Label: Vanity Records – vanity 0007 Format: Vinyl, LP Country: Japan Released: 1980 Genre: Electronic Style: Experimental, Minimal
Mythical minimal wave masterpiece from Japanese bedroom studio savant Sympathy Nervous on Yuzuru Agi’s outrageously influential Vanity Records label. It simply does not get any better.
Born in 1955, Yosihumi Niinuma grew up interested in classical music and electronics, later getting into krautrock. These interests coalesced into building his own synthesisers from scratch and setting up a sprawling home studio inside his presumably tiny Tokyo 1-room apartment. Allegedly he never played live as it would take at least 5 hours to set up his equipment with over 100 individual wires. On first listen, what hits first is that it’s truly insane that this was released in 1980. Of all the attributions given to YMO’s for their tekno-pop / proto-techno sound that would later birth the dance music we know and love, surely it’s THIS record that most authentically lays down the schematics for what would become minimal techno. Niinuma’s bizarre soundscapes are dark, druggy and entirely devoid of any pop sensibilities. The opener ‘A Worm’ is stripped back to the point of no return, laying down an unforgiving stomp/start stomp amongst searing sirens and chilling vocal mutations. Temprament and Automatic Type are ice-cold and nihilistic, recalling the greyscale landscapes of David Lynch’s Eraserhead and Alan Splet’s equally barren soundtrack. It’s all frighteningly advanced - the warped chug of closer ‘Sympathetic Nerves’ could be mistaken for a Tolouse Low Trax b-side or any strange outsider techno of the last few years. As with all the Vanity releases, it’s cripplingly hard to come by and always has been, but for us this one will always deserve a place in the Electronic Music hall of fame. We'll never have another! (NM/VG+ - top copy, vinyl clean, sleeve has some age on corners, see pics).
Tracklist A1 A Worm A2 Go On And Off A3 Temperament A4 Deaf Picture B1 Automatic Type B2 Quick Starttype B3 Inverted Type B4 Sympathetic Nerves
