Musica Transonic, Mainliner

Wild, heavy electric sessions recorded in 1997/98 featuring the classic Mainliner & Musica Transonic lineup of Nanjo Asahito, Kawabata Makoto and Yoshida Tatsuya driving into divergently fried terrain(s). Here, Nanjo and co. are on a quest to find new directions, and while the sessions were for an abandoned Mainliner album, a good portion of Solid Static hews more closely to the moment-to-moment deconstructions of Musica Transonic.

That project’s improvised and jazz-informed take on psychedelic rock is writ across the distended rhythms and arcing bass and guitar lines that scrawl across “Prosecutor” and “Topsy Turvy”, or the slurry of distorted tone that rolls through “Rot Way”. The propulsive ten-minute opening title track, begins with one of Mainliner’s bludgeoning motor-psycho riffs, before veering off into auratic space, Kawabata’s snake-charming guitar weaving around Nanjo’s buzz-fire bass and Yoshida’s multi-limbed drumming; a sleeper gem in the canon of Japanese psychedelia and rock & roll.