Browse by Artist: VAJRA

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Tsugaru
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 062CD

Vajra is a new trio made up of Kan Mikami (vocals, guitar), Keiji Haino (vocals, guitar) & Toshi Ishizuka (percussion; ex-Brain Police, currently with Cinorama & Tomokawa's group). "The name Vajra is a sanskrit word which has many meanings, including 'outsiders' and 'those people with the power to change an era.' Tsugara refers to an area in the far north of Japan, which has given birth to many of Japan's most powerfully unique musicians, writers and performers (it is also Mikami's birthplace). This CD represents an improvised studio performance of unprecedented force and musical empathy. Ferocious, bleak, beautiful and inspiring -- the true soul of Japanese spirituality!"

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Ring
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 077CD

"Second album from the amazing supergroup of Haino, Mikami and Ishitsuka Toshi (from Cinorama, etc.). Following on from last year's Tsugaru, this is a lot closer to Vajra's stunning live sound. Ishitsuka's martial power drumming provides the perfect foundation for Haino's soaring, roaring flights into the infinite abyss, which in turn combine in rare grace and (sub) conscious empathy with Mikami's improvised vocals (Mikami sings entirely in his native Tsugaru dialect which is totally incomprehensible to speakers of regular Japanese). The raw invention and communication here are honestly on a par with anything you care to think of. There's something very very special about this group -- three masters at the peak of their powers, playing with total commitment, total sensitivity, total passion."

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Sichisiki
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 088CD

Third PSF album (aka The Seventh Consciousness) from the trio of Kan Mikami, Keiji Haino & Toshi Ishitsuka. "This album, in contrast to the previous two, features Mikami only on vocals. The absence of his rhythm guitar totally alters the dynamic of the group, moving the focus to Haino's guitar and Ishitsuka's martial, textured drumming. Anguished vocals, eruptions of black fire from Haino, drifting deep-space echoscapes, stumbling blues. Vajra have a sound totally unlike any other group's -- and as a result they are an unsettling, weird listen. As essential as their previous two."

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Sravaka
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 100CD

"Fourth album by the power-improv trio of frightening instinctional authority. It seems entirely appropriate that the one hundredth release on PSF should be by Vajra. Appropriate, of course, because the group contains two of the most legendary talents that the label has introduced to an unsuspecting world -- Kan Mikami and Keiji Haino (who between them have appeared on almost a third of PSF's releases). But also appropriate because there is no group on the label that better sums up the PSF aesthetic -- breathtaking sounds of mystery that somehow never fail to move on a deeply human level. Experimentation and 'progress' but possessed of a wide knowledge and love of all music and a soul (if that that were not too much of a cliche). This fourth album see Vajra scaling yet higher peaks of collective individuality. I can only pray that both they and PSF continue to enlighten the world as to the meaning of committed and genuine music for as long as (a few) ears remain open." -- Alan Cummings

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Mandala Cat Last
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$18.00
Catalog #:	PSF 129CD

"Fifth studio album from the heavyweight PSF super-group of Keiji Haino, Kan Mikami, and Toshiaki Ishitsuka. Veterans all, the group members have a combined playing career of virtually a century. The group has been in a state of suspended animation for the past four years, but this album will hopefully kick off a new phase of activity for them. What makes Vajra unique is its bizarre energy dynamic. Entirely improvised, the three players seem to shoot off in utterly opposing directions: Mikami's rhythm guitar and vocals providing a pulse universal to no one but himself, Ishitsuka beating martial time signatures like three military bands on the one parade ground, and Haino scuttling around slicing and dicing beautiful abyssal depths out from beneath everyone else's feet. Somehow (proof that space is curved?), three individuals arrive at the same place at roughly the same time. Highlights include the third track, which comes as close to their massive live sound as anything the group has yet recorded. And the set's inevitable eyebrow raising moment? The a cappella nursery rhyme version of Mikami's 'Koppu wa kowareru daro' (off Live in the First Year of Heisei vol.2). Another uncompromisingly great one then? You bet." --Alan Cummings.

Artist:	VAJRA
Title:	Live
Label:	PSF (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	PSF 176CD

Guitar, vocals: Keiji Haino; guitar, vocals: Kan Mikami; percussion: Toshiaki Ishizuka. "First live album by the Japanese rock power trio to end all power trios -- Kan Mikami, Keiji Haino and Toshiaki Ishizuka!! This presents the group at a thrilling peak of their rock deconstruction-reconstruction praxis, one of those all too rare manifestations of the musical sublime. Mikami is in top blues testifying form, his voice a thing of cracked beauty and weathered power. Haino and Ishizuka infuse the songs with telepathic engagement -- constant layered motion, percussive blast-bombs and eruptions of black lava. Simply a ferocious record. Limited edition of 1000 in mini-LP style paper-sleeve." -- Alan Cummings.

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