If you're absolutely sure your ears aren't bigger than your stomach, you can have a helping of Violent Onsen Geisha. Packaged in silver paper, VOG's self-titled triple-CD makes a life's journey out of parochial asides into various prefectures of schmaltz, faux religious rites, quasi-Muzak and children's records, returning immediately to the regularly scheduled program of histrionic space noise. Like the younger sibling who sees one of those red ribbon pins for the first time and thinks it's an errant strip of gilled red bell pepper no one had the courage to point out, Violent Onsen Geisha does not worry about rope growing out of the ears or yellow, ooze-filled lumps under the skin; Mr. Nakahara is concerned with the rumble of fermenting overloaded libraries and salad-curdling rasp amid the rain of telephone poles stampeding into an open pit of green mamba snake venom. That's just the kind of guy he is. He's also a guy who would include on the bonus three-inch CD a collaboration with the thick-ankled Dynamite Master Blues Quartet, where they all deconstruct grunge and good Funkadelic records and pretend they're Starfuckers and Brady Bunch performing "Death Machine." It's a living.
Bloody Butterfly, BIF From A Shimbashi
Bldg., 3-4-12 Shimbashi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105, Japan.