Comanechi - Crime Of Love

Okay, I'm stretching the rules a little on this one Comanechi are probably considered more of a UK band than a Japanese band. But One half of this drums and guitar duet is Akiko Matsura, an Osaka local and longtime friend of Afrirampo's Pika. Besides these guys are too cool to overlook. Taking their name from a Russian olympic ice skater who earned herself infamy in Japan for her arousing routines, Comanechi specialize in no-nonsense, balls to the wall, sleazy rock'n'roll. Like Black Sabbath meets Motorhead filtered through some garage rock. Comanechi picked up quite a reputation on the London live circuit and just recently played their first shows in Japan a few weeks ago. Check the youtube link below to catch a video of their Japanese version of "My Pussy" performed with Pika at Namba bears. Great show. 

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Moon Mama - 幸せの可視

Next up is Pika's solo album. Released back in late 2008 under her solo moniker Moon Mama. Pika's offering is a much more low key affair than Oni's album. Heading in much the same direction as Oni's solo work, gone for the most part is the ecclectic noise in favour of stripped down acoustic songs. The album is a collection of bedroom recordings that sound like they were recorded on a 4 track tape recorder. It's very lo-fi, personal and intimate but unfortunatley the quality of the songs is just not up to the level of Oni's work. Still worth a look for diehard fans but it's hard to reccomend for ayone else.

Pika still plays occasional solo live sets but also plays with Jim O'Rourke (Who has lived in Tokyo for the last 2 years.) very regularly in Tokyo and Osaka and very occasionally performs with her all-girl-supergroup side project Monmon Tonight.

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Oni - Sunwave Heart

Apologies for the lengthy hiatus. Just moved flat and things have been a little hectic recently. Anyway as promised here are the respective solo albums from Afrirampo members Oni and Pika. First up is Oni's "Sunwave Heart" released earlier this year. Some Afrirampo fans may be a little dissapointed by the lack of screaming guitars and rampant noise that defined the Afrirampo experience but Oni's first solo effort still manages to stand shoulder to shoulder with her former band. It's out with the noise and in with stripped down, energetic folk ditties. That's right I said folk. No drums, no distortion, no screaming... well maybe a little bit of screaming. But don't worry the token Afrirampo craziness is still there and what you have here is a genuinely charming and lovely album. Enjoy.

Oni is currently doing occasional live shows playing her solo material and sporadically plays alongside one of the many Acid Mothers Temple lineups. 

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SEX+Y - SEX+Y

Talking of un-google-ble band names meet SEX+Y (Apparently just pronounced sexy.) Ignore that awful cover artwork for a moment and you'll acutally find a pretty cool band. SEX+Y lie somewhere between the lo-fi bedroom pop of Shonen Knife and the batshit-cutesy crazyness of Afrirampo. Sweetly sung pop one minute, wailing banshees the next. It's very girly, very Japanese, very loud and also very good.

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RaP - Chaos/Process vol 2

I was hoping to find this bands website or myspace before I posted this but after hours of endless searching I can tell you that Rap is quite possibly the most un-google-ble band name you'll ever come across. Unfortunatley there's also no cover artwork or track listing for the bands CDR either. What you get is 10 tracks of what sounds like semi-improvised rehearsal studio recordings. Noisy, sometimes jazzy, sometimes funky freeform experimentation. There's some pretty impressive fret work in here but it's not all pretentious noodling. When it hits a groove you'll probably find yourself doing a bit of good old fashioned toe tapping and head bopping.

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Gezan - Ichijitekina Chou (下山- 一時的な腸)

The bassist is naked, the guitarist is wearing some some of sequined transparent leotard and the vocalist has set his mic stand in the middle of the crowd and is busy climbing and jumping off anything that's strapped down and throwing around anything that isn't. These guys just don't really give a fuck. The Osaka quintet spew feedback drenched psychedelia and noise that would make a hippy weep. No peace, love and happiness here. The band have to be seen live to be properly appreciated and it's not that their music is the greatest but their "Fuck you all!" approach to things has a definate charm to it. 

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Groundcover - Psycho Bass

Don't really know much about these guys other than that they're from Tokyo and seem to have been together for around 3 or 4 years. Caught them when they came over to Kyoto with Bossston Cruizing Mania a few weeks back. They're definatley one of the more memorable bands I've seen recently. Brutal hardcore noise mixed with the schizophrenic experimentalism the Boredoms, a touch of Boris' more groove orientated slab rock and some kazoo. "Psycho Bass" is the band's 2nd full length album released back in June and even came with a free Groundcover branded Kazoo. Awesome.

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