Following her stunning 1979 debut ‘Anonym’, Junko Tange returned in 1981 with this insanely prescient double album, a record that would still have had us puzzled if it had debuted in 2023. If that first album edged into experimental folkways, this one leaps into a synthetic future, a sort of proto-technoid madness of K-holed percussive psychedelia and blasted electrical weirdness that manages to link together Autechre’s high minded electroid deconstructions with Throbbing Gristle’s industrial experiments.
Despite all Japan's technological and cultural advances in the 1970s and '80s, it's hard to believe this one's over 40 years old. 'Divin' was dental student Junko Tange's second Tolerance album, following 1979's surreal 'Anonym'. It once again features Masami Yoshikawa on vocals, standing out as one of the most peculiar and prophetic records of the era, pre-empting ideas that wouldn't be approached so thoroughly again until the IDM/dub techno era a good decade-and-a-half later.
'Pulse Static (Tranqillia)' steers drum machines and synths thru a chain of delays, EQs and distortion units; an impromptu hybrid of electro, early electronics and dub. Radiophonic blips ring out over sculpted low-end rumbles that don't sound a million miles from Monolake's early Chain Reaction experiments or Huerco S's more recent fusions of foggy ambience and downstream techno. If you heard Special Guest DJ's DJ Paradise cuts from the legendary "bblisss" compilation, this track equivocates an indistinguishable soundscape using grottier, more frazzled source material.
'Misa (Gig's Tapes In "C")' reaches out even further into the void as stuttering vocals faintly gush over reversed synth-drums, providing the album with a mood stabilizer before the rhythmic onslaught of 'Sound Round'. Here Junko approximates the hands-on gear-forward outsider techno that Ron Morelli's L.I.E.S. imprint would make its signature a few decades later. Yoshikawa's vocals appear thru the mud like gold in a prospecting pan, but it's Junko's heaving rhythms that make the biggest impression, weaving in-and-out of each other with the kind of ferocity that's lost as sounds are streamlined and ultimately tamed.
It's obvious why US vanguard minds like Wolf Eyes' John Olsen treasure this material so much - Junko's unrestrained creativity and subsequent disappearance is hard aesthetic evidence and an enigmatic story to boot. After these two albums, nothing was ever heard from Junko again.
Fucking genius.
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Following her stunning 1979 debut ‘Anonym’, Junko Tange returned in 1981 with this insanely prescient double album, a record that would still have had us puzzled if it had debuted in 2023. If that first album edged into experimental folkways, this one leaps into a synthetic future, a sort of proto-technoid madness of K-holed percussive psychedelia and blasted electrical weirdness that manages to link together Autechre’s high minded electroid deconstructions with Throbbing Gristle’s industrial experiments.
Despite all Japan's technological and cultural advances in the 1970s and '80s, it's hard to believe this one's over 40 years old. 'Divin' was dental student Junko Tange's second Tolerance album, following 1979's surreal 'Anonym'. It once again features Masami Yoshikawa on vocals, standing out as one of the most peculiar and prophetic records of the era, pre-empting ideas that wouldn't be approached so thoroughly again until the IDM/dub techno era a good decade-and-a-half later.
'Pulse Static (Tranqillia)' steers drum machines and synths thru a chain of delays, EQs and distortion units; an impromptu hybrid of electro, early electronics and dub. Radiophonic blips ring out over sculpted low-end rumbles that don't sound a million miles from Monolake's early Chain Reaction experiments or Huerco S's more recent fusions of foggy ambience and downstream techno. If you heard Special Guest DJ's DJ Paradise cuts from the legendary "bblisss" compilation, this track equivocates an indistinguishable soundscape using grottier, more frazzled source material.
'Misa (Gig's Tapes In "C")' reaches out even further into the void as stuttering vocals faintly gush over reversed synth-drums, providing the album with a mood stabilizer before the rhythmic onslaught of 'Sound Round'. Here Junko approximates the hands-on gear-forward outsider techno that Ron Morelli's L.I.E.S. imprint would make its signature a few decades later. Yoshikawa's vocals appear thru the mud like gold in a prospecting pan, but it's Junko's heaving rhythms that make the biggest impression, weaving in-and-out of each other with the kind of ferocity that's lost as sounds are streamlined and ultimately tamed.
It's obvious why US vanguard minds like Wolf Eyes' John Olsen treasure this material so much - Junko's unrestrained creativity and subsequent disappearance is hard aesthetic evidence and an enigmatic story to boot. After these two albums, nothing was ever heard from Junko again.
Fucking genius.
Following her stunning 1979 debut ‘Anonym’, Junko Tange returned in 1981 with this insanely prescient double album, a record that would still have had us puzzled if it had debuted in 2023. If that first album edged into experimental folkways, this one leaps into a synthetic future, a sort of proto-technoid madness of K-holed percussive psychedelia and blasted electrical weirdness that manages to link together Autechre’s high minded electroid deconstructions with Throbbing Gristle’s industrial experiments.
Despite all Japan's technological and cultural advances in the 1970s and '80s, it's hard to believe this one's over 40 years old. 'Divin' was dental student Junko Tange's second Tolerance album, following 1979's surreal 'Anonym'. It once again features Masami Yoshikawa on vocals, standing out as one of the most peculiar and prophetic records of the era, pre-empting ideas that wouldn't be approached so thoroughly again until the IDM/dub techno era a good decade-and-a-half later.
'Pulse Static (Tranqillia)' steers drum machines and synths thru a chain of delays, EQs and distortion units; an impromptu hybrid of electro, early electronics and dub. Radiophonic blips ring out over sculpted low-end rumbles that don't sound a million miles from Monolake's early Chain Reaction experiments or Huerco S's more recent fusions of foggy ambience and downstream techno. If you heard Special Guest DJ's DJ Paradise cuts from the legendary "bblisss" compilation, this track equivocates an indistinguishable soundscape using grottier, more frazzled source material.
