Friends overseas

In the summer of 1994 I was lucky enough to spend some time with my friend Yoshiyuki in Tokyo. I was 17 years old, and though I was a rabid musician at the time, playing in several orchestras in Washington state, I hadn't yet stumbled upon the rich deposits of experimental and noise music exploding out of Japan. It's probably for the best, as I don't think any of my friends would have wanted to go check out whatever wild noise madnesses were happening in Tokyo that summer. Luckily for me, someone made it their business to make some sort of chronicle of that time and place.

1991 - Tokyo Flashbacks Vol 1

Tokyo flashbacks is actually a long running series of compilations chronicling the vast amount of noise, experimental, and out-jazz music of the Tokyo scene. This first volume was released in 1991 and contains work from relatively popular artists like Keiji Haino, to the completely obscure. I bought this thing on vinyl in 1995 in Spokane, WA at a wonderful little independant record store called 4000 Holes (You'll hear more about this place from me for sure). It said "Tokyo" on it and it had a gamera toy hiding on the cover, which was all the motivation I needed to take it home with me. I was living in a weirdo house with a couple other looney, acid-soaked, art damaged kids and an angry siamese cat named "Agony". My only solid impression of my first listen was a feeling of being about 20 years artistically behind what I was hearing. Spokane in 1995 had nothing on Tokyo 1990. The most exciting thing for people in Spokane was the possibility of mixing ska with grunge... *sigh* Anyway, this is a really well curated series, and I'm sure I'll end up posting more of these records in the future. For now, this is a great jump-off for the uninitiated, and ought to keep you pretty bent and busy trying to unravel it for a while...