The wonderful sonic madness of Les Rallizes Dénudés: “Heavier than a Death in the Family”
Les Rallizes Dénudés (lesrallizesdenudes-official.com)
“Has a one-way trip into the Heart of Darkness ever been made on a more handsome jalopy?” Julian Cope, “JaprockSampler”
Thus begins the review of “Heavier than a Death in the Family” by Les Rallizes Dénudés, by the spichedelic druid Julian Cope in his fundamental book “JaprockSampler”, an indispensable bible for anyone who wants to venture into the hidden areas of Japanese rock. But how did it take me more than fifty years to listen to this sonic storm? I can only imagine Thurstone Moore's astonished face when he heard it for the first time, someone had preceded Sonic Youth by dozens of years. Some people just have the misfortune of being born in the wrong place and at the wrong time. If Mizutami had been born in New York and started his turbulent musical career there, the history of music would have taken a different, crazier direction, the Stooges and Mc5 would have found another tough competitor and Sonic Youth would have found themselves out of work in the 80s .
But the fate of Mizutani Takashi (1948 -2019), their founder and singer/guitarist pervaded both by the Velvet Underground and by freak-Californian psychedelia, was very different. Student of sociology and French literature at the prestigious Doshishi University of Kyoto, he fell madly in love with the culture of the Old Continent, in particular France, learning from the essays of Jean-Paul Sartre, Antonin Artaud and Jacques Derrida, and taking on the bohemian style of a French existentialist.
The band was initially active between 1967 and 1988, and then again briefly between 1993 and 1996 before finally breaking up. Very little is known about them and even the true meaning of the name Les Rallizes Dénudés is the subject of debate. According to former member Moriaki Wakabayashi, the word Rallizes comes from the Japanese word Rari, meaning to be tall, and the word Dénudés (the French word for naked) which represents their being so rough.
Rough, to say the least, due to their pathological and paranoid refusal to record in the studio, the musical cult of Les Rallizes Dénudés is mainly based on a series of bootleg prints characterized by a strictly low-fi sound quality, on a look (clothes black, sunglasses, long black hair) who has not seen any changes over time and a legendary fame. How many rock groups can boast an airplane hijacker among their members? It may seem incredible but, on March 31, 1970, bassist Moriaki Wakabayashi took part in the hijacking of Japan Airlines Flight 351, together with other members of the "Red Army Faction" of the Communist League, requesting political asylum in North Korea. Needless to say, the other members of the band found themselves hunted by the police and removed from any form of artistic visibility.
Maybe, it was a lucky break, decreeing the birth of a cult dedicated to one of the most hermetic bands ever. “Heavier than a Death in the Family” captures their style very well. A style characterized by simple and repetitive riffs, screaming and cacophonous guitar feedback and arrangements that are not at all complicated. This album is a perfect ante litteram sample of heavy, stunning music. In a review on AllMusic, Phil Freeman wrote that “It's genuinely disorienting, something a lot of noise rock strives for but never quite achieves. And yet, it retains a primal rock & roll throb, particularly "Night of the Assassins," which features a bassline straight out of 1950s doo wop.”
Personally I like to define it as a combination of sonic power and sincere emotion, performed by people who appreciated the structure and density of sound, rather than conventional technical skills. In “Heavier than a Death in the Family” the distortion of the electric guitars, this auditory smear, this happy side effect, reaches profound vertigo, accompanied by a bass with dark and maniacally repetitive timbres. This album has something of "poor art" in it and a certain frankness: produced with poor means, recorded live during a performance at the Shakai Kyoiku Kaikan on March 12, 1977, with the exception of "People Can Choose", taken from a performance from 1973, “Heavier than a Death in the Family” owes its charm to its confusion and imperfections. Catharsis, vent, meditation, freedom, this album searches for that something intangible and mystical, which hides in pure primordial energy. Launched at full volume in your room, it can easily terrify your neighbors and relatives. I leave the last word to the druid Julian Cope: “It's relentless to the point of becoming meditative. and cylindrical to the point of being useful ... I wanna be that bass player and stand in that wind tunnel, anchoring that level of rage.”