La Musica Mystery Box Mystery Solved! La Musica Tapes Vol 3

While going through some old magazines, I found the info sheets from a long ago trade that correspond to the La Musica Mystery Box mentioned here and here. As theorized in the those posts, the info sheets do correspond to La Musica Tapes Vol 3 with the catalog numbers LMB 061-070. That said, the sheets are numbered, but I don't think they correspond completely to the discs. Oi.

Download links for each disc and all of the info sheets at the bottom of the post, but here are my theories on the discs/sheets. Please leave comments if you can help me figure this stuff out! If you can translate any of the Japanese stuff for any of the comps, please post!

Disc One - I think this one is a comp, the only name I can see from the info sheet is Holy Angels. It looks like the info sheet was ripped off from this.

Disc Two - I think this corresponds to the info sheet 2

Disc 3 - Corresponds to info sheet 3

Disc 4 - This is where things get tricky. The info sheet for disc 4 lists 3 tracks by Yamasa. The actual disc has 6 tracks, so I am not sure what this disc is exactly or what info sheet it corresponds to.

Disc 5 - This one has 3 tracks so I think it corresponds to info sheet 4, Yamasa.

Disc 6 - This one has 8 tracks so I think it matches info sheet 5, Kukuri Gakudan.

Disc 7 - Not sure on this one.

Disc 8 - Not sure on this one.

Disc 9 - Kind of sounds like Holy Angels, but I am not sure.

Disc 10 - This one has four tracks and seems like a compilation, so I think it corresponds to info sheet 10.



Disc One
Disc Two
Disc Three
Disc Four
Disc Five
Disc Six
Disc Seven
Disc Eight
Disc Nine
Disc Ten


La Musica Tapes Vol 3 Info Sheets

Asahito Nanjo - M (LA-045)

Another recently digitized cassette, this one is a solo album from the La Musica man, the High Rise heavy, the Mainliner main man, Asahito Nanjo! This one is labeled as LA-045 and here is the description from the La Musica catalog:

045. ASAHITO NANJO / M A compilation of secret projects recorded over a period of twenty years. Deeply personal music that achieves a strange balance between beat folk baladry and off-key mumbling. Suggestive self-celebratory music conceived as a confirmation of existence.

That said, the sleeve seems to indicate that this was recorded live in one sitting, but the pieces were written in the 80s. "Recorded live in 89" and the players are:

Nanjo Asahito - Guitar, vocals
Matsucka Takashi - Piano, electronics

Some very beautiful and quiet Nanjo stuff, not the overload of Mainliner, etc. A total confirmation of existance!



Asahito Nanjo - M (LA-045) FLAC
                       - MP3

Note: All of the music is on both, but track 3 was a burn error and is not included.

Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 38: Leningrad Psychedelic Blues Machine - Dark Star (LA-054)

Ok it looks like some old links are no longer valid, so here is a repost redux of Acid Mothers Sunday Vol. 3. This time, instead of just the title cut, here is the full cassette, also in FLAC. Kawabata, Nanjo, Tabata and Koizuma Hajime tackle the Grateful Dead's "Dark Star" and more. Needless to say, this is one of my favorite releases ever.

FLAC deleted... sorry.

Leningrad Psychedelic Blues Machine - Dark Star mp3

Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 37: La Musica Mystery Box Discs 1 and 9

Ok, I am still having trouble figuring out what the hell this box set is. While I am fairly certain it is La Musica Tapes Vol. 3, I am really no closer to figuring out what is what. Here is the only description of the box I have been able to find online:

LMB 061-070 LA MUSICA TAPES vol.3/V.A.
This miracle box set is a comprehensive collection of roots of Japanese psychedelic beatniks
musicians since 50's. SAKAKI NANAO & NIPPONIA NIPPON / KUKURI GAKUDAN /
MENZAIFU / YAMASA / MANJI / HOLY ANGELS / BUZOKU / SUWANOSE
MANDALLA / KAMINARI AKAKARASUZOKU / JIYUH MINKEN.
Cult groups & their sects (who indeed desert from society & act underground without
relations from any scene) are introduced. Japanese representative psychedelic underground
musicians are fully gathered.
Studio & live recordings.
Limited edition of 50 copies.

