Jokers

2003 release (RARE - no OBI) ** "Hiroshi Nar: (vocals, guitar, organ, chorus); Yohkai Takahashi: (bass, chorus); Toshi Ishizuka: (drums, percussion, chorus). "Accelerated senility, inspired lunacy, and grotesque rock-pranks from a trio of Japanese underground veterans who should really know 'better'. If meaningful Pete Frame musical histories are what you're after, then this trio has it in spades. Ritalin-huffing vocalist and smeary-fingered guitarist Hiroshi Na was a member of both acid-goth mystery group Les Rallizes Denudes and seminal anarcho-folk-punkers Zuno Keisatsu during their heaviest periods in the seventies. Hairy, speaker-shaking bassist Yokai Takahashi was in a bunch of no-wave carcrash groups like Bunretsu before serving a lengthy stint in Rallizes during the eighties and nineties. More recently he's been a central plank in Gyaatees, which throws mentally-challenged priests together with hoary rock improvisers to chaotic ends. Wildman drummer Toshi Ishizuka was a founder member of Zuno Keisatsu and Vajra, a constant presence behind folk legends Kazuki Tomokawa and Kan Mikami, as well as leading his own group Cinorama. But instead of a full-frontal assault, the Jokers have decided to tunnel under the gates of perception with an arsenal of rhythmic pratfalls, riffing slapstick and spluttering vocal raspberries. Theirs is an indescribably freaky but endearingly unaffected universe, where village idiot vocalizations happily rub up against stop-start rhythmic Morse code and some very wild and fuzzy guitar soloing. Against all the odds, this convinces, entertains and thrills. Adult rock from a group who never grew up." "