Angel'in Heavy Syrup
Angel'in Heavy Syrup I

It vaguely reminds me of the cover of the English edition of "Aftermath". Only here, it's not the Stones looking up at us, but three girls from the suburbs of Osaka, posing for the release of their debut album (year: 1991). The first on the left, the one in shorts, is named Mineko Itakura; and here she is the leader of a trio that to this day is perhaps the best "all-female band" ever heard from the Land of the Rising Sun. Many Japanese musicians, many deserving of certain consideration, but few who (like Ours) have produced 4 untitled albums, each more beautiful than the last, only numbered (a probable allusion to Led Zeppelin? Or perhaps, to stay in Japan, to Fushitsusha by Keiji Haino...? - after all, Mineko could be the ideal girlfriend for Keiji, and given the suggestion, you won't take long to understand why).

In a word: psychedelia. The kind that is well-played, masterfully so, among acidic guitars and sick rhythms, confused, hallucinatory. "Cosmic" openings of Teutonic memory revealing complex, multiform and overflowing with colors: from the floral (and spring-like) relaxation of '67 psychedelia (that of Love and Pretty Things) to the distorted, animalistic ferocity of post-'68 Hard-Psych (Iron Butterfly above all, but also the CCR of "Suzie Q" and the anarchy of krautrock like Ash Ra Tempel - the more "guitar-oriented" ones - and Guru Guru). Mineko plays the bass like Jack Casady did, soaking twisted lines with Fuzz between Blues and Raga, but sings (in her language) with a haunting, delicate little voice, more like an Enka singer than a Rock-singer. And it's precisely this underlying "Japaneseness" that makes their music irresistible, despite the inevitable citationism in all their records - the intro of the third album, for example, markedly recalls the sound blend of Santana's "Going Home", with guitars replacing the original's organs; while, on this, the initial theme of "Underground Railroad" closely resembles, in its use of Flamenco scales, "White Rabbit". All guitars are played by Mine Nakao, who needless to say is one who uses the wah wah abundantly and improvises along the same line as the Masters of San Francisco.

But the points of contact with a certain Bay Area stop here, because structurally speaking the pieces are anything but monotonal pretexts for "jamming" on endless canvases; it surprises, and it's the most "progressive" side of the three (not surprisingly they've even opened for Gong), the tendency for changes in rhythm and key: not true jams, therefore, but - forgive the term - sort of "mini-suites" multi-thematic and dense with evolutions, progressions, instrumental cues. But there are also songs, in the true sense of the word, however distorted and "dirty" they may sound: "Why Don't You Take A Sight-Seeing Bus With Me" is a cover of an old Japanese beat track, and if Tarantino had heard it, he would have slipped it into one of his soundtracks; even "My Dream", all things considered, could be a Pop ditty, if not for the "drugged" guitars (not just one, but multiple overlapping layers) and Mineko's reverberated voice making those three minutes downright chilling. The best lies in "I'm Sure To Meet You" and "Crazy Blues": two very long rides, extended up to ten minutes. Here you will really understand, I feel compelled to say, the meaning of the "heavy syrup" (sweet, yet also bitter at alternating phases) to which the band's name alludes. Absolute enjoyment.

After this first album, they will change drummers and become a quartet with the addition of a second guitar. Maybe we'll talk about it again, but in the meantime, take this - if you want and if I haven't bored you yet - another of my discoveries from the Far East. Let me know.