Pale Cocoon - 繭 cassette + Toy Box flexi (Pafe, 1984)

Side A

Sora
Shunmin
Musoukyoku
Mizutamari
Onshitsu
Kumoatsume

Side B
Toy Box
Laboratory Under the Blue Sky
Room=Manhole
Automatic Doll
Microscorp
FLALORM

I'm extremely pleased to share with you the one and only full length by ultra-cult Stalking Duppi maximum seal of approval group PALE COCOON! This tape follows the Secret Sounds 10" pretty closely in sound, in fact a few of these songs are alternate versions of those tunes. Dark dream-pop oscillating between eerie and elated... and constantly defying comparison.

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Also available for download now is the flyer/flexi that accompanied the 黄金時代 picture 7" that I poster earlier. The song is an alternate version (my favorite version!) of Toy Box, different from that which appears on the 繭 tape.

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bonus video time!

Both of today's downloads were contributed by loyal readers. You know who you are... thanks a bunch!

Gilles de Rais / Phaidia - Sanatorium / 楽園 7" flexi (Marquee Moon, 1981)

Double dose of gothy weirdness here, featuring Gilles de Rais, an earlier incarnation of Stalking Duppi favorites Pale Cocoon, and Phaidia, a group notable for featuring the octopoidal drumming talents of Yoshida Tatsuya.
Gilles de Rais really take the proverbial cake here with a stunning gothic synth track. The stuttering, glorpy breakdown really solidifies this for me as a masterpiece. Now to find their single on Aspirin Records...
Phaidia... wow, goth-prog! Just the sort of spaghetti-sandwich combo I thought not plausible turns out to be pretty cool!

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Pale Cocoon - 黄金時代 7" picture disc (Pafe, 1984)

Tracklisting

Side A

黄金時代

Side B

街燈

More gauzy, blurry melancholy from the great Pale Cocoon, this time on a pretty cool looking picture disc (sorry hi-fi fans). I think it's just as brilliant as the Secret Sounds 10" I posted earlier. 黄金時代 is a glittering, cosmic shoegazer with a weird sort of constant tinnitus effect to it as the song warps and swells. Side B's 街燈 ramps up the morose factor with a similarly warbling piano and synth piece. Definitely check this out of you enjoyed Secret Sounds or the Funeral Party 7" over at Habit of Sex.

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Pale Cocoon - 青空の実験室 / Secret Sounds 10" EP (Pafe, 1982)

Tracklisting

Side A

青空の実験室

自動人形

Side B

少女の歌

水たまり (Brain To Vain)

I first heard about this band from a collector who named them as one of his top 3 favorite bands from Japan - the other two were Wha-Ha-Ha and Picky Picnic. Well, if Wha-Ha-Ha is a bunch of highly-trained adult lunatics, and Picky Picnic is a daycare gone wrong, then Pale Cocoon is the brooding middle sibling locked up in his room reading Edgar Allen Poe. All sorts of weird stuff going on here: warbly synths, rickety, metronomic percussion, field recordings, alternating between pastoral and cloistered without ever losing the consistency of a very private sonic universe. One of the great unknown bands of the 80's, if I do say so myself.

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