Browse by Artist: KOUSOKUYA

Artist:	KOUSOKUYA
Title:	Ray Night 1991-1992 Live
Label:	FORCED EXPOSURE
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	FE 034

First ever CD by this legendary and ultra-obscure Japanese psychedelic rock group. Kousokuya are from Tokyo, have donated some spectacular tracks to the first two volumes of the Tokyo Flashback compilation series on the PSF label, and self-released an extremely ltd. LP in 1991. The band has been around for quite some time; I originally was under the impression they formed around 1984, but was recently informed that an edition featuring Nanjo and Narita from High Rise existed going back to the late 70s!?. Either way, they've always been pretty lo-profile, but this CD at least shines a bit of light on their extended, heavy guitar sound. An early press release for the bands describes them well: "The band name Kousokuya means 'a ray night.' Since 1984 they have been playing their own high volume heavy driven avant-garde psychedelic music. Kaneko, he always plays guitar with full of feedback. One of the outstanding guitar players in the underground scene. No one can play guitar like him. Mick, she plays bass and is also main vocalist. She sings like an angle flying from the other side of the this world. Takahashi, he plays drums and percussion. He had previously played many other free formed rock music." 69 minutes of expansive psychedelic nirvana.

Artist:	KOUSOKUYA
Title:	1st
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 132CD

"Reissue of one of the absolute, no-doubt-about-it, stone classics of the Tokyo underground, with one bonus unreleased track. The first album by Kosokuya was originally released on the group's own Ray Night imprint in 1991. The original edition was of just 200, with very few copies making it out of Japan and as a result has long fetched huge sums amongst collectors. Kosokuya's unique brand of space-rock has been a fixture on the Tokyo underground rock scene since 1978, and both Narita and Nanjo (who would go on to form High Rise) were one-time members. By the time this album was recorded, though, the group had stabilized into the classic trio line-up of Kaneko, Mikk, and Takahashi -- the same line-up that appeared on the tracks on Tokyo Flashback, and on the Forced Exposure album. The infinite, echoing spaces contained in this music still sound unbelievably great. Kosokuya specialized in loud, very extended pieces with the capacity to utterly destroy your sense of time. Takahashi's heavy drumming and Mikk's bass lay down a defiantly non-linear foundation, layering just-out-of-time accents that perfectly fracture the cold darkness that envelops the group. Kaneko, armed with nothing more than a single Marshall amp and a beat-up old fuzz pedal, twists and weaves immense feedback fields and eloquent clusters of single notes in and around Mikk's anguished voice. This is a heavy, heavy record, fully on a par with the early Fushitsusha classics or the second High Rise album." -- Alan Cummings.

Artist:	KOUSOKUYA
Title:	Live Gyakuryu Kokuu
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 152CD

"The fatigue or Mick's voice became the lullaby to me. And when I woke up I was released from the permanent waves of the depression. I can testify from this experience that Mick's vocal has the effect against depression. And if you can add Ritalin and Betanamin, you feel no scare! -- from Tetsu Fujii's linernotes. Absolutely stunning dark matter psychedelics from one of the Tokyo scene's most elusive groups. Kousokuya have existed as a group since 1979, although leader Jutok Kaneko's activities in bizarre performance unit Kokugaiso go back even further into the mid-seventies. But in spite of the group's twenty-five year history, they have somehow managed to release just three full albums -- a self-released debut since reissued as PSFD-132, a live album on Forced Exposure, and The Dark Spot [PSFD-90] with Masayoshi Urabe. These newly uncovered live recordings date back to 1991, the year that the group's debut album was released. Two long tracks of grinding, soaring blackhole sonics that chart the empty gulfs of tension-space like no one save Fushitsusha. Don't pass up this chance to catch a barely acknowledged group-mind at an almost-never glimpsed peak of staggering beauty and dynamic force." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	KOUSOKUYA
Title:	First Live 1979
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 166CD

"Miraculously unearthed live tape from one of the earliest incarnations of Tokyo heavy psychedelic legends Kousokuya. For a group with a 25-year history on the Tokyo underground scene, Kousokuya have left very little imprint of their activities. Once heard, though, their sound is unmistakable -- a grinding, soaring sonic blackhole that charts the empty gulfs of tension-space like no one else this side of Fushitsusha. This tape, recorded at legendary '70s Tokyo underground venue Minor, captures Kousokuya at a formative stage in their existence -- Mick's blank, disembodied howl is present and correct, as is the choppy brilliance of Kaneko's guitar playing. But the real surprise is synth player Hiroshi Yokoyama, who lasted just a few gigs with the group. He contributes great clots of synth-blurt to the mix, wailing and derailing, the soul of this group's genetic instability. Another piece of the jigsaw..." --Alan Cummings

Artist:	KOUSOKUYA
Title:	Live At Shinjuku Jam, 2006
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	DVD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	PSFDV 1001

"The sudden death of Jutok Kaneko in January 2007 robbed the Tokyo underground scene of one of its most startlingly original and emotionally devastating psychedelic free-thinkers. Kousokuya was the cold-space rock group that he led, on and off, since the late 1970s. This DVD documents two of the group's final concerts, in May and October 2006 at Shinjuku JAM in Tokyo. The group's unique sound was founded on the dark, staggered spaces set up by the jarring rhythms set up by bassist Mick and drummer Ikuro Takahashi (ex-Fushitsusha) over which Kaneko drapes some jaw-dropping guitar -- bleak, brutal power-riffing one minute, shading into deep-space feedback filigrees and baroque fuzz forms the next. Unbearably psychedelic, deeply affecting and a fitting memorial to one of the great rock groups of the last 30 years." 120 mins.; Color; NTSC region-free; Stereo Dolby Digital; 08:11:21.

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