**300 copies** For roughly three quarters of a century, Japan has given birth to some of the world’s most radical realisations of organised sound. From the early Fluxus associated composers like Takemitsu, Ichiyanagi, and Kosugi, psychedelic experimentalism of projects like Taj Mahal Travellers, Geinoh Yamashirogumi, Far East Family Band, Magical Power Mako, Flower Travellin' Band, Les Rallizes Dénudés, to wild contemporary wanderings of artists like Marginal Consort, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Toshimaru Nakamura, Tetuzi Akiyama, and countless others, the country represents a continuum of sonic radicalism unlike anything else. Yet, of all incredible movements to emerge from Japan over the decades, few have been as iconic, singular, or influential as its movement of Noise. Emerging during the late '70s and early '80s, the raw, sonic energy harnessed and hurled by artists like Hijokaidan, Merzbow and Incapacitants, remains like nothing before or since. Of all the came and went, among the most distinct and important of these efforts were created by K2, the personal noise project by Kimihide Kusafuka, now the focus of an incredible 6CD wooden box, Burst After Burst: Early Recordings 1990-1996, via Urashima. Like flowers in the storm, this collection is as striking and beautiful as they come, and not to be missed.
Kimihide Kusafuka came onto the scene in 1981, not long after its founding, intent on exploring the endless possibilities of noise. Working under the moniker K2, he rapidly became one of the most notorious and seminal Japanese artists working in the idiom, widely known in the community as the 'king of metal junk', creating work that built vast assemblages of crashing, creaking, and scraping sounds from pieces of junk metal, MTR, Monotron, and other analogue electronics, combined with elements of concrete music, and voice. Fascinatingly, Kusafuka has lived a kind of double life, working by day as a surgical pathologist and researcher, infusing the act of making noise with his natural disposition toward science, and creating a kind of alchemy through his noise.
The 6CD set, Burst After Burst, collects the recordings of six cassette made and released over six years between 1990-1996. Five of them - Materia Informis, Autopsy Soundtrakks, Souls Are Kontroled By Molekules, De Novo, and Rusty Tongue - were originally self-issued bu Kusafuka on his own Kinky Music Institute imprint, while the sixth, Destruction For Model Citizens, which was released in the U.S. by Self Abuse Records. Across each album, a singular, expansive world unfolds - vast sheets of texture, dark ambience, and tone - ranging from the clattering incident, harsh noise, intricate structuralism, and so much more. An absolutely necessary survey of one of Japanese Noise originators and elder statesmen during the '90s, Burst After Burst returns the ear to the fascinatingly singular, and endlessly evolving world of K2. It’s like nothing else. Issued by Urashima, with all audio remastered from the original '90s DAT masters, in a blue wooden box with laser engraving, containing a six CD wallet, the artwork from the original tapes covers, and an A4 size foldable from original '90s era made by K2. Released in a very limited and numbered edition of 300, with certificate.
