ANGHERR SHISSPA

This album, Angherr Shisspa was my introduction to zeuhl, and it was an awful choice. I purchased this album because I had never heard of zeuhl before, and I decided to just dive right in - plus, I have a genuine interest in all things Japanese. One thing I've always admired about Japanese culture is their tendency to take anything bizarre and amplify the bizarreness quality tenfold. That is absolutely the case here. Since this purchase, I've listened to much more zeuhl, and I can now comparatively say that this album is nuts, of course I already kind of knew that upon first listen.

In a genre defined by its weirdness, this album takes top prize. Featured are operatic female vocals with extremely dramatic vibrato and pseudo-ethinic sounding instrumentation dominated by Yoshida Tatsuya's infamous powerful drumming, with hints of jazz and avant- garde. All of this combined with super-speed musicianship makes for a difficult listen at first, but it eventually starts to make sense, if "sense" is truly an applicable word here. Other elements, like saxophone, occasionally fit into the picture, adding more variety to the mania. The overall feel of this album is zany, and the musicianship and composition is eccentricity in its top form. The only thing that I don't enjoy so much about this album, compared to some of my favorite zeuhl, is the lack of repetitive funk-jazz-like bass playing, but of course, that isn't really important. Koenjihyakkei have their own, unique voice (and language) in the zeuhl world, and they do it very professionally.

I highly recommend this highly eccentric, highly progressive album to anyone willing to lose their mind adrift on a sea of frantic Japanese mania.