowing that makes it all sound like
a plastic, transistorised version of 'Tarotplane' from Captain Beefheart
and the Magic Band's Mirror Man LP. This is followed, totally unexpectedly,
by a long disorienting passage of echoed and treated voices moaning
and sighing, overdubbed with musique concrète backwards tapes and
crashing metallic guitar mini-explosions. This record can be portentous,
alarming and appears to be dangerously unhinged. Very desirable. The Brast Burn LP is equally loopy. Again, two LP side-long suites
- again edited together to maximum weirdness effect. Only three minutes
in from the start and you've already lost the thread, lost in a maze
of horrifying noises created by studio effects by persons with no respect
for restraint or common decency. There follows another Damo Suzuki impression,
in near-English lyrics, extended into another infuriatingly overdone
looped workout. But the playing is irresistible - far less ponderous
than most Krautrock, even including the beyond-reproach Can. Brast
Burn's playing is much lighter and spacier than that, with a charmingly
attenuated slide guitar sound, a purring keyboard of some description,
and a polite but very insistent distorted drum machine throbbing away.
This switches to a more pastoral theme, acoustic guitar and flute with
hand drum, wailing away over the sound effect of the howling wind...now
you know one of the true antecedents of Masaki Batoh's band Ghost. These
are both truely weird records and snapshots of a vanished post-psychedelic
period, trippy, acid tinged and very progressive. I don't think anyone
could even attempt to manufacture something as utterly freaked out as
this, in today's jaded climate. (Ed Pinsent)
The WIRE
Precisely nada is known about these mid-70s Japanese releases. The CD's
were mastered from mint original vinyl editions, as the Paradigm label's
attempts to contact the groups came to nothing (if anyone has any information
about the groups, the label would love to hear from you). Both discs
feature plenty of creepy chanting and phased Japanese vocals. Brast
Burn open out weird folk forms with trance guitar. Karuna Khyal throw together test tones, bleating horns and space drones, all filtered
through Cosmic Couriers-styled studio processes. (David Keenan)