Label: Pedal Records – PDL-1801 Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue Country: Japan Released: 21 Jun 2018 Genre: Rock Style: Psychedelic Rock
Smouldering solo honours from modest-chap Kurihara Michio, better known for his axe-wielding antics in seminal Japanese subterranean psych sects such as The Stars, White Heaven and Ghost.
Sunset Notes feels like Kurihara attempting to explore various shades of his heavily guitar-centric sound. It seems there are more ways than one to make the thing squeal, but for us the magic happens when feather-weight psych siren Ai Aso joins in, lending a songier feel where everything starts to hover and shimmer with an amber-hued morning light. The pairing of ‘The Wind’s Twelve Quarters’ and ‘Wind Waltzes’ are total heartbreakers and remind us what it is that we (and probably most others) find so appealing in the cavernous world of 90-00s Japanese indie - the intimate, gently swaying, endearing qualities of music so effortlessly arranged. Elsewhere Kurihara waves his guitar around like an elegiac cattle prod - ‘The Old Man And The Evening Star’ is a slow-burning sinkhole of hallucinogenic phaser-shifting that recalls Kansai greats Yuzo Iwata / Naoki Zushi and the front-porch fuzz of Org Records whilst ‘Pendulum On A G-String - The Last Cicado’ unleashes a searing frippertronics-esque squeal that eventually degrades into a gentle nighttime lullaby. Not gonna lie, there are some tracks on here we’d happily skip, but when it’s good.. it’s GOOD. Honestly had this on repeat the past 3 weeks. We have pretty small amount of unplayed dead-stock copies, so 1 per person only if this is your thing too. (Mint / New - 2018 edition on Pedal)
Tracklist A1 Time To Go 2:05 A2 Do Deep-Sea Fish Dream Of Electric Moles? 5:33 A3 Wind Waltzes 3:31 A4 Pendulum On A G-String ~ The Last Cicada 6:59 A5 Canon In "C" (C Is For Cicada) 1:45 B1 Twilight Mystery Of A Russian Cowboy 3:24 B2 The Wind's Twelve Quarters 5:14 B3 The Old Man And The Evening Star 7:45 B4 A Boat Of Courage 6:01
