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PSF 8034CD
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"Seven tracks of twisted enka blues, from the immortal Kan Mikami, Japan's king of the surrealist aside and situationist duckwalk. These latest seven missives from Mikami's febrile imagination sketch out a concern with the passing of time, with the inexorable processes of aging, and the losses and gains of Japan's modernity. Present and correct are the master's unique sense of expanding and contracting rhythm, his trademark jaggedly beautiful riffing, and that glorious, honeyed howl of a voice. Making a special guest appearance this time round is Korean folk singer Kim Doo Soo, contributing spectral blues harp on one track. Seven tracks, 32 minutes. Booklet includes lyrics in English and Japanese." -- Alan Cummings
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PSF 8030CD
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"With the coming of spring, another year brings another bulletin from the mind of post-war Japan's greatest blues singing surrealist poet, Kan Mikami. Part of the pleasure of Mikami's annual solo releases on PSF is plotting the changes in his rough-cut voice and guitar style. This time around the blues and enka feel of the last two or three albums has been pruned back to a more restrained psychedelic core. The voice too seems deliberately held in check, the melismatic flourishes excised in favour of a plain and meditative directness. The lyrics are as scabrous and bewildering as ever, focusing again and again on images of his native place in the north of Japan, but also devising a great triptych of spread legs, Bush and the wall of a Dada toilet. Another classic, then. Six tracks, twenty-nine minutes. Lyrics in Japanese and English." -- Alan Cummings
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SWAX 075CD
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"Originally released in 1976 on the legendary Victor SF series documenting outsider folk activities in Japan, this is one of the hardest Mikami LPs to track down, apart from his first two albums. This record sees Mikami returning to his home base, the northern prefecture of the bone-chillingly cold and weather beaten Aomori, delivering an intimate performance where he accompanies himself just on guitar with no back-up. A stunning and blood curdling live performance that proves once again that he is the ultimate acid folk/rural beatnik guttural hero. He wails out elegiac songs with enough conviction to strip the paint of the walls. But at the same time it is possibly -- partly due to his return to the motherland after having spent so much time in the concrete jungle of the capital -- his most private statement to date, loaded with cries of sorrow and grief, introspective mind trips and venomous laments that suggests he cries his heart out for dead souls and lost memories. In other words, his performance squeezes the last whiff of air out of your longs, leaving you exhausted and emotionally distressed. Great, only superlatives do him justice, all time possible highest recommendation. By the way, the audience response in the small theater is great and provides at times the ideal backup for his songs. You have to hear it in order to believe it... again quality reissue job, complete with mini-LP style gatefold jacket, obi, etc, all the works... it makes you drool just to hold it in yer hands."
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MIKAMI 005CD
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"Kanryu: Debut Live in Korea 2006 sees Mikami reunited with the masterful Korean komungo player and vocalist Shin Heyon, who played together with him on the Fukon group release. Eight years on that epochal cross-cultural meeting, Mikami journeyed to Seoul for two nights of concerts. Shin's stringed komungo brings a thick and knotted presence to the overall sound, while Seoul resident Japanese musician Sato Yukie tosses in swirling metallic blats of electronics and guitar. There's a gorgeous languorous, slow-motion flow to the proceedings as Mikami revisits classics from the full span of his back catalog, including a spine-tingling version of 'Kid with a Gun,' his once-banned ode to teen-murderer-turned-death-row poet Nagayama Norio. Limited edition of 1000 in gatefold digipack."
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