THE PRIME MOVING LUMPS

One of the most obscure Japanese bands you could possibly imagine, STUBBS was a true anomaly that totally went against the grain of the popular music scene that was sweeping that nation during that era. While the 80s was fertile ground for a whole range of genres ranging from city pop and new wave to the blossoming world of heavy metal and rowdy punk-inspired noise rock bands, there was a small but dedicated group of musicians who were more captivated by the European progressive rock scene. In the case of a band called STUBBS, which clearly derived its moniker from the short Hatfield & The North into titled "The Stubbs Effect" on the Hatfield debut album, this Japanese collective led by keyboardist Yamashita Kojiro was delivering its own strange interpretations of England's Canterbury Scene.

STUBBS remains one of the least known of all such acts that followed in the footsteps of the English legends by leaving only two albums that were supposedly ever released on a cassette-only format. The first release, "The Idyll Party" emerged from the Japanese underground in 1984 and showcased the band rendering its own take on the sounds of classic Hatfield & The North, National Health, Egg, Soft Machine and pretty much any other act of the era that they could glean inspiration from. While clearly on hero worship mode, the first album showcased many moments of extreme creativity allowing STUBBS to insert its own inventiveness to the overall mix with a somewhat more updated version of the Canterbury sounds by emphasizing moments of hefty rock guitar and moments of avant-garde ingenuity.

The second release THE PRIME MOVING LUMPS, a title clearly referring to the track "Lumps" from Hatfield's "The Rotter's Club" came out in 1985 and delivered a serious upgrade in the band's development as a creative entity in its own right. While clearly steeped in all that Canterbury glory that spawned one of progressive rock's most endearing subgenres of technically infused jazz-rock, on THE PRIME MOVING LUMPS the band had largely abandoned the dreamy meanderings that evoked the classic Hatfield & The North albums and added a more spirited energy with faster tempos, more extreme drumming and an emphasis on the guitar and keyboard interplay as the primary instrumentation of conveying all those idiosyncratic complex Canterbury chord sequences.

A slightly shorter album than the debut, THE PRIME MOVING LUMPS featured six tracks that spanned a running time of 46 minutes and featured the same core lineup of Yamashita Kojio on keys, Kasai Ken on guitar, Kamon Ryo on bass and Konno Kuzuhiko on percussion duties. While an almost exclusively instrumental affair, vocalist Yorino Runchiee also returns on the final track for a few scant vocal parts that evoked the spirit of the The Northettes' angelic vocal contributions to the Hatfield releases. Despite a shift into a more creative self-expressing approach on THE PRIME MOVING LUMPS, the album still retains moments that sound lifted right off of the classic Hatifeld albums especially the track "Under Pebble Wood."

The album starts off awkwardly with a lengthy intro of Japanese dialogue, military marches and what basically sounds like snippets from a Japanese comedy show followed by a TV sitcom theme jingle but as soon as that head scratching intro yields to the musical flow, the band lets loose on "The Prime Ultimate" with an upbeat keyboard loop accompanied by the guitar which provides the proper Canterbury musical scales and technicalities that made the genre so utterly unique. The energy is fast paced with a mix of cleaner guitar soloing and more distorted guitar chords and riffing along with an energetic percussive drive accompanied by the bass for a beefed up rhythm section. This is probably the most rock-oriented version of the Canterbury Scene i've yet experience since the 70s bands focused more on atmospheres, tones, timbres, textures and jazz oriented technicalities as their primary means of musical execution.

"Jean Frazier" follows and offers one of the most abstractly avant-garde tracks with random clusters of Canterbury keys accompanied only by a guitar lick that exists in its own world slightly set back in the mix. When the bass and drum finally kick in after a couple minutes, they create their own rhythm section while the keyboard and guitar stay rigidly fixed to their comfort zone however despite the avant-garde nature of the track, the keyboard weirdness is a repetitive cyclical loop based in Canterbury musical scales leaving the guitar to be the rogue drifter of the bunch but towards the end the guitar shifts into a highly distorted acid rock type of riffing sound while the percussion incrementally picks up speed and the guitar totally freaks out. The track is followed by the more "normal" sounding "The Land Of Yellow Leaves" which is a more caffeinated track that mixes the world of classic Hatfield & The North with National Health and all the warm cozy familiarities.

"Pondes Ete" jumps into a fast-paced, percussion-heavy quickened series of keyboard stabs in full staccato mode. The guitar provides a backing syncopation and the track seems inspired by extremely intense Japanese taiko drumming only with a noisy guitar, a bantering bass and wild keyboard experiments. The track is the shortest of the lot but also the most energetic. If it seems the album is too bombastic, the near 10-minute fifth track "Under Pebble Wood" finally offers an escape hatch into the more placid dreamy aspects of the Canterbury charm with an ethereal fluttering of the synthesizer ushering in a more traditional 70s sounding track. Unlike the free-floating debut album though, this one seems to like grooves that repeat clusters of sounds which alternate with those more classic Canterbury trademark musical scale outbursts. The track remains the most stable of the lot by retaining the general melodic flow albeit offering many time signature-rich excursions into variations that expand upon the main theme. It's probably the most traditional track on the album.

The grand finale, the 14-minute "Eternity Is Infinity" begins with the celestial unaccompanied vocal contributions of Yorino Runchiee before the track abruptly breaks into a series of dark toned keyboard heft immediately surrounded by the support of a beefy bass groove, steady drumbeat and then by the same unruly guitar that then tames itself into a more appropriate Canterbury posturing. After five minutes the track breaks into a more traditional Hatfield & The North segment and continues to carry on this basic tribute section only as the track progresses the band's energetic youthful energy offers high energy guitar workouts, wily keyboard antics and then really goes into overdrive with a series of quickened keyboard runs, beefed up bass and guitar mojo. Then comes the experimental drifting into the unknown. This track really slinks and slides all over the place but yet always finds the perfect place to cement that Canterbury sounding resolution even in the midst of when the band threatens to spiral out of the known universe into a tumultuous avant-garde calamity.

All i can say is WOW! First of all, it's a miracle this was ever created much less recorded and readily available in the modern era on YouTube at least. This has to be the most bold, brash and intrepid venture into the classic Canterbury sounds of the 70s that i've ever heard. While the debut insinuated the band's latent talent and relentlessness that showcased a younger generation evolving the 70s style into a new era, THE PRIME MOVING LUMPS fully unleashes all the pent up promise that STUBBS delivered with gusto. The band exhibits a firm command of the classic Canterbury sounds all the while taking it into the broader world of upbeat rock music and nurturing the avant-garde extremism into the next level of creative resolution. The band's passion is on full fire power on THE PRIME MOVING LUMPS and it's utterly amazing how an unknown group of dedicated musicians from Japan could foster such a convincing musical style that emerged so far from their own musical heritage.

Despite being self-released even the production is somewhat of an upgrade from the debut but given the lo-fi indie nature of the project still suffered however for me it's the music that really counts and as far as the compositions and instrumental interplay are concerned, STUBBS was a top notch act that walked the perfect balance between meritorious homage to the Canterbury greats while infusing the style with an exhilarating expansiveness of ingenious inventiveness. I'd give this 5 stars if the production wasn't so poor. Musically this is one of the most creative Canterbury albums outside of the 70s i've ever heard. Too bad this team didn't stick it out for the long run. This band really needs to be rescued from the doldrums of the underworld. The two albums from STUBBS are magical and more than deserve a proper release format. A remastering would improve the sound quality remarkably but even if only released in its original form would still be a welcome recognition of the outstanding talent that STUBBS displayed. For my liking this second album is the better of the two.