PSF records suggestions and talk

[FreakAnimalFinland]

P.S.F. Records

Founded by Hideo Ikeezumi and taking its name from the 1985 album Psychedelic Speed Freaks by High Rise, P.S.F. Records is based in the Tokyo record shop Modern Music and specializes in the Japanese psychedelic underground scene, from improvisational experiments to free jazz and maverick rock.

Got bunch of stuff from this label and latest listening was CD.. I think Keiji Haino "Nijimu".
PSFD-7
http://www.discogs.com/灰野敬二-滲有無Nijiumu/release/719700

Eerie improvisation piece of 50+ minutes, metal percussion, vocals, violin improvisation. Most often reverb of studio studio space is only effect. There is no jazzy no classical, no "free music" touch really. Improvisation mainly happens in non-rhythmical metal percussions and chanting/moaning voices.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eCIKLigI2U  I don't know how it's been transferred but sound appears much less of quality than CD...

Suggestions, recommendations of PSF label!?

[ImpulsyStetoskopu]

Suggestions, recommendations of PSF label!?

I have only few releases, and every of them are very good:

http://www.discogs.com/Lost-Aaraaff-Lost-Aaraaff/release/1036211

Interesting, crazy free improv. One of the best in this style, I guess.


http://www.discogs.com/AMM-From-A-Strange-Place/release/1086182

Classic. Not so good as recordings from 60s, but still worth to listen.

http://www.discogs.com/Keiji-Haino-%E6%85%88-Affection/release/673656

One of the best solo release in his discography.

If we talk about Keiji HAINO too, I must recommend his http://www.discogs.com/%E7%81%B0%E9%87%8E%E6%95%AC%E4%BA%8C-%E5%A4%A9%E4%B9%83%E5%B7%9D-Milky-Way-1973-Live/release/917892
Live recording from 1973, the first, extreme noise industrial material, as we know well as japanoise. Here many years earlier. Full of recommendation.

[Zeno Marx]

Toukaseibunshi - Meta-Inorganicmatter Meta-Newlon 1986 - PSF Records - Impressive album of good variation, all maintaining a consistent high quality.  "Glace 2" is a full-on power-electronics assault with an 80's cassette feel.  "Enthsiate" is a strong industrial, quasi-percussion piece.  "Glace" is a long minimalist track of solid caliber with massive metallic noise swells.  This album might be too varied for some, but it delivers throughout the listen.

some of the heaviest music ever recorded:
Fushitsusha - 3/4
Fushitsusha - 15/16

*There are quite a few very good albums on PSF from Keiji Haino solo and groups.

Kousokuya is a heavy, powerful group.  They don't have too many albums out, and they're all good or great.  Harry Bertoia - Unfolding is on PSF. 

[tisbor]

I'm no big expert of PSF material but:

Masayoshi Urabe - Ware Wa Seidai No Kyōjyō Zo
http://www.discogs.com/%E6%B5%A6%E9%82%8A%E9%9B%85%EF%A8%9A-%E6%88%91%E3%81%AF%E8%81%96%E4%BB%A3%E3%81%AE%E7%8B%82%E7%94%9F%E3%81%9E-Ware-Wa-Seidai-No-Ky%C5%8Djy%C5%8D-Zo/release/983565
Screeching, piercing sax, silence, metal chains being dragged on the floor, lots of silence and room reverb. Great album.

D!O!D!O!D! - Ghost Temple
http://www.discogs.com/DODOD-Ghost-Temple/release/954845
I guess they're the only chinese band on PSF: ultra fast, noisy and aggressive impro trio, almost bordering on noisecore.

[bitewerksMTB]

First 3 or 4 of the "Tokyo Flashback" comps were pretty damn good. Use to have a lot of PSF releases I'd buy from Forced Exposure. Those couple of totally black, double cd's from Fushitsusha had some really intense moments but they were so damn long. He had a unique guitar tone from what I remember on some of the work. His other stuff, with guitar plinking & odd vocals didn't do much for me. Not sure if that was on the comps or if I had any of his rel's under his name.

[acsenger]

Keiji Haino "Nijiumu"

That's a very strange and great album indeed. My girlfriend (who doesn't like 99% of experimental music) said it sounded like someone was agonizing in a car factory :).

I don't know many PSF releases but here are two I recommend:

Fushitsusha - Origin's Hesitation
http://www.discogs.com/不失者-Origins-Hesitation/release/719739
I guess no need to say it's a strange album (as all albums are on which Haino plays). Last time I listened to it I found it too long but it's definitely interesting and has great moments. Interestingly, there are no guitars, just bass, drums and vocals.

Sanhedolin
http://www.discogs.com/Sanhedolin-満場一致は無効/release/1024137
Only heard it once so far, but I loved it. Great (semi-)improvised rock with Tatsuya Yoshida (Ruins, Korekyojinn etc.) on drums.

[Bloated Slutbag]

Got bunch of stuff from this label and latest listening was CD.. I think Keiji Haino "Nijimu".
PSFD-7

This was the first Haino I heard, ages ago, on the radio at six in the morning! Was too asleep to catch the name of the artist, but luckily caught the broadcast on cassette - which quickly became a favorite, this wonderful recording by a mysterious nameless person(s). PSFD-7 remains among my all-time faves.

