Thursday, July 8, 2010

Nubile - Spyral Totem Toler Than East Poll 7" (1984)

NUBILE
Spyral Totem Toler Than East Poll 7" (1984)


Tracklisting

Side A
Spyral Totem Toler Than East Poll

Side B
Tranceyse Diskow Veryall

Yoshihide Igarashi (guitar, vocals, percussion, piano)
Ken Tanami (vocals, bass, percussion)
Chihiro (drums, percussion, vocals)

Released: 1984
Label: Wechselbalg
Catalogue number: WT-704
Format: 7" single

Lenght: 09:24
Bitrate: 320 kbps

A while ago, in the wake of the Sadie Sads post, someone requested more weird Wechselbalg-records. Well, I'm certainly not one to deny such a request ...and what record to fit to the bill than Nubile's outstandlingly outlandish second single. Just look at those song titles - you know this is going to be good!

The band was formed by bassist/singer Ken Tanami - famous (relatively speaking) for playing in legendary punk band Typhus together with the equally legendary Tam (founder of ADK Records and, for a while, member of The Stalin) and for designing the bisarre and grotesque cover art to Kikeijis first release.

The rest of the bands setting was mostly in constant flux; the only other permanent member being guitarist Yoshihide Igarashi who, as you might recall, also played with Sadie Sads. Other members included keyboardist Takashi Sekine, known from Excentrique Noiz who shared a place together with L'arc~en~Ciel and Rosen Kreuz (among others) on the famous "Gimmick" compilation.

What was also in continous mutation, most likely due to the shifting membership, was the kind of music that Nubile created. Their first release (a self-titled flexi on ADK) was eastern-tinged sludge-y punk while most of their later output were a decidedly idiosyncratic take on mutant disco (also mutant funk, for that matter). I personally am quite fond of just about everything put out by the band; but I'd say that the most fascinating stop on their bumpy and winding career nevertheless is the gothic abnormality that is "Spyral Totem Toler Than East Poll".

Although echoing slight influence from The Birthday Party at their more outre, the pure weirdness of the title track is hard to match. Some of you've might have encountered it on the "Revenge of Wechselbalg" compilation (actual copies are scarce, but a glitchy rip has been floating around on the net for a while) alongside the other "Wechselbalg weird three"-cuts (the previously posted "Angora" and "Breaking Glass" by Sodom being the other two).

Staring out almost free-form, Tanami's bass holding proceedings together somewhat, the track eventually strings itself together to form a brooding gothic dirge - Tanami's bass and Chihiros spartan drumming providing the nucleus while Mr. Igarashi provides mostly atonal embellishments on guitar and piano.

Further adding to the unnerving ambience of the song is the bizarre vocal stylings of Tanami and Igarashi. Never have the lyrics "honey, honey precious" sounded more sinister. What really gets me, though, is that off-tempo percussive bashing that appears for a short while during the intro. A confusing, if not downright demented, musical move to begin with; the fact that it sounds overdubbed makes it all the more perverse.

The B-side "Tranceyse Diskow Veryall" betrays more of an influence to The Birthday Party and cuts down a bit (but only the slightest bit) on the derangement of its flipside twin in favor of rocking out ...mental illness-style! Although still firmly with the rhythm section in focus; the guitar moves a little more to the forefront, even providing the song with a main riff in the form of a stunted arpeggio. The ominous feel of "Spyral Totem..." is also quite present here, with several abrupt starts and stops making for a suitably uneasy development of the song. Now this is my kind of disko(w)!

Believe it or not, this single was actually reviewed in the classic American punk-zine "Maximum Rock 'n Roll" back in the day. Here's what reviewer Tim Yohannan had to say:

"Don't ask me what language the titles are supposed to be in, but
this band mails from Japan. The A-side is a quirky, slightly
ambient number that sounds like Jello somehow got his
ass down
to Asia. The B-side sounds like BIRTHDAY PARTY got their butts there."


Although more condensed than my own review (I'm a longwinded fucker); some sentiments are indeed shared. Can't say I'm really getting much "Japa Biafra"-vibes though.

In short; a greatly disturbing and disturbingly great single. Do enjoy!



PS. As a final fanboy-ish hail of praise: isn't Nubile just about the coolest thing you could ever come up with calling a band? Just consider the juxtaposition of the music produced and the actual meaning of the word. Hell yeah! More gothic stuff coming up to darken your summer.

7 comments:

LilliesAndRemains said...

Hell yeah! I've been wanting this for ages!

And more gothic wonders, you promise? How perfect to celebrate the coldest and gloomiest winter Australia's (or at least Adelaide) had in years! =D

Thanks brah

Ikebukuro said...

truly thank you
he had not been able to
to get material of this band!!
truly thank you to share!!
always ambriento
of more gothic!!

more Madame Edwarda!! and
AUTO-MOD!!
thank's and greetings from Mexico

Anonymous said...

thank you!!!!
rus
ps. Any luck with my Momoyo request ?

Tatsuya said...

Wow, sounding so much like Birthday Party, and on both tracks.
Speaking of this (fantastic) band, there's a cover made by Sodom on Trans Record "NG" omnibus. Nice to see japanese bands knew their classics.
On a similar note, I've just heard Doom "No more pain" LP which is a bit too honest about their Metallica love.
Thanks for this.

nattliga_toner said...

> LilesAndRemains

Glad to hear you liked it! Yeah, more gothic coming up ...I'm out of town for the moment so I won't be able to rip stuff 'til next week; but I'm working on posts with stuff by Sodom & Radio Insane ...also Surrealistic Men and more ZOA.

> Ikebukuro
As always, thanks for the kind words! Unfortunately, I haven't got any Madame Edwarda (yet) and not much in the way of Auto-Mod raers either.

> Rus
Thanks! I haven't manage to find any of those Momoyo singles yet (I'm keeping a lookout for them though). I could have and should have gotten them for ~$12 a pop a year or so ago. Stupidly I passed - I figured that they weren't so rare. Oh well.

I've got a crazy synth/dub single by Momoyo & Lizard though, I'll be posting it later on.

>Tatsuya
Yeah, The Birthday Party seem to have made quite an impression on the Japanese goth bands of the day. I've a promotional flexi by Sodom with those tracks that you mentioned; they're all right, if a bit unpersonal.

I'm not much of a metal guy so I haven't heard much Doom, but I've got "Go Mad Yourself" which I really like.

LilliesAndRemains said...

Hey, if you're ever finding yourself without a plan on what to post next, you might wanna try the album your blog is named after. =)
It's already floating around the web, but with a pretty shitty bitrate, plus reading your thoughts on music is as entertaining as the music itself.

And you do seem to like that album and all, brahz

Graham said...

Ha, fantastic stuff, a Birthday Party influence is no bad thing. Gotta love those titles too.