“Since the 1970’s Asahito Nanjo has been at the fore front of the Japanese underground psychedelic/punk music scene. He’s played in so many bands that it’s pretty much impossible to keep track of them. But his most famous one is undoubtedly High Rise, an incredible garage rock band taken to it’s most overdriven extreme, which has been blowing out eardrums since it’s first release on PSF over twenty years ago. High Rise got it’s start due to the drug scene in Japan. Or rather, it got it’s start as an “anti†to the drug scene in Japan. Asahito Nanjo and company (Munehiro Narita on “motorcycle guitar†and a Spinal Tap worthy succession of drummers) were so concerned about so many of their musician buddies dying of drug overdoses that they decided to form a band to save them. High Rise, while sounding suspiciously like overdriven garage rock, is actually (according to Asahito Nanjo) a high concept band that has never written or composed a song: ‘Concept is as close as you can get in words, I suppose. Everybody adds something to it. We don’t devote any time to writing new stuff. We start off from deconstruction, though there are things that in the end become like normal songs. But the process that we take in getting there is completely different to everyone else. Our process is totally different from the punk conception of specific chords and riffs. We sort of start off from the position that we don’t want to do this but there’s no way around it. It’s hard to explain in words. Basically we don’t even put in one minute coming up with new songs. Not that we’re lazy or sloppy – we have a different conception of what a song is. But we’ve got to express ourselves in that format. We pay no attention at all to writing songs. It’s very hard to explain – if we wanted to write songs then we could write something amazing. What we do isn’t composition; it’s the wreckage of composition, if you like’ (Opprobrium #3). For the longest time their releases were only available as bootlegs or high priced Japanese imports. Luckily, Squealer Music did us all a favor back in ‘98-’99 and released four of their albums domestically.” – Of Mirror Eye
High Rise
Psychedelic Speed Freaks ’84 – ’85
Time-Bomb Records (1997)
Tracklist:
01. Make A Motion
02. Acid Song
03. Induced Depression
04. Like Death
05. Last Rites
06. Psychedelic Speed Freaks
07. Cycle Goddess
08. Pop Sicle