Do not confuse this with PSFD-31 and others released by Haino's choral-ambient (?) side project called Nijiumu. Completely different in every way possible. This disc is quite good if you like minimal drifting understated ambience, but imo is nowhere near the heights achieved with PSFD-7.

[enmity]

I love this forum, I always here about stuff I have never heard of even if it's been around for ages. All this stuff sounds as if it would be amazing. I must start a search for some suggested. Zeno is a library of unknown artists to me.

[Bloated Slutbag]

PSFD-68 21st Century Hurdy Gurdy Man
If you like the dronier bits on PSFD-7, this is for you. Very much in the same vein, but on hurdy gurdy! (Starting to sound like an Aube review here, heh.) Sizzling sounds sometimes simmer but often singe the auditory passages, though one passage drifts along more richly subdued ambient undertones. The clincher is the closing track, which clocks in at nearly thurdy minutes and features the famed vocal ejaculations over buzzing gurdy tones that eventually grow to psychedelic proportion - if, unfortunately, rather briefly.

EDIT Fushitsusha never did much for me. Too disco-y, heh. But since our local library so enthusiastically recommends them, I guess l'll have to give it all a shot again at some point.

[Zeno Marx]

EDIT Fushitsusha never did much for me. Too disco-y, heh. But since our local library so enthusiastically recommends them, I guess l'll have to give it all a shot again at some point.

For more than a decade, I didn't care for anything Haino did, but now, there's almost nothing I don't find something to appreciate.  He truly is an amazing artist in the highest sense of the term.  There are very few, if any, recordings I don't like.  He's varied, but most of it is high quality.  I couldn't tap into anything he was doing for the longest time.

Sanhedolin is great.  I'd start anywhere with them.

[bitewerksMTB]

Verzerk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNFzHRp1WQI
Love the solo!

High Rise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8ZoXvs4TBw&feature=related

High Rise & K.Haino:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h83pilMznZI&feature=relmfu

Any current bands around with a similiar sound? I rather like  nasty wah'd-out solos.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

"Problem" with PSF is, that even if I have probably dozen or so releases, it's hard to really remember. Japanese names, black print on black cover type of designs etc. I did appreciate some of their free jazz stuff, but not blown away. I did like some solo violin improvisations of someone.. but not perhaps enough to grab 5 or more discs of the stuff. I have several of the compilations. Several of Haino. But still I keep thinking many of these can't be the absolute best of the label.
For example the Alchemy Records + PSF Records collaboration compilation. I thought it could be amazing, but it was just.. well, I guess good? But hardly mindblowingly memorable.

[ConcreteMascara]

I love, love, love White Heaven so I'd highly recommend Out. More conventional song writing than a lot of PSF stuff. Michio Kurihara absolutely shreds on the guitar. Strange Bedfellow is good but basically impossible to find for under $400, so yeah.

The first two Tokyo Flashbacks are great too.

[practical life]

you can't really go too wrong with Haino on PSF but aside from the double live releases and a few solo guitar works his most crushing material was released on the tokuma label unfortunately.  those have always been a bit of a drag to track down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgVGriFcFn0 quite excited about this. it's an upcoming documentary on his work.

vajra was an excellent collab between kan mikami and haino was well. all of their releases were stellar but i found this one consistently enlightening and it never failed to make me giddy. http://www.discogs.com/Vajra-%E5%A3%B0%E8%81%9E-%C5%9Ar%C4%81vaka/release/1025000

[Bloated Slutbag]

Just thought I'd resurrect this thread in part to set the record straight, re-

Do not confuse [PSFD-7] with PSFD-31 and others released by Haino's choral-ambient (?) side project called Nijiumu. Completely different in every way possible. This disc is quite good if you like minimal drifting understated ambience, but imo is nowhere near the heights achieved with PSFD-7.

Wrong, wrong!

Nijiumu is, quite possibly, the best Haino project ever. The two notable releases, the only two I've heard: Era Of Sad Wings (PSFD-31), and three untitled tracks from Driftworks (4xcd on Big Cat). Acoustic ambiance. With the occasional choral element. Haunting, drifting, lilting, unsettling.

The Nijiumu project does echo certain parts of Keijo Haino's "Nijiumu" (PSFD-7) in its considered molestations of ghostly, drawn-out, textures. Which is the Haino I'm most inclined to enjoy, whatever the appellation. It's funny, really. Keiji Haino could be one of the most eclectic artists I've encountered. He is literally all over the map. Yet nine times out of ten I gravitate towards a single, particular, tendency: acoustic droning atmospherics, with or without tortured vocalization. Like I'm trapped in this weird, highly stylized, ghetto of Haino appreciation.

edit- to the above tendency I'd add any Haino with vaguely traditional, ritual-like, flavors... which could perhaps apply to any and all Haino, but I'm referring to things that sound like they were recorded in some forgotten temple, as though bells or gongs were about to starting ringing in sympathy- even if, in some cases, they would be ringing in symphathy with some dude howling over distorted guitar noise.

I probably spend about two months of any given year completely immersed in Haino but again for the most part only a very narrow strain of Haino.