Karuna Khyal - Alomony 1985 LP (Japan 1976) Side One

KARUNA KHYAL - Alomoni 1985 (PD 08)

• Side A (24.32)
• Side B (22.30)

Alomoni 1985 was originally released on
Voice Records, VO-1002

Reissued 1998

Brast Burn was a legendarily obscure Japanese ensemble that existed in the first half (I presume) of the 1970s. For many years, they were known only as an entry in the notorious Nurse With Wound list, with no way for anyone to check them out. Thus this CD. First off, I'll say that it sounds really good. One would never guess that it was a transfer from vinyl. Brast Burn has been cited/promoted at various times as the "Japanese Faust". I feel that this is incorrect. A better analogy would be to the ritual/hypnotic Suzuki-era Can: to Soundtracks and the Ethnological Forgery Series. But the analogy is imperfect because Debon ranges over fairly eclectic territory, taking in slide blues, parodies of 1969-71 Pink Floyd, and some truly blasted overdrive guitar (here the Faust reference makes a little sense). Side A is where they indulge their jokier aspects - including an irritatingly persistent way with the percussion (precursor to electronica/sampledelica?) and that "ironic" slide guitar. Side B is a minor masterpiece, travelling from tribal forgery to a lovely Near Eastern ballad thing to the fuzz extravaganzas that eventually close out the album (abruptly). Individual indexing of "songs" within the two (22-minute plus) "sides" would have been helpful. Karuna Khyal's Alomoni 1985 was also on Voice Records, labelmates to Brast Burn (they were VO-1002 to the latter's 1001), Khyal were actually more Faust-like. It has been suggested that the two were in fact the same band - my feeling is that there was some personnel overlap at the very least. The album starts out (like Brast's) in a bluesy jones - but the second piece owes its soul to 'Mamie Is Blue' from So Far, with touches of Magic Band musette and primitive rhythm machine thrown in. Third piece brings in the wankering overloads of Faust's debut and from there it does not let up. Blues guitar filters in periodically the tribalisms pick up - but so do washes of wah-wah/fuzzed guitar. By any measure, this is fairly twisted stuff - and it keeps on going! In a way, this is even stranger than Faust because it's hard to fathom what the rationale for this music is. With Faust we pretty much "get" what they were going on about - but this is almost anti-natural. But, as with Brast Burn, the album gets better as it goes along. Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band turns out to be a third major referent. The second side develops into a swirling maelstrom of So Far, Trout Mask Replica and Ono's POB (as orchestrated by Brainticket?). Just so you know what you're getting into. Between this and the Brast, this is the "better" artifact - in fact, it could be considered one of the most notable avant-rock albums of all time, if only for the unusual and focussed handling of its influences. (Brian Doherty)