As a traveler-without-age, Damo Suzuki has been touring all over space-time. Presenting the light of “instant composing” to new generations, he refers to his makeshift collaborators as sound-carriers. Exactly fifty years after the release of the profoundly iconic Ege Bamyası, we can hear his voice on yet another fantastic album, as in “derived from fantasy.” Manifested from the meeting with Spiritczualic Enhancement Center — an eight-piece group of self-proclaimed disciples from the CAN University have gathered at Arkaoda (Turkish for “backroom”).
Vinyl / CD / Digital – Release: 29.04.2022 Preorder via Bandcamp
Vocals: Damo Suzuki Drums: Nicolas Sheikholeslami Percussion: Faani Bass: Etkin Çekin Guitar: Æladin Keys & Vocals: Omri S. Shmulewitz Synthesizer: Carl-J. Hoffmann Synthesizer: Alexander P. Jovanović
Tracks:
A1 : U (20:05)
B1 : RA (6:02)
B2. : BEJA (14:21)
Recorded at Arkaoda, Berlin on 27.02.2020
Production: Nicolas Sheikholeslami Mastering: Mark Gergis Art & Design: Axis Mundi (Dima Rabik & Ventral Is Golden)
Video by Omri S. Shmulewitz Visuals: Ventral is Golden | Daniel Shavit Videographers: Marta Vuković | Jivan Frenster Mandalas: Tomomi Senda Portrait by Alex Solman
Mail Order : https://akuphone.bandcamp.com/album/arkaoda
Back in the spring of 2007, Numinous Eye – Mason Jones & Mike Shoun – had a short tour of Japan planned. All the shows were booked and plane tickets purchased. Then they discovered that Damo Suzuki, vocalist from the infamous band Can, was visiting Japan around the same time, and he was free to play on March 8 the date they would be arriving in Japan! It was providence, so it was arranged for them to play together, and Damo invited percussionist Steve Eto as well.
Playing an improvised show, with no planning ahead of time, after a transcontinental flight, was probably not wise, but it was psychedelic. And it was great. After a sparse opening piece, Mike and Steve were locked in on drums and percussion, Damo was flowing, and Mason found ways to wind the guitar into it all.
This album is an edited sampling from the show, including the opening piece, the ending piece, and a portion from the middle. It covers the calm, the heavy, and the experimental aspects. Damo provided the appropriately wild album and song titles.
The players: Damo Suzuki (vocals), Steve Eto (percussion), Mason Jones (guitar), Mike Shoun (drums). Damo, of course, is known for his time with Can, as well as the ongoing Damo’s Network series of improvised live shows around the world. Steve Eto has played with bands such as Demi Semi Quaver, Pugs, Pink, and more. Mason Jones was a guitarist in SubArachnoid Space, now leads Numinous Eye, plays with Collision Stories, and performs solo and in collaboration with numerous others. Mike Shoun has played drums with Thee Oh Sees, Numinous Eye, and others, and currently plays with Peacers.
Side A: Orange Moon Alphabet Hotel (07:00) Camereon Days (08:40) Side B: Fasten My Soul on a Rain Drop (13:49)
LP on black vinyl, limited to 300 copies, with Bandcamp download card included. Charnel Music, Catalog No. CMLP-1
Mail Order : masonjones@charnel.com
Charnel Music : P.O. Box 12308, San Francisco, CA 94112 www.charnel.com
Recorded: Live at Tape 19 August 2017 Århus, Denmark
Recording Engineer – Oliver Tønnes
Mastered – Doug Henderson
Artwork – Mads Westrup
Label: Not Applicable
Release Date: 04 December 2020
A very special documentation of European musical energy arrives courtesy of this collaboration between artists Damo Suzuki (ex. CAN, Damo Suzuki Network). Badun (Danish jazz-electronica), and Snöleoparden (Danish experimental and world music).
For many years all three artists have been part of the same European music circuits, performing alongside each other on several occasions in different constellations. The result of a shared appreciation and desire to make music together, this album is the crystallisation of their combined musical understanding and vision.
Recorded LIVE in front of an audience at the legendary venue in Mejlgade 53 in Aarhus, the eponymous title of the album celebrates a venue that for two decades has been one of the strongholds in Northern Europe for experimental music.
Damo Suzuki
“To create time and space of the moment” is one of his creative motion. In this way, he made more than 1,000 shows – one and only performances around 45 countries with more than 7,000 local sound carriers (musicians) since 2003, after US attack on Iraq He is curious about oyster to Mesopotamia, try to 48billion brain cell to build up his Football Stadium. He is a ‘68er fake hippy but happy. Believing in Natural (God made) System and not trust in human made system (Artificial). Keeping healthy stomach and brain, switch off all those MSM and Silicon Valley snob media that bring only ugly energy. He is a waterproofed Japanese with bone and skin, but not with a camera. He joined Oliver and Jonas few performances.
Oliver Duckert
Generation ’79, grew his musical wings around Århus, Denmark, recording and producing electronica and playing jazz for more than 20 years. Founder of the chameleonic group Badun in 2002 and a long time organiser involved in the electronic avant-garde movement in Denmark, he has helped curate influential festivals and events in and around the city of Århus, introducing experimental music in all in many different guises throughout the region.