'Misa (Gig's Tapes In "C")' reaches out even further into the void as stuttering vocals faintly gush over reversed synth-drums, providing the album with a mood stabilizer before the rhythmic onslaught of 'Sound Round'. Here Junko approximates the hands-on gear-forward outsider techno that Ron Morelli's L.I.E.S. imprint would make its signature a few decades later. Yoshikawa's vocals appear thru the mud like gold in a prospecting pan, but it's Junko's heaving rhythms that make the biggest impression, weaving in-and-out of each other with the kind of ferocity that's lost as sounds are streamlined and ultimately tamed.
It's obvious why US vanguard minds like Wolf Eyes' John Olsen treasure this material so much - Junko's unrestrained creativity and subsequent disappearance is hard aesthetic evidence and an enigmatic story to boot. After these two albums, nothing was ever heard from Junko again.
Fucking genius.
Following her stunning 1979 debut ‘Anonym’, Junko Tange returned in 1981 with this insanely prescient double album, a record that would still have had us puzzled if it had debuted in 2023. If that first album edged into experimental folkways, this one leaps into a synthetic future, a sort of proto-technoid madness of K-holed percussive psychedelia and blasted electrical weirdness that manages to link together Autechre’s high minded electroid deconstructions with Throbbing Gristle’s industrial experiments.
Despite all Japan's technological and cultural advances in the 1970s and '80s, it's hard to believe this one's over 40 years old. 'Divin' was dental student Junko Tange's second Tolerance album, following 1979's surreal 'Anonym'. It once again features Masami Yoshikawa on vocals, standing out as one of the most peculiar and prophetic records of the era, pre-empting ideas that wouldn't be approached so thoroughly again until the IDM/dub techno era a good decade-and-a-half later.
'Pulse Static (Tranqillia)' steers drum machines and synths thru a chain of delays, EQs and distortion units; an impromptu hybrid of electro, early electronics and dub. Radiophonic blips ring out over sculpted low-end rumbles that don't sound a million miles from Monolake's early Chain Reaction experiments or Huerco S's more recent fusions of foggy ambience and downstream techno. If you heard Special Guest DJ's DJ Paradise cuts from the legendary "bblisss" compilation, this track equivocates an indistinguishable soundscape using grottier, more frazzled source material.
'Misa (Gig's Tapes In "C")' reaches out even further into the void as stuttering vocals faintly gush over reversed synth-drums, providing the album with a mood stabilizer before the rhythmic onslaught of 'Sound Round'. Here Junko approximates the hands-on gear-forward outsider techno that Ron Morelli's L.I.E.S. imprint would make its signature a few decades later. Yoshikawa's vocals appear thru the mud like gold in a prospecting pan, but it's Junko's heaving rhythms that make the biggest impression, weaving in-and-out of each other with the kind of ferocity that's lost as sounds are streamlined and ultimately tamed.
It's obvious why US vanguard minds like Wolf Eyes' John Olsen treasure this material so much - Junko's unrestrained creativity and subsequent disappearance is hard aesthetic evidence and an enigmatic story to boot. After these two albums, nothing was ever heard from Junko again.
Fucking genius.
Back in stock. Audiophile pressing, deluxe double LP packaged in a gatefold Stoughton tip-on jacket. Remastered from new transfers of the original analog tapes by Stephan Mathieu.
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Following her stunning 1979 debut ‘Anonym’, Junko Tange returned in 1981 with this insanely prescient double album, a record that would still have had us puzzled if it had debuted in 2023. If that first album edged into experimental folkways, this one leaps into a synthetic future, a sort of proto-technoid madness of K-holed percussive psychedelia and blasted electrical weirdness that manages to link together Autechre’s high minded electroid deconstructions with Throbbing Gristle’s industrial experiments.
Despite all Japan's technological and cultural advances in the 1970s and '80s, it's hard to believe this one's over 40 years old. 'Divin' was dental student Junko Tange's second Tolerance album, following 1979's surreal 'Anonym'. It once again features Masami Yoshikawa on vocals, standing out as one of the most peculiar and prophetic records of the era, pre-empting ideas that wouldn't be approached so thoroughly again until the IDM/dub techno era a good decade-and-a-half later.
'Pulse Static (Tranqillia)' steers drum machines and synths thru a chain of delays, EQs and distortion units; an impromptu hybrid of electro, early electronics and dub. Radiophonic blips ring out over sculpted low-end rumbles that don't sound a million miles from Monolake's early Chain Reaction experiments or Huerco S's more recent fusions of foggy ambience and downstream techno. If you heard Special Guest DJ's DJ Paradise cuts from the legendary "bblisss" compilation, this track equivocates an indistinguishable soundscape using grottier, more frazzled source material.
'Misa (Gig's Tapes In "C")' reaches out even further into the void as stuttering vocals faintly gush over reversed synth-drums, providing the album with a mood stabilizer before the rhythmic onslaught of 'Sound Round'. Here Junko approximates the hands-on gear-forward outsider techno that Ron Morelli's L.I.E.S. imprint would make its signature a few decades later. Yoshikawa's vocals appear thru the mud like gold in a prospecting pan, but it's Junko's heaving rhythms that make the biggest impression, weaving in-and-out of each other with the kind of ferocity that's lost as sounds are streamlined and ultimately tamed.
It's obvious why US vanguard minds like Wolf Eyes' John Olsen treasure this material so much - Junko's unrestrained creativity and subsequent disappearance is hard aesthetic evidence and an enigmatic story to boot. After these two albums, nothing was ever heard from Junko again.
Fucking genius.