GOUM & JAH EXRETION – Two new-ish Japanese acts are coming in to these shores in late July.

GOUM | http://www.myspace.com/goumjapan

Little is known about Tokyo’s GOUM. We first heard about them was when local label Crysis Records released the band’s demo tracks on a tape October last year. We never managed to grab hold of the tape but of late there have been a few tracks being streamed on their MySpace page and also featured on YouTube.

As you can hear from the track below, GOUM play dark, depressive variation of the usual modern-crust sound, a bit like MADAME GERMEN meeting SCHIFOSI but rawer, less refined.

What’s interesting (at least for me) is the inherent gloomy starkness in the later parts of the song; the slower dirgy breaks with the tribal-like drumming coming at the forefront and the singer going Patti Smith on us! The dynamics remind me of BIRUSHANAH, only they would use Japanese tradional percussion instead of normal rock’n’roll drums.

If there’s a complain it must be the length of the song, it’s goes on and on, but do understand, this is just a demo track; things may go tighter with a proper release.

Here’s Rensa, one of the demo tracks:

Recently Narm Discos (Japan), Tadpole Records (UK) and Bombs Away Records (Norway) got together to put out GOUM’s debut 7″, The Mother Fetus – a 3-song single recorded in February this year (but no new version of Rensa tho’).

Narm Discos put up a promo-video of it but I must say, the clip didn’t show much of what’s on offer, a part from an out-of-sync live shot of the band on stage. Check it: HERE

Those who wanna order the 7″, do contact anyone of these labels:

http://narmdiscos.blogspot.com
http://tadpolerecords.blogspot.com
http://bombsawayrecords.blogspot.com

The CD-R version of the demo is still on-sale by Crysis Records (RM5): http://crysisrecords.tumblr.com/

JAH EXCRETION | http://www.myspace.com/jahexcretion

What’s with Japanese punks making fun of reggae/rasta culture eh?

Anyway, J.E. is a one-man sonic-machine featuring Yu Iwasaki (apparently he used to play bass for BRUTAL TERRORISM, a grinding hardcore-punk + power-violence project which was here a few years ago) and he has three releases out since 2009. (one of which you can buy from Kluang’s egofix: here

Judging from the songs on his myspace page, JE flits between totally wrecked harsh white noise (which can be too much to bear for my delicate ears) to the calmer waters of trippy, psychedelic yet edgy ambient soundscapes (which I adore!); I particularly love this ponderous, sandstorm track from the third release called On The Road (CD released last month and available from Poland’s Somnolent Shelter Records – http://www.somnolentshelter.art.pl)

Have a listen to the title track:

An interesting pairing indeed.