Minami Deutsch – Minami Deutsch
Fuzz is as fuzz does. Cardinal Fuzz like it hypnotic and repetitive and, tipped off by awesome longhair freaks Kikagaku Moyo to countrymen Minami Deutsch’s unique Japanese brand of kraut, they took the plunge on the band’s suitably blown-out S/T debut. Only formed in 2014, their nascent stream of motorik and locked bass grooves grabs you by the scruff of the neck and just keeps pulling.
Combining the oppressive micro-detail of the German masters with the delicate synth lines of modern pushers like The Horrors, as well as with the spacey blast-offs of revivalists like Wooden Shjips, side A kicks off with creepy heavy breathing and vaguely sci-fi spoken samples echoed out to infinity. The intriguely titled “Vocalism Ali – Forever Takemitsu” continues to turn the screw, getting heavier as drums and synth static fade in and out.
Getting to the point in a lot more decisive fashion, the nine-minute “Futsu Ni Ikirenai” switches up in an instant from a pulsing beat and an undecipherable vocal to huge guitar buzz and drone that dominates with riffing shred, the track eventually heading spacewards with whooshes that sound like airlocks opening and closing in super-slow motion. The side then closes with the exploding cymbals of the instrumental “Sea Within A Sea” re-write “Terra Reciepe”, a gesture that seems a little half-finished without one of the band’s customary freak-outs to finish.
Side B quickly fades in to fill the void though, guitars jangling on “Ubergleich Part 1” as if tuned as power sitars. The jangles continue on the unhurried and meandering “Sunrise, Sunset”, soothing guitar bliss picked out over a menacing kraut undertow. “Ubergleich Part 2” then heaves into view with the LP’s most discernible and only English-language vocal, ticking percussion summoning the Reaper, the vocal calming the track’s sticky rhythms that roam the highs and lows of the waveform as if under strobe light.
Japan often seems an impenetrable ocean of far-out psyche but, with Minami Deutsch, Cardinal Fuzz have done the hard work for you, plucking a real fuzzy diamond from the rough.
Best track: “Futsu Ni Ikirenai”
~Minami Deutsch is released on white vinyl September 28th 2015 via Cardinal Fuzz.~