The best-known studio recordings by Les Rallizes Dénudés is the legendary Mars Studio sessions from 1980. The tracks were laid down during the tenure in the group of guitarist Fujio Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi is one of the more notorious figures in the Japanese rock underground. He was born to a Japanese mother and a black British father, brought up in a reformatory before channeling his anger and energy into a series of rock bands including Group Sounds garage rockers The Dynamites and proto-glam stompers Murahachibu. Yamaguchi's sojourn in Rallizes lasted just over a year, from early 1980 to March 1981, but the weightless, languid weird-form blues created by the meshing of Mizutani's billowing feedback and Yamaguchi's acid-etched lines has been regarded by many Japanese fans as one of the group's peaks. The fourth disc in the set comprises a live show from the same period as the studio recordings. Recorded on September 11, 1980 at the Yaneura club in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, this show was previously released under the title Double Heads September, though it was not included in the Double Heads 6CD document of Fujio's tenure in the group. Numbered, limited edition 4CD box set including a booklet with liner notes. Digitally remastered.

"Another massively potent archival round-up from Phoenix, this time reissuing one of the most sought-after of the original Univive sets, Mars Studio 1980. Probably the best loved of the Rallizes studio recordings, this set catches the group at an insane twin guitar peak with the addition of second guitarist Fujio Yamaguchi pushing the music out into a weird distended psychedelic blues zone. This beautifully assembled box features four discs of fully re-mastered studio recordings, jams, out-takes and instrumentals from an extended 1980 album session. The tracks are dominated by a clean, bluesy VU feel that’s somewhere between “Ride Into The Sun” and Dylan’s Basement Tapes, with lazy, off the cuff run-throughs, studio banter and radically different stylings of key material, with a particularly notable version of “Enter The Mirror” that features keyboard work that is almost a duck for Al Kooper’s playing on Blonde On Blonde. Also features some spectacular free improvised jams and a buncha material not heard anywhere else, all in sparkling studio fidelity. Accompanying the studio work is a fantastic live show from the Yamaguchi era, recorded on September 11^th 1980 at the Yaneura club in the Shibuya district of Tokyo, previously issued as Double Heads September though not included on the Double Heads set. Mars Studio 1980 stands out amongst the plethora of Rallizes releases as a rare complete studio date that sees the group experimenting with a sound that really has few parallels even in their own back catalogue. Numbered edition of 1000 copies with new liner notes. Very highly recommended!" Volcanic Tongue