You Ishihara is primarily known as the vocalist-guitarist in cornerstone Japanese underground psychedelic rock band White Heaven, but in 1997, his striking solo album Passivité was released, only on compact disc, to almost no fanfare. Alternating delicious late night vibes with terrifically bent blasts of rock, the album isn’t easily comparable to anything else that was happening at the time, or developments since, for that matter. Unsurprisingly, positive feelings toward the record have grown and with a first-time-on-vinyl reissue scheduled for February 7 via Black Editions, the music is sure to become even more esteemed.
White Heaven formed in the mid-’80s, but it took roughly a decade for the band’s rep to spread through the international underground, in tandem with fellow purveyors of Japanese psych rock like High Rise, Mainliner, Fushitsusha, Acid Mothers Temple, and Ghost, all bands from the roster of P.S.F., a label formed by Hideo Ikeezumi with connections to a record store and a fanzine.
Passivité was not released by P.S.F. but instead Creativeman Disc, a label that from inside a short timeframe emitted an impressive gush of Japanese noise and related u-ground sounds (C.C.C.C., Ground Zero, Otomo Yoshihide, Taku Sugimoto, Phew). And Passivité benefitted from a stunning aggregation of players including White Heaven bandmate Michio Kurihara on guitar for five of the album’s seven tracks, Chiyo Kamekawa of Fushitsusha on bass for four tracks, and Koji Shimura of Acid Mothers Temple on drums for three tracks.
For Passivité’s closer “For You,” a short cloud of hazy pulsing drift recorded in 1980, 16 years before the rest of the album, Yojiro Nagano played synthesizer and You’s brother and eventual White Heaven bandmate Ken Ishihara played drums, with You contributing organ and vocals to the track. It contrasts pretty sharply with what precedes it but still works as a sort of flashback snapshot that’s in keeping with Passivité’s general spirit of eclecticism.
Opener “K” is a beautiful slow crawl late ’60s folkie singer-songwriterism bathed in drugged-up ballroom moves from the same era. At first, it hits the ear like it could’ve been discovered in the reel-to-reel library of some off the beaten path California studio of yore, but upon reflection, the overall aura is just too gorgeously fucked. The same is true with “Nightwalker,” the record’s lengthiest track at over 14 minutes, a heightened descent into psychedelia that’s dropped into the middle of the sequence on side two.
“Nachbild” is Ishihara going it alone, his singing enveloped in resonating stab-strums of electric guitar. It’s followed by “Immortal Nothing Blues,” where the increasingly stressed out vocals are given an utter acid bath courtesy of Kurihara. Wrapping up side one, “Crevice” is an unabashed riff rocker, while “Wednesday,” the opener on the flip, is a comparatively calm bit of psych-tinged folk-rock.
If “K” and “Nightwalker” unfurl as the clear standouts on Passivité, the entirety of the record is a fascinating plunge into what’s possible when an inspired mind breaks free of the shackles of genre expectations to create something truly sui generis.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
