Les Rallizes Dénudés, YaneUra Oct. ’80 (Temporal Drift)
Over the past few months I’ve been listening to Les Rallizes Dénudés more than just about any other group, thanks largely to the sterling work of the Temporal Drift label. This imprint has collaborated with surviving Rallizes members and associates to release selected recordings from the Rallizes archive, most of them live albums. If there was ever a group whose live performances eclipsed its studio-based work, it was Rallizes. The story goes that lead guitarist and vocalist Takashi Mizutani, the group’s only constant member, was so dissatisfied with their early studio recordings (now reissued on the ‘67-’69 Studio et Live album) that he resolved never to enter a studio again. What we’re left with instead is a series of blisteringly powerful live albums that provide ample evidence of Rallizes’ absolute mastery of the noise rock idiom.
The Rallizes story is by now fairly well documented, so I don’t propose to go over it here in detail. For me, the key message is that Rallizes still sound vital and extraordinary now, 47 years after their seminal ’77 Live album was recorded. Taking their cue from the Velvet Underground’s menacing protopunk odysseys, Rallizes took the Velvets’ sound in ever more extreme directions, with Mizutani’s psychotic guitar crashing and splintering against ominous bass and drums. Rallizes concerts would normally end with “The Last One”, an epic workout lasting anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes and driven by a nuclear-powered guitar riff overwhelming in its intensity.
Yet there was a beauty to Rallizes too, a strange tranquillity that bled from the rippling bass and calm, unhurried rhythms of the group’s quieter moments. From within the eye of the storm, Mizutani’s oddly cool, affectless voice sang texts mired in French Symbolist imagery: blood, flowers, shadows, ice. (Mizutani is thought to have lived in Paris during a five-year period from 1988 to 1993 when Rallizes were on hiatus.) The lyrics were sung in Japanese; a book of translations into English and French was published last year.
’77 Live was the only Rallizes live album released in Mizutani’s lifetime. (He died in 2019, although his death would not be made public until 2021.) It’s an essential historical document, but the recording suffers from bad peak level distortion throughout. Not that one turns to Rallizes for a pristine audiophile experience, but the inadequacies of the recording mar the listener’s enjoyment to a great extent, even in the remastered version issued in 2022. It’s not a criticism that could be levelled against the next two albums released on Temporal Drift, Citta ’93 and Baus ’93, on both of which the sound quality is excellent.
For a group whose activities were supposedly shrouded in mystery, there’s quite a lot of Rallizes music out there. Until Temporal Drift began their official release programme, this pretty much all came in the form of live bootlegs, some of them great, some abysmal. There’s not much to choose between the bootleg and official releases of ’77 Live in terms of sound quality, but as far as Citta ’93 and Baus ’93 are concerned the difference is staggering, since the official releases were mixed from the original multitrack tapes by Rallizes member Makoto Kubota.
And now there’s YaneUra Oct. ’80, another concert from the vaults and one from a fascinating moment in the Rallizes story. Like Citta ’93 and Baus ’93, this one was mixed from the original tapes by Kubota, and like them it represents a huge step up in sound quality from the bootlegs. What really makes this release special, however, is the presence in the line-up of second guitarist Fujio Yamaguchi, whose bluesy, trippy axework lends a vivid extra dimension to the group’s sound. Rallizes had had a second guitarist before in Takeshi Nakamura, whose tight rhythmic playing had been the perfect foil for the feedback-heavy shapes thrown by Mizutani on ’77 Live. Three years later, Yamaguchi became a fleeting presence in the Rallizes story, joining the group for a mere seven dates. YaneUra Oct. ’80 documents one of those seven, and it’s a revelation.
Opener “Deeper Than The Night” unfolds over twelve incandescent minutes, its warped progressive rock vibe taking the group into previously uncharted territory. Yamaguchi channels Animals-era Gilmour to compelling effect, and indeed the whole song has something of Pink Floyd’s glacial pace and grandeur – until, that is, Mizutani engulfs the last few minutes of the song in scorching flames of distortion. “I’m The Darkness” is more of a slow burn, with an insistent four-note motif providing the foundation for some thrilling interplay between the two guitarists.
Elsewhere, there’s a stunning version of “The Night, Assassin’s Night”, its Velvets-y groove dominated by Yamaguchi’s audacious riffing. This part of the concert must have been enormous fun; I like to think of the usually taciturn Mizutani smiling as his vocals ricocheted around the song’s addictive rhythmic throb. And the record ends, of course, with “The Last One”, its hulking guitar figure transformed into a monster of Cthulhu-like proportions. Yamaguchi’s white-hot soloing throws down the gauntlet to Mizutani, who responds with wave after wave of angry, eviscerating noise. Temporal Drift deserve massive credit for this inspiring release, and for their impeccable handling of the Rallizes legacy so far. I can’t wait to see what other delights may emerge from the Rallizes vaults in the future.