Bella and the Bizarre: Bella and the Bizarre (2024)

Sometimes you know nothing about an artist other than the label they’re on, and sometimes that label carries enough weight that you take a chance. In The Red Records is one of those labels, and when I was looking to pick up a specific album (the latest from Des Demonas) I spied the self titled debut full length from Bella and the Bizarre. Hailing from Germany and boasting some indie cred lineage (lead singer Bella Khan is the daughter of noted alternative artist King Khan) Bella and the Bizarre aims for and hits some seriously fun garage punk mixed with pure rock and roll swagger.

ChrisApril 30, 2025May 25, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Trigon: Cosmic Kraut Jam (2024)

I had never heard of Trigon, the German self-proclaimed “HeavyZenJazz” trio before seeing the drop dead gorgeous cover art for Cosmic Kraut Jam. See, really good, non-AI art can still drive people to your music! The band have been around since 1990, and their brand of instrumental rock straddles a lot of different genres and influences. Despite only having six “official” studio albums in that time (the last being 2018’s 30 Jahre Traumzeit) they’ve been pretty active with live releases and improvisational jams. Cosmic Kraut Jam was recorded in a bunch of different sessions throughout 2023, seeing release late last year, and it’s a driving, electric mix of charged up jams that put you directly in the room with the band.

ChrisApril 28, 2025April 29, 2025Leave a comment

Playlists

(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 47: Sick, Again

And like clockwork, three days after I got home I came down with a wicked respiratory infection that pretty much laid me out the whole week. Not the best week to listen to nothing but Les Rallizes Dénudés for my pounding head, but damn that band just gets larger and larger in my brain space. Next week I’ll get out some odds and ends live music before jumping into May which is going to essentially be a catch-up month of all the new music that’s come in. Consider this playlist then my respite from the searing leads of Mizutani and a brief preview of some of the music getting reviewed next month.

ChrisApril 26, 2025Leave a comment

CD, Vinyl

Les Rallizes Dénudés: YaneUra Oct/Sep ’80 (2024, 2025)

Lovely as Les Rallizes Dénudés are, I have been sick as a dog since Monday night, and their particular sonic onslaught is now doing nothing for my aching an pounding head, so we’re going to wrap up Live Month today with a brief double-header. It’s one that makes sense, though: two blasting shows at the Yaneura live house in Shibuya, Tokyo. And because we established that linear time has little meaning to a band so unstuck in its tick-tock mechanisms, we’re going in order of release but in reverse chronological order, starting with YaneUra Oct. ’80 and then moving back to YaneUra Sep. ’80. Let’s do this so I can give my clogged and pressurized ears a break…

ChrisApril 24, 2025April 24, 2025Leave a comment

Les Rallizes Dénudés: Baus ’93 (2023)

As the concept of linear time has little meaning to Les Rallizes Dénudés, so shall it go with us. From 1977 to their speaker-blowing return in 1993 back a few days to a more tentative, but no less powerful reintroduction, Baus ’93 showcases Mizutani and company at that first post-hiatus show, four days before the explosive set covered on CITTA’ ’93. In all it’s a picture of a band finding their footing in real time, ironing out the kinks and wrinkles of five years away from the stage in a way that sounds cohesive and natural. If it’s not the singular experience the previous two releases are, it’s still filled all the feedback and cosmic soloing you’d expect from the band.

ChrisApril 23, 2025April 23, 2025Leave a comment

Vinyl

Les Rallizes Dénudés: CITTA’ ’93 (2023)

After sporadic live shows throughout the late 70s and early 80s, Les Rallizes Dénudés took a hiatus, not returning to the stage until 1993. Fast foreword another 30 years and the band’s former bassist Makoto Kubota, working with the blessing of the Mizutani estate and Temporal Drift, have done an astounding job cleaning up and releasing CITTA’ ’93, a near mythological performance taking place four days after their “comeback” gig. Sourced from a magnetic ADAT tape (supposedly Mizutani didn’t even know the show was being recording at the time) it’s an amazing document not only for its high fidelity – this might be the clearest the band have ever sounded – but for some truly inspired playing, morphing now decades old tunes into new forms.

ChrisApril 22, 2025April 22, 20252 Comments

Consuming the Tangible

We are what we consume

Month: April 2025