Here is disc 9 from the box. I am posting this under the Acid Mothers Sunday banner just because... maybe Kawabata is on this? Plus, I posted the other disc under this, so... yeah, let's get as confusing as possible!

Anyways, on first listen this sounded a bit like Holy Angels, but I don't think it is. That said, not sure what this matches up to from the above (and of course there are 10 discs and 11 bands listed on the description). Regardless, the first track has some saxophone on it and sounds way spacey. The second track is a little more free jazz spazz and sounds Kawabata to me.

If you have any ideas about this stuff, please leave comments! Thanks!

La Musica Mystery Box Disc 9

I decided to add disc one as well. This one is all over the place, murky tribal psych, birds chirping, chopped and screwed vocals, violins or something... doesn't really sound like one group. All the more perplexing with Nanjo's habit of putting different groups on one CDr. Help!

La Musica Mystery Box Disc One

Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 36: Mainliner Live July 17 1999

Yep, close to Halloween, so why not feature some more live Mainliner, this time from Chicago's Empty Bottle, July 17 1999. Seems this is from the Ruins/Mainliner/Toho Sara/Splendor Mystic Solis tour of that year (did it make it to Philly?). Recording sounds fucking awesome, great mix. Of course it is not the total in-the-red house fire of the studio recordings, so that part of the Mainliner deal is missing, but Kawabata's guitar is nice and high in the mix, so commence the leveling!

Anyway, I assume this is the touring trio of Nanjo Asahito on bass and vocals, Kawabata Makoto on guitar and Yoshida Tatsuya on drums. Not sure if this was ever put out in one of those 10 CD box sets on La Musica, but it is safe to assume that it was.

Man, I love Kawabata's "bluesy" playing during "Ride Blue." Fuck yeah. And yeah, "Black Sky" is still the urrrrrh riff of inverted doom. Or somethin' tss tss.

Mainliner Live July 17 1999
1. Tsukisasaru
2. Attack
3. Static
4. Ride Blue
5. Black Sky

FLAC

256 mp3

High Rise Live March 15 2000 Khyber Pass, Philadelphia

Been on a crazy High Rise kick lately for some reason. Sometimes nothing clears the brain like Narita's riff from "Ikon." Anyways, this one is from their only visit to the Khyber Pass as far as I can tell. I honestly don't remember that much of the show, just that they were loud as fuck and awesome and the Major Stars opened up. And that Nanjo had to put on his shades before he would pose for pics with us. It was the day before my birthday so I blame that for my hazy memory.



I am not sure who recorded this, etc. Kinda sounds like a soundboard. I traded for this not long after the actual show, but I see that it was also available on the High Rise Psychedelic Atmosphere Beatnik Tour 2000 CDR box set. Be sure to check out the awesome and informative Bleak Bliss blog, lots of High Rise, La Musica and more. I am not sure if the track list/recording is exactly the same as that found on the box set. The band at this time was Asahito Nanjo on bass and vocals, Munehiro Narita on guitar and Shimura Koji on drums.








Not sure what the exact track list is either, but here you go. I did these in FLAC format (3 parts) as it is a live recording and sounds pretty killer.


High Rise March 15 2000 Khyber Pass, Philadelphia Part One

Part 2

Part 3

1. Induced Depression
2. Ikon
3. Disallow
4. Psychedelic Speed Freaks
5. ?
6. ?
7. Right On (part 1)
8. Right On (part 2)
9. crowd noise
10. ?

Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 34: Okami No Jikan - Psychedelic Atmosphere Beatnik Tour '98

Back in 1998 Nanjo Asahito brought High Rise to the USA and played the Astrocade in Philadelphia, probably my all time fave Philly venue. An anything goes warehouse with great vibes and friendly hosts... and video games. Some of my best memories of those times took place in that warehouse, including the insanely good vibes of the Dealers/Photon Band/Lenola show.



