Brast Burn
Debon

The series "let's do it weird"

The review could be very brief (a sigh of relief is heard): the only work of a Japanese group (?) about which virtually nothing is known.

Let's see, in 1974 Voice Records released 2 albums in collaboration with a Nakano record shop - I think in Tokyo - which then went bankrupt. The two albums are this one and another by Karuna Khial, the two groups are often thought to be the brainchild of the same person: the mysterious artist Michiro Sakuray although Karuna Khial is attributed to a certain Yoshihiro Takahashi. Julian Cope, however, claims that Brast Burn are: Konimara on vocals, Masabuni on synths, and Rey Ohara on percussion. Regardless, the fact is that we know nothing about these guys, apparently, they hadn’t done anything before this album and will do nothing afterward. The work, indeed, doesn't sell much also because it’s strange: two long untitled pieces (Debon part I and Part II), psychedelic and deconstructed, driven by acoustic sounds, synth, strange percussions, indecipherable effects, and chanting voices. Some call it a strange hybrid of Japanese ceremonial music, krautrock, and concrete music. Even today, I can't say if this music is the result of a long improvisation guided by the effects of some mysterious substance, or it's the result of a precise and planned score. The album, as mentioned, goes completely unnoticed, but at some point, it gets reissued by some labels (I remember Phoenix records and Paradigm Discs, but it seems there are other reissues), why?

Because this album is found on the famous Nurse With Wound List, which is the real subject of this review ("then won't you stop here?" is heard in the distance).

Well, this sort of shopping list for the insane is found on the back cover of "Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella" the 1979 album by NWW, later further expanded in the subsequent "To The Quiet Man From A Tiny Girl". The album in question came into my hands many (yes, really many.............) years ago, but it was in CD format and the list was illegible and, moreover, I didn't like the album very much: it was too early for my ears to tackle that kind of experiment in totally improvised and unstructured music. In the following years, I stumbled several times across works by NWW, but although I found Stapleton likable and he mingled with the right people, his things continued to leave me cold until I found myself with "Rock'n Roll Station" in my hands, and this one, yes, I liked, especially the title track, a superb cover of a piece by Berrocal. In short, I picked up the NWW albums again and recalled that list which I had carelessly heard about a few times. The three NWW of the era Stapleton, Fothergill, and Pathak in an attempt to pay homage to the artists who inspired them the most had put together a list of about 291 names and groups of all kinds and from all latitudes, creating a map of the best of a certain music of the '70s in which alongside well-known names (from Zappa to Gong, from Chrome to Residents), and others more niche but certainly not unknown (AMM, Agitation Free, Area, Red Crayola et cetera) there were really bizarre ones, so much that someone even thought it was a joke. Instead, no: it was all true; online, if you want - you can find interesting reconstructions of the list.

I, who in the early '90s, was not yet so web dependent, got myself a vinyl of the album in question and studied the matter; after my ego was sufficiently gratified by the fact that I already knew a good 70/75% of those names, and once those few names that did not interest me were discarded, a new Indiana Jones, I set out looking for those 40/50 titles that I was missing. Some of those titles I am still seeking today, proving that not seriously engaging in drugs when young can produce serious adult damage, but the quest has sometimes yielded succulent discoveries.

Among these discoveries, one of those I am most attached to is precisely this "Debon" - after all, when I find kraut, Japan, psychedelia, and unknowns in the same description, I go mad like a moth with an electric bulb - an album, I repeat, strange, not to be recommended to everyone (not strange to the point of inducing neighbors to call the police, convinced that the last survivors of the Manson Family are having a party in my house "A Clockwork Orange" style - all true! - but strange... nonetheless), but if the album does not attract you, search for the NWW list, it's worth it.