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)