I am pretty sure this was the first of two times I saw High Rise, but I was super duper excited for the "special opening set by Mainliner," whom I had seen in NYC in 1997 and I was (and still am) obsessed with their heavy duty debut Mellow Out, perhaps the be all end all of noiserock (with an emphasis on rock). As they set up... Nanjo strapped on a Rickenbacher guitar (!) and Ed Farnsworth, who was drumming for Bardo Pond at the time was behind the kit... the wild haired guitarist, Kawabata was no where to be seen, so I was a tad "eh" as this was not really Mainliner. I didn't have my Japanese psych trading cards complete set yet, so I didn't know anything about Nanjo's floating lineup slow jamming mystical project, Ohkami No Jikan. While not sounding like Mainliner at all, I was totally hooked on Nanjo's ultra echo'd and effected guitar, insanely loud and filling up tons of space in the warehouse, wind tunneling that shit, yo! My buzzed out brain was hypnotized by the fuzzed out, icy cold sounds from deep space. Shimura Koji is on bass and you may know him from drumming with the recent line up Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Parasio UFO. The rest of the night was great, Bardo and Mikey Wild were awesome and High Rise were punk as hell, but that opening set was the highlight for me and stuck with me for years. Fast forward a few years and I picked up Steal Space Underground CDr boxset on Nanjo's La Musica label and this set was included on the Psychedelic Atmosphere Beatnik USA Tour 98 disc. Not sure who recorded it, but the sound is quite good and totally Nanjo'd. Also on this disc was another Ohkami Set from 1998 with Nice Pooper pal Mason Jones and Chris Van Huffle sitting in with Nanjo and Shimura. I have included that set as well.

These are FLAC files as I have been getting requests for those recently, split into three parts:

Ohkami No Jikan - Unforgiven (Live Nov 16 1998, Cocodrie, SF, CA + Flyers)

Ohkami No Jikan - Aruji (Live Nov 1 1998 Astrocade Philadelphia)

Ohkami No Jikan - Koko (Live Nov 1 1998 Astrocade Philadelphia)

Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 28: Okhami No Jikan - Black Tape (LA-068)

The connection to Acid Mothers Temple on this installment is a bit tenuous, as the lineup to Nanjo Asahito's Okami No Jikan was supposed to be secretive and clouded in black mystery and such, we can only speculate. I honestly hear/don't hear some of Kawabata's playing on these jams, so there is the disclaimer. "May not contain any AMT"

A friend bought this tape at a High Rise show in 1999 at the Khyber Pass to the best of my recollection. I borrowed and transferred to CDr around the same time, but neglected to scan in the cover, so this one is coverless. My apologies. I am sure it was black. This one contains two more versions of their signature tune, "Israel." Both clock in at 15 minutes plus with the second version sounding more like a live recording than the first. It also sounds a bit more like Nanjo's guitar playing. Both jams feature the slow/heavy drums and bass riffage with insane amounts of guitar + effects just blown the fuck over top. And some quiet vocals in there at points. Here is what the La Musica catalog from the time had to say:

068. OHKAMI NO JIKAN / Black Tape
Complete reisue of a mysterious cassette that was only sold at gigs in 1992. Their earliest cool and heavy studio demo recordings featuring the original line-up. The original release was limited to 30 copies.

Man, I wish Nanjo wasn't missing from action. There really seems to be no one like him and in spite of the rumored rip offs and stuff, he did an amazing amount of work to popularize the Japanese underground world wide. I await his return with some sort of black metal superfuzz kill group. Mysterious to a fault? Anyone with more Ohkami or the awesome sounding spin off groups Ohkami No Bohyo or Ten No Ohkami, please post them somewhere and drop me a line or leave a comment. Thanks and enjoy!

Ohkam No Jikan - Black Tape (LA -068)

Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 27: Musica Transonic - Euro Speed Freedelic Boogie

This time around we have a CDr of studio recordings from Musica Transonic, the awesome trio of Nanjo (High Rise, Mainliner, etc.), Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple, Mainliner, etc.) and Yoshida (Ruins, Sax Ruins, etc.). With the none more true title of Euro Speed Freedelic Boogie, this one was part of the Steal Space Underground box (LMB 051-060) on Nanjo's La Musica label. According to the photocopied data sheet, these jams were recorded at Abbey Road studios. Not sure if these songs ever made it on to any other releases, but here you go.

Musica Transonic - Euro Speed Freedelic Boogie CDr

Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 17: Ohkami No Jikan (LA-026)

The Acid Mothers Temple connection to this La Musica cassette is a tad more tenuous than most of the previous La Musica titles I put up. Basically Nanjo Asahito has kept the line up of this group secret, as Alan Cumming says here:

the group have only properly released a couple of tracks on barely distributed compilations, and here both recording date and line-up are kept deliberately quiet (though this release probably includes Kawabata on guitar).

