Les Rallizes Dénudés: Japan’s Noise Pioneers
When The Velvet Underground released White Light/White Heat in 1968, I’m not sure that Lou Reed and John Cale realized what exactly they had created: an album which would forever be marked as a milestone for noise rock as we know it today. Despite its muted critical reception when released (the band never broke into the “divine” realm of commercialism and fame that they were hoping for, so much so that Andy Warhol discontinued backing them after their first album), countless musicians and bands in the following decades have named this album as a major inspiration for them as artists, including such storied outfits as Iggy Pop’s The Stooges and 90’s grunge legends Nirvana. Recorded in the span of two days, its lo-fi production quality, noisy instrumentation, and dark subject matter still resonate to this day. To emphasize this point, “Lady Godiva’s Operation” describes the botched medical operation of a trans woman, and the album’s titular track “White Light/White Heat” illustrates sonically the feelings associated with heroin addiction. Looking back, however, Reed could not have possibly predicted that one of the album’s greatest contributions to music was to inspire a certain Takashi Mizutani, living on the opposite side of the world, to start his own rock band.
Les Rallizes Dénudés was founded in 1967 at Kyoto University, and remained active until 1996. Mizutani’s project prominently featured a revolving door of artists and musicians and is and has always been a band shrouded in mystery. Sadly, this means that little is known about the group itself or its members. Furthermore, the band never released any studio material, with their music only surviving in the form of live bootlegs, various aborted studio recordings, and audio rips from soundboards at their shows. Despite this, what does survive is a testament to the brilliance of Mizutani and company, both in terms of their output as a whole as well as their contribution to noise rock in general.
Take a song such as Night of the Assassins, which possibly takes its name from Cuban playwright José Triana’s banned (at the time of its release) play of the same title. From the moment the cyclical yet simple bass riff hits one’s ear, one knows that they are in for something special. Over the course of the track, the band builds upon the thumping riff with Mizutani’s screaming and haunting vocalizations as well as feedback-laden guitar chords, which in combination create such an abrasive wall of noise that it produces a primal, almost visceral reaction in any listener. The deliberate choices made in terms of song structure paired with the spirit of free improvisation gives life to a musical triumph of pure noise. A first time listener might love it or hate it, but it leaves an impression whether one wants it to or not.
I could go on forever gushing over the entire released discography of Les Rallizes Dénudés, but my (hopeful) recommendation for everyone is to merely go and check them out for yourself. Without the output of this band, who knows how and if Japan’s noise scene would have developed, which would have kept us from geniuses in the genre such as Keiji Haino (a personal favorite) and Merzbow. So, I want to conclude by thanking the Velvet Underground formally, for having a hand in kickstarting a band which would later have their own powerful influence on Japanese noise music as a whole. Mizutani and his ensemble truly were pioneers, giving noise a voice in the varied soundscape of Japan.