Jonas Stampe
Danish experimental musician with a unique life-path. As an 18 year old he became a student under the late Indian maestro Ravi Shankar and a year later became part of Shankar’s live group. Creating the musical alias Snöleoparden in 2004, Jonas embarked on a musical journey that taken him to Greenland, Indonesia and Pakistan, where he has collaborated and toured extensively – from royal cremations to Black Magic ceremonies in Indonesia, and stadium concerts to secret Sufi festivals in Pakistan. Jonas released his debut album as Snöleoparden in 2008.
Damo Suzuki with Mugstar: Steve Ashton (Drums), Marc Glaysher (Bass), Joe Hirons (Guitar, Keyboards), Luke Mawdsley (Guitar) and Neil Murphy (Guitar)
Recorded April 28 2018
Recorded live at The Invisible Wind Factory, Liverpool 2018.
Ltd to 500 copies.
300 on random eco vinyl (picture is not representative & the colours truly are random) and 200 on grape with black splatter, these are only available from us.
All copies come with an insert, the first 50 of which are hand numbered.
This item is a pre-order & we expect to start shipping around the 31st July.
Back in those distant days of live music in packed, sweaty rooms I remember attending this concert with fellow Terrascope scribe, the illustrious Ian Fraser who if I remember rightly enjoyed or perhaps more accurately endured a lengthy and unexpectedly confusing taxi ride across Liverpool that nearly made him late for it (I’m sure his autobiography will explain more about this adventure at some point).
Part of the 2018 Wrong Festival at Liverpool’s Invisible Wind Factory (any schoolboy humour will be punished, or at least punned) and other nearby venues, this set was one of the absolute highlights of a fine day of psychedelic rock.
Mugstar and Damo are no strangers to each other having shared a stage and recordings before this gig and their mutual pleasure in working with each other is clear to see and hear. It’s a pretty impressive marriage between Mugstar, one of the most interesting bands working today in the field of inventive and exploratory psych and space rock and one of the most iconic vocalists in the history of Krautrock who still crams in an eclectic and busy worldwide schedule of collaboration and free improvisation projects.
Weird Beard have generously provided us with the chance to relive the full forty or so minutes of a dynamic and memorable set, a wide ranging improvisation taking in many diverse twists and turns on its path. Underpinned by a solid yet varied rhythmic platform, Mugstar create a musical canvas where light and shade is created through guitars that shimmer and soar, compelling and memorable riffs that propel where needed and feed melodic ideas providing texture, colour and contrast.
There are generous servings of driving motorik, touches of desolate spaghetti western landscapes, flashbacks to echoing and tense early eighties psychedelia tinged new wave and Stooge-like energetic and exhilarating solos and riff fuelled sprints which come and go through the set keeping it varied, unpredictable and most importantly exciting.
Using this canvas, Damo Suzuki treats us to his full array of vocal talents, sometimes leading the music to new places and sometimes responding to the challenge set by Mugstar. At times harking back to the wailing improvisatory style of his Can days, sometimes growling like Tom Waits and then crooning like Scott Walker (or even Ian McCullough) at his most desolate and experimental, Damo’s chameleon like and indeed unique approach to singing is demonstrated at its very best here.
You can see some good videos of this set on YouTube but there is something to be said for letting the audio pleasures on offer speak for themselves. I really enjoyed the set as a punter but this well recorded vinyl time capsule is already offering up some new delights unheard in the general hubbub of the crowd on the night and is pretty much essential listening for any fans of Mugstar, Damo or indeed of high quality and inventive improvised or psychedelic rock.
Strongly recommended for your audio pleasure. (Francis Comyn)
The entire unedited improvised set from Damo Suzuki and Canterbury unsigned act Lapis Lazuli. This double-disc album signifies the 6th release by the Canterbury band, and represents one of the kaleidoscope shows Damo played as part of his 2019 tour.
The second disc to the album is titled using an anagram of ‘damo suzuki lapis lazuli’; ‘Louis Padilla’s Muzak Uzi’, – a collection of jams recorded and mixed leading up to the live concert. This disc does not include Damo at all, as the band’s one and only encounter with him was at the show!
The album was mixed live and recorded by Ramsgate Music Hall’s in-house engineer Al Harle, and mixed / mastered by Lapis’ Neil Sullivan.
At the 2018 edition of Roadburn Festival – a congregation of all things obscure, heavy and experimental in Tilburg, the Netherlands – two generations of Japanese Krautrock genius took to the stage for a live collaboration that was just as hypnotic as it was inevitable. Those artists were Tokyo’s Minami Deutsch and the legendary ex-Can frontman Damo Suzuki. Thankfully we were able to get hold of the live recording straight from the mixing desk and will be pressing this sublime meeting-of-minds to vinyl.