Alan is talking about the awesome CD Mort Nuit on Fractal Records, but it applies to all Ohkami releases in general. I tend to believe Kawabata is on this release because his sister, Sachiko did the art work for the cassette.

That said there is definitely some confusion regarding LA-026. I bought this either at a High Rise show in 1999 or from Eclipse Records around the same time. I am pretty sure the title was listed as Israel, which makes sense as it contains two versions of the Ohkami signature song, "Israel." I had been trading this as Israel for years but when I looked up this release on the La Musica Tape list as I was putting together this post, things got a bit more hazy. The tape included here, LA-026, is listed in the catalog as Ten no tsumi (Heaven's crime). Israel is listed as LA-020. Things get a tad more complicated when we read the liners of LA-026:

...Members ofmany Japanese underground groups, including Fushitsusha, Les Rallizes Denudes and Kousokuya have participated with Nanjo in Okami No Jikan, pursuing different musical approaches. Depending upon the members and the concept, the sound of this unique group varies dramatically. The one constant is the vibrations emitted by Nanjo. As a psychedelic group that explores all music, from heavy, dark sounds to jazz, contemporary and experimental, Ohkami No Jikan occupies an important position in the Japanese underground scene. On this, their first album, they concentrate on the heaviness of minimal music. Nanjo's engineering and production work questions conventional recording wisdom. Floating aesthetes.

Ok, so.. whew. That is what the liners of LA-026 say, but they say "first album" which would be LA-020, not LA-026. And then, to make it more confusing... these same liners are repeated on Mort Nuit. That said, these versions of "Israel" do not sound like the one on Mort Nuit. I honestly don't know what to think, but here is what the La Musica catalog has to say about LA-026:

Unreleased recordings from the time when the name was used to signify a gatheringplace for disparate musical forms. A mystic work, featuring members of Hadaka no Rallizes and Fushitsusha, that embraces esthetic, mysterious surreal vibrations.

And here they are on LA-020:

Psychedelic group that explores "stasis" and "motion", both actively and philosophically. This includes the final tak of "Israel", a track which they have recorded time and time again. The cool acid heavy sound that reaches the level of the sublime was achieved only after exhausting every other musical form during recording. This is the result of a consciousness prepare to sacrifice and destroy everything it holds dear.

All of this leads me to believe that the tape in question, is actually LA-020, but since the sleeve says LA-026 we will stick with that.
So there you go. The music is somber and dark, sometimes some heavily effected sheets of guitar noises swell the pond and make this one bump into the red on occasion, but it is definitely one of my fave Nanjo releases no matter what it is or who is on it. In November 1998 when Nanjo toured the USA with High Rise, but would open the shows as a version of Ohkami No Jikan with himself on guitar. I know I have a set of theirs with Ed Farnsworth from Bardo Pond (at the time) on drums performing at the sadly missed Astrocade, a show I got to witness that was just insanely awesome and some of the most psychedelic guitar playing ever, from Nanjo on a Rickenbacker no less! I will post that in the future.

I am still not sure what format to use for these, but this time I went for 256kps mp3s. Enjoy.

Ohkami No Jikan - LA-026

Acid Mothers Sunday Vol 10: Toho Sara

Toho Sara featured Nanjo from High Rise and Kawabata from Acid Mothers Temple (and both of them were in Mainliner). They mostly played acoustic and ethnic instruments to create a mighty drone. Toho Sara had a few CDs out on PSF and Fractile in the mid 90s. Anyway, this release comes to us from Nanjo's La Musica label. A cassette release with the catalog number LA-023. This one is a scraping, droning, wheezing session cut up into 4 songs. Here is the description from the La Musica Catalog:

023. TOHO SARA / Kami no miya
A departure from the norm with members of Group Musica guesting with the Toho Sara regulars. The collaboration between Group Musica, who aim for a mysterious fuion of contemporary classical and improvised music, and Toho Sara is totally unforced and natural, resulting in a new microcosm of sound. The unique melodies of ethnic and Western instruments blend in avant-garde fashion, forming new waves and musical imaes.

So there you go... enjoy!

