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.

Download.

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!

Download.

NON baNd - s/t 10" (Telegraph, 1982)

Side A

Duncan Dancin'
Ghetto
Wild Child (Can't Stand It)

Side B
Solar
Dance Song
あわのうた~Bap Pang

Fun and funky new-wave/no-wave duo. They're still around if I'm not mistaken!

Download.

Pablo Picasso - Soft Type LP (Telegraph Records, 1983)

Side A

Yah!

MANY MANY

内側の歌 Part 1

Side B

内側の歌 Part 2

Sign

Not Movin'

Following the 7" I posted earlier, here's the brilliant and only LP from this cacophonous Tokyo no-wave trio. Super dubbed out and effects-laden scrawl somewhere between The Pop Group's Y and PiL's Metal Box. The production on this one is so 'out there' at times, it had me checking the insert to see if it was produced by Kaoru Sato (it wasn't). Amazing stuff!

Download.

Pablo Picasso - s/t 7" (Telegraph Records, 1981)

Tracklisting

Side A

紫外線

Side B

Not Movin'

Tangled no-wave groove from the rather reliable Telegraph label. If you like the skritch-skratch guitar of DNA, Mars, et al, this one's for you!

Download.

Amaryllis - Oto-san 7" (Amaryllis Records, 1985)

Tracklisting

Side A
Oto-san

Side B
Sensei (Sono No Ichi)
Shinya No Dekigoto

How about that cover, eh? This group was from Kyoto, home to an incredible experimental scene in the 80s. Much of this scene is documented in the "Foam" 2LP comp on Ylem records, produced and curated by Kaoru Sato of EP-4 and R.N.A. Organism. Sato's name on a record causes a giant exclamation mark to appear above my head, and you'll know why after hearing this.

I'll come right out and say that this is one of my favorite 7"s ever. 10 minutes of hallucinatory mania starting with "Oto-san" on the A-side, a driving, post-punky track that goes way overboard in every department. The nuttiness is ratcheted up a notch from the get-go on side B, the first track seeming to perpetually be in a state of trying to decide whether it wants to be 33⅓ or 45rpm, with echo-guitar and plink-plonk synths only adding to the dizziness. B2 throws in out-of-the-blue classical samples and a few abused instruments, punctuating vocalist Alice Sailor's surreal wails. Stupefying.

Download.