Until they finally get some recordings out there, this passed-among-friends live bootleg remains the closest those of us in the Western hemisphere are going to get to one of Tokyo’s, and dare I say it (hey why not) the world’s, most exciting rock n’ roll bands, the incomparable D/i/s/c/o /s.

A totally wrecked, dictaphone-in-pocket document of an unspecified live set, cranked up and compressed to the nth degree, this CD-R presents a gloriously indecipherable racket. Nailing their colours to the mast via covers of The Oblivians ‘N*gger Rich’ and ‘The Gories ‘Thunderbird ESQ’, the D/i/s/c/o/s duo make the garage-punk gospel sound more vital and violent than it has for years (on record, at least), recalling the glory days of The Mummies, Coachwhips and Teengenerate, and making me pause to reflect on what’s gone wrong with the world to render such a racket the sound of some vaguely defined yesteryear, rather than the sound of NOW, then, and every other time in between. Full-spectrum distorted blare and snarled/shrieked amp vocals render songs largely irrelevant, but instead give us a motherlode of Kato-san’s exhilarating John Lee Hooker-via-Lightning Bolt guitar moves and Akatsuki-san’s thoroughly complimentary take on the traps, balancing swing and bombast with rare aplomb.

Basically, this is just a totally unhinged pile of good ol’ headache juice that’ll have the majority of today’s nervous citizens hitting the ‘off’ button in seconds, but will make the true believers light up like a pinball machine. ROCK A ROLL!!!!, as D/i/s/c/o /s’ esteemed countrymen taught us to say back in the day.

This music is not currently available anywhere. Sorry about that – proper recordings due out in some form next year, I'm told.

Labels: best of 2014, D/i/s/c/o/s