For Sale

I've begun to sell a bit of my collection on Discogs. Mostly stuff that I have already shared. You can see what I've listed so far here:

http://www.discogs.com/seller/blackratsflood

V/A - ○△□ LP (Pafe, 1981)

Side A

Pale Cocoon - おーちゃくの予習 ～ Physician Of The Hospital

Pale Cocoon - パラドックス

Virgin-Mayonnaise - 瞬間の接続

Virgin-Mayonnaise - ショーウィンドウの地平線

V-Packs - フルーツ・パーラー

Green Kikaku - 天国ストリップ

Green Kikaku - 異端派・エセ・ウノンテ

Green Kikaku - ジェラシー

Side B

Shokkaku Shounen - 登校行進曲

Shokkaku Shounen - 星空のしゃぼん玉

Shokkaku Shounen - 映画少年

Curriculum Machine - Mogura

Curriculum Machine - Ringo 追分

Funx -  伊号24番

Funx - 伊号32番 

Funx - 呂号9番

Here's the first LP from the beloved Pafe label, home of SD favorites Pale Cocoon and Funeral Party. Pale Cocoon provide, rather unsurprisingly, the best tracks, but the whole comp is worth checking out if only for the complete obscurity of the other bands. Besides Pale Cocoon, Funx is the only band to have (to my knowledge) released another record.

A few notes: I've translated all of the band names into English, although they don't all appear that way on the liner notes. Many of the names are transliterations of English anyway, so it's a bit strange that they weren't translated in the first place. Also, separating the tracks on the b-side was very confusing. The liner notes list three Shokkaku Shounen songs, but it sounds like there are far more than that. I've separated them here based on the length of the silences between them. 

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Chance Operation - Spare Beauty 2x7" (Jeep / Telegraph, 1982)

Side Track

Be Stopped Up

Side Winder

Erua Ela

Side Kick

Dummy Shout

Side Splash

Touch & Go

While I'm at it, here's CO's subsequent release. Here they develop their sound by adding drum machines and sax. The guitar and bass are more boingy, more wiggly.

More Chance Operation on the way when I figure out which moving box their "Place Kick" LP is hiding in.

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Chance Operation - s/t 12" EP (Jeep / Telegraph, 1981)

Side A

Winecolor Sick

Image Dance

Side B

57 Compute

Din

Limiter Shuffle

There is no overestimating the influence of the original New York No-Wave scene on the Japanese post-punk underground. Groups like Friction and Plastics served as ambassadors between metropolises, and Japanese publications like Rock Magazine devoted many pages to the NYC scene. Chance Operation rank among the best Japanese No-Wave groups. Here's their first indie label EP following the self-released flexi demo I posted earlier. Enjoy!

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V/A - Soft Selection 84 LP (Soft, 1983)

Side A

clä-sick - Morning in China

La Sellrose Can Can - Aerobicise

Linolium - Unit 25

Picky Picnic - Sume ba Miyako

Pink Label - Good Luck

NAME - N.H.K.

Picky Picnic - Kibo no Asu

ReveR - Performan

Side B

NAME - Do We All Need Love

Classic Pearl - Pearl

La Sellrose Can Can - Happy Morning

clä-sick - Every Night

clä-sick - Black Nile

The rarity of this LP, released on the mysterious Soft label, is matched only by its astounding quality. Each song is a wonderful little nugget of minimal-wave, beginning with clä-sick's lilting Chinoiserie intro "Morning in China". La Sellrose Can Can kicks things up a notch with a bouncy minimal-synth-pop number featuring oddball English lyrics about physical training.

Everyone do a flying saucer

Take the train and say hello.

Linolium's sole contribution is another Chinese-themed minimal-synth jam (what are the odds?), though this time with a sort of Picky Picnic-esque canned-sample technique going on over a snappy drum machine rhythm. The picnickers themselves take up the torch here with a demo version of Ha! Ha! Tarachine's "Sume ba Miyako", featuring all the squiggly, brain-damaged zolo we've all come to expect from these masterminds. The mood shifts for Pink Label's track "Good Luck", a sparsely-produced techno-kayo gem with a lovely chorus. Things take a slightly darker turn with NAME's "N.H.K.", a very weird little track with vocal samples in English and Japanese. The coda "play it backwards again" appears before Picky Picnic show back up with another goofball ballad, this time with a ukelele, syncopated hand claps and more frustrated grunting (I don't think this track was released elsewhere, but I might be wrong). Another very weird minimal song courtesy of ReveR, featuring a lot of wacky, reverb-y voices speaking English(?). Really dumb/great.
Side two kicks off with another NAME track, this time more pop-like with moody vocals about exhaustion with love.

Sometimes I feel so tired

Every time you make me saying 'I love you'

Sometime I feel so sad

Every time you stop me making love with you

Do we all need love?

And do I really know how to love you?

Following "Do We All Need Love?" is "Pearl", by Classic Pearl, which I first heard long ago on a CD compilation. It's very excellent and quite catchy. Then La Sellrose Can Can is back with another super fun English-language pop song whose lyrics I can't quite decipher. Something about candy and mercy and merry-go-rounds? Anyways, album-openers clä-sick return, book-ending Soft Selection 84 with another moody minimal synth tune ("Every Night") and the twinkling, dub-tinged "Black Nile".
The only thing not-great about this LP is how obscure every band besides Picky Picnic is. Does anyone have any info about these groups?

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