With Musica Transonic, three giants of the Japanese underground  Nanjo Asahito (High Rise), Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple) and Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins) pushed the rock power trio to its absolute, overdriven limits. Supercharged with complex rhythms, blistering psychedelic guitars and heavy bass attacks, the group's unmatched sonics retain the ability to shock even now, 25 years after this, their self titled debut, was originally released by P.S.F. Japan.

Remastered for maximum power and clarity. Available for the first time on vinyl, includes six previously unreleased tracks from the album's original recording sessions.

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Like your head sandwiched between blaring PA speakers, like sound made solid smashing your ears brick-style, like a busted amplifier inside your brain, the massive audio signal of a rock production by Nanjo Asahito is the sonic equivalent of an arterial amphetamine jam.

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In 1986, Tokyo’s PSF Records released the second album by High Rise, simply titled II, and it immediately became one of those legendary albums that hipsters worldwide whispered about, because hardly anyone had it to listen to. Cassettes made the rounds, and everyone asked the same question I did when I was given one: is it supposed to sound like this? Maybe the dub got screwed up?

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Nope, that’s the idea: levels in the red, compressed like hell, an endorphin spike into your cortex. Bandleader and bassist Nanjo Asahito was compensating for the tiny speakers that all of his friends had in their equally tiny apartments, so he created a sound that’s always massive. No matter how you listen to it, you’ll feel like you’re standing in front of the PA at a live show, hair blown back.

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High Rise wasn’t nearly enough to occupy the busiest guy in Tokyo’s underground, though, and by the mid-’90s Nanjo had enough bands going that nobody could really keep track anymore. PSF’s legendary high quality standards recognized a couple of them, however, with releases in 1995, including the enigmatic Musica Transonic.

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This was an unhinged band that on first hearing seemed to check many of the same boxes as High Rise, including the trademark redlined sonics. But those who cranked it up and really listened realized it was actually a very different beast, a sort of musical manticore assembled from a variety of monstrous parts. Sure, it’s overdriven to the point of sonic corruption. Yep, it boasts crazed guitar like three Stooges albums played at the same time. But...it’s really not like High Rise at all. What was this thing?

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Like, what language were these song titles in? There were no clues there to help you unravel the meaning of this slab. And rather than pummel with looping riffs and searing leads, this one jabs from every side, alternating walls of sound with abstract, sideways sonics. If the titles are expressed in an unearthly language, the songs are right alongside in that alien world.

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Guitarist Makoto Kawabata would achieve renown the following year as the leader of Acid Mother’s Temple, also appearing as the guitarist in Mainliner, another High Rise-adjacent project with Nanjo. While by 1995 he and Nanjo had been playing together in other projects for several years, on this album Kawabata brought a chaotic, free-flowing guitar aptitude that painted a stranger spectrum than the laser-focused rock of High Rise. In concert with the brilliant drummer Tatsuya Yoshida -- well-known in the scene from his long-running duo Ruins -- the results are entirely unpredictable, and joyously so.

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After focusing for some time on repetition, Nanjo struck off down a new road with Musica Transonic. The better-known High Rise is a straight-ahead blast, minimalist in its approach as they drive right at your gut. With Musica Transonic, the combination of Yoshida’s complex rhythms and Kawabata’s ability to find unexpected angles for his guitar attack recalibrated the rock trio, with magnificent results that retain their ability to shock even now, 25 years later. Let them into your brain, and enjoy the resulting mental miasma.

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-Mason Jones, San Francisco, CA, 2020