Toho Sara - Kami No Miya (LA-023)

Acid Mothers Sunday vol 9: Mainliner Live 1997

I have been going through a bit of a Mainliner phase since Jasso from the Antarcticans mentioned this awesome video on the AMT message board. The first time I actually encountered AMT was through seeing Mainliner at the Knitting Factory in Manhattan on Feb 2 1997. I was so beyond stoked to see them as Mellow Out was one of my absolute faves of the previous year or so.

The line up was Mainliner, John Zorn and the Ruins if I am not mistaken. The Knitting Factory was kind of a drag that night, as they had chairs filling up the main room and had already banned smoking in that room (luckily the downstairs bar still allowed such things). Anyways Mainliner were pretty damn hot, leveling us, though I do remember thinking they weren't loud enough, alas! We were totally freaked out by the super tall wild haired guitarist who was just wailing away as on the album, but actually flailing and rocking the fuck out. Anyways, after the show, I bought a tape by the guitarist's other band, Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. and the rest is history.

I think this recording was from a La Musica box set, but I am not entirely sure. I traded for it in the 2000s and it is a pretty decent (soundboard?) recording of the Knitting Factory set from 1997. There is some digital noise in spots, but for the most part a clear recording. Wish there was more guitar, of course, and I do wish they had played longer. To the best of my recollection it was Yoshida Tatsuya from the Ruins on drums with Kawabata Makoto on guitar and Asahito Nanjo on bass and vocals.


Mainliner - Live Feb 2 1997 Knitting Factory NYC

Track List:
1. tuning
2. Tsukisasaru
3. Black Sky part 1
4. Black Sky part 2
5. M
6. Last Day

Acid Mothers Sunday vol 7 (the return of...): Inyogogyo (LA-096)

Ok, so it has been a few months since the last one of these, the one thing I said I would do on a semi regular basis on the blog. You know how it goes. This time around it is not Acid Mother Temple proper, but it is another one of Kawabata's many appearances on a LA Musica release. La Musica was the label run by Asahito Nanjo in the nineties that documented his scene and those around him. Inyogogyo is a duo of Kawabata and Nanjo making some evil sounding drone/scrape 'scapes. According to the (color!) sleeve, this was recorded in 1996, mastered in 1997 and (probably) released in 1998 or 1999. I am not sure what instruments they are creating with, but this isn't insanely far removed from the stuff they did as Toho Sara, though darker, for sure. Creepy and kinda disturbing, not exactly the relaxing meditation grooves of a lot of the more recent solo/drone Kawabata. Bowling clouds of deep rumble bounce of off slow motion free jazz scronk way in the background with a general bad vibe ambiance. Side two is a tad mellower and closer to surface earth, some chimey and effects covered acoustic guitar layers with the melting woooosh for a slightly more recognizable grounding. A totally interesting release in that mud puddle where drone and noise kinda bisect. Here is the La Musica catalog blurb, in typical mystic/carny goof:

096. INYOGOGYO / Wood, fire, earth, metal, water
Secretive “music” group formed by Makoto Kawabata and Asahito Nanjo. Taking as their theme the two contradicting powers that are the origin of all things, they explore the universe, nature and humanity. Studio recordings by a martyred group with a spacey psychedelic sound.

So there you go. Perhaps it is the clash of "contradictiing powers" that lends the heaviness to this one, who knows? Inyogogyo has no other releases listed in the catalog and I only know of this one being a cassette. Martyred group, indeed!


Inyogogyo - Wood, fire, earth, metal, water (LA-096)

Holy Angels - Angel Trip (LA-082)

This is another one of the Nanjo/La Musica cassette tape releases from the late nineties. This is one of my faves; the rich, deep echo'd out psych is just gorgeous. Not really sure what the story behind this is exactly, though Holy Angels do have a few cassettes listed in this La Musica catalog. Angel Trip is listed as catalog number LA-082 and contains two long tracks. The description from the catalog (by Nanjo, translated by Alan Cumming) goes like this:

Space psycedelic group centring around female members. Their third release to feature that heavenly holy sound. While still pursuing the minimal progressive direction evident on their previous release, here they increase the voltage and add a full psychedelic trip-feel. Also features Asahito Nanjo on sitar. Unreleased studio recordings.

And that is about all the info I can dig it. It seems this was issued on vinyl at one point, but I never actually saw it or anything.

Holy Trip Part 1
Electric Flix