Officially released on March 1st, to announce the Live At Roadburn EP we’re super excited to share ‘Part III’, the final of the release three parts. Clocking in at seven minutes, Minami Deutsch’s propulsive rhythm section and chugging guitars drive the track with a relentless gusto whilst Suzuki unleashes his demented drawl atop. Never letting loose for a second, the track builds and builds before erupting into a whirlwind of hypnotic chanting vocals and screeching guitar noise. It was only a matter of time until these guys collaborated and it just as mesmerising and powerful as you’d imagine. (From Fuzzclub.cm)
Minami Deutsch and Damo Suzuki – Live at Roadburn Festival Damo Suzuki – Vocals Kyotaro Miula – Guitar Taku Idemoto – Guitar Keita Ise – Bass Tatsuhiko Sugi – Drums
Recorded by Marcel van de Vondervoort and his team at Roadburn Festival 2018 Mixed by Kyotaro Miula Mastered by Kyotaro Miula and James Plotkin Artwork by Olya Dyer
Rough
Trade release a limited cassette, recorded live at the Windmill
Brixton.
Back
Midi is one of most talented young band that surprised me for their
music taste. They’re 18 years old of age, but their sense of music
is if they’re already 28 years onward.
Black
Midi and I are a half-century different age, what a fun to perform
with so young energy!
Recorded
live on May 5 2018 (ha, ha..World Children’s Day!)
Damo Suzuki, former lead vocalist for the massively influential krautrock band Can, has famously retired from studio recording. However, he continues to perform live concerts made up solely of compositions improvised entirely on the spot. These bold and fearless performances have enthralled audiences around the globe and brought new found attention to Suzuki’s incredible talent. Purple Pyramid Records is proud to present a new chapter in Suzuki’s ongoing musical explorations, a stunning collaboration with a German quartet of Can neophytes, going by the very Can-esque name of Jelly Planet. After performing live with Damo, the band was able to coax the singer into their studio for a fully improvised full length recording. Unlike previous Suzuki recordings, the studio setting gave the performers full control over every aspect of the recording ensuring that every nuance, inflection, and dynamic could be heard. The result is an album of incredible sonic quality and an authentically mind-blowing exploration into the outer edges of space rock! The self-titled album, Damo Suzuki & Jelly Planet, will be available on CD, vinyl (as a double LP set) and in digital formats starting February 2.
Damo Suzuki & Jelly Planet – Damo Suzuki & Jelly Planet (CD, Purple Pyramid, Improvisation/progressive)
Although he has been involved with numerous projects over the course of his lengthy career, Damo Suzuki (whose real name is Kenji Suzuki) remains primarily known as the lead singer for the German experimental band Can from 1970 to 1973. The band’s impact has grown considerably over the years which is interesting because when Can was in existence they were relatively obscure in the big scheme of things. Damo has retired from the world of studio recording, but he continues to play live concerts. As such, this is an important release because–after playing live with Suzuki–the guys in the band Jelly Planet were able to entice him into a studio to record these two lengthy tracks. These completely spontaneous recordings are interesting and intriguing on a variety of levels. Suzuki’s vocal work is miraculous in many ways. Unlike some who sound like they’re making stuff up on the spot, his unintelligible improvised vocal work sounds very much like it was created in advance and rehearsed (?!!). The man has an incredible knack for making the abstract seem very concrete and real. Jelly Planet provides the perfect foundation for Damo’s vocal stylings. The band is comprised of Felix A. Gutierrez on bass, Stephan Hendricks on keyboards, Jens Kuchenthal on drums, and Alexander Schonert on guitar. Recorded by Guido Lucas at Blubox Studio in Germany in 2005, these tracks are bound to please Can fans and just about anyone who loves cool and credible improvisational music. A wild ride from start to finish.
For the 10 years between 2002 and 2012, cosmic nomad Damo Suzuki made annual trips to Australia, zigzagging across the country to perform improvised set with constant rotation of unacquainted sound carriers. While most of these limitless jams only existed in a passing flash, one special document exists – The Swiftsure Session.
Recorded deep in the Melbourne suburbs at Corduroy Records in 2004, these 48 minutes of free energy were cut direct to vinyl in real time. No overdubs or editing. Nothing but live tension. Duelling guitarists Emil Sarlija and Oren Ambarchi (later of hysterical prog group Superstupid) wandered blindly to a rhythm section anchored by Angie March’s Davey Williams and Edmond Ammendola, while Damo exercised his voice as an instrument, often indecipherable, inviting listener to create their own stories. In this room, every sound carrier is equal, opting out of any cues or direction. The only direction is UP!
Damo’s spirit comes with one consideration – audience members must be present as playing to cold studio machines restricts the communication. To bridge a feedback loop, 20-30 friends and fans banded around shared space.
Engineer Harry Williamson, who has his own psychedelic history as a member of Nik Turner’s Spynx and Mother Gong, manned the controls, ready to flip the acetate.
Rushed to press to beat the plant’s imminent closure, the original short run of the Swiftsure Session stretched 2LPs with a clank side. Here it is boiled down to a single disc, maximising the listening experience.
A Side.
Part 1 23:58
B Side
Part 2 23:55
Sound Carriers :
Oren Ambarchi (Guitar)
Edmondo Ammendola (Bass)
Emil Sarlija (Guitar)
Damo Suzuki (Vocals)
Davey Williams (Drums)