| Rosa Luxemburg II |
| Last
we left Rosa Luxemburg, they had a bewilderingly creative snot funk
masterpiece in their debut, Puri Puri (a mimetic sound which is the
sound of being grumpy.) It was Day-Glo but strangely sinister, invoking
everything from The Pop Group to Talking Heads. It was reportedly
culled from an enormous pool of songs the band had built up over its
years as a manic and sweaty live act, which from the scarce info I've
been able to find, looks like it might have been like a cross between a
hedonistic Gang Of Four and Cirque Du Soliel. So it stands to reason that one might worry about the the sophomore album. In addition to being presumably comprised of leftovers, the threat of a rising "maturity" rears its ugly head. Necessary growing pains for a band that takes its creativity seriously, as Rosa Luxemburg clearly did, but poison to a group built on sweat and hyperventilating ridiculousness. On top of that…well, it's the sophomore album. They're known as letdowns more often than not. And there is evidence of an expanded maturity in Rosa Luxemburg II's eleven tracks. "眠る君の足もとで" ("Nemuru Kimi No Ashimoto De," i.e. "Sleeping On Your Feet") has a playfully spooky sonic depth built from low voiced chants, Middle Eastern instrumentation, and psychedelic arrangement. "シビーシビー" ("Shibi Shibi") is a straight up Beatlesque pop song, complete with George Harrison-ish guitar solo, that is only sidetracked by a psychedelic blurt of weirdness for a few seconds. Similarly, it's easy to imagine the squished, speedy funk and weird instrumental flourishes of "テレビ28" ("TV 28") being harsher and more jagged, had it been included on their debut. But guitarist Hiroshi Tamaki is still just a sneeze away from a straightjacket, and while the songs aren't as gleefully abrasive, they're still pretty damned weird. II's extra layer of studio polish can't disguise how excitable and boundlessly creative the band really is. But then, there's also "さわるだけのおっぱい" ("Sawaru Dake No Oppai," i.e. "Boobs Are For Touching,") so maybe we don't want to play the grown ups card just yet. Actually, "Boobs Are For Touching" (I like typing that) is a good example of how Rosa Luxemburg retains the all important anarchic spirit while simultaneously embracing a fuller, richer studio sound. Puri Puri's roughness was a great compliment to the band's frantic spasms, but the improved sonics of II don't blunt the edge so much as allow the band to wield their considerable instrumental power with greater confidence. "Boobs Are For Touching" is basically The Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park" as filtered through T Rex's "Metal Guru" re-imagined as a drunken burlesque, and while this particular track lacks the sonic screeches and brutally chopped weirdness that made the group so appealing the first time around, there's little question that there's still something deeply, entertainingly off about these guys. II wasn't quite the band's swan song…the EP Stay But Eat holds that honor…but it does rather unambiguously point the way towards leader Takashi "Bang" Kudomi and bassist Toshimitsu Nagai's next band, the considerably less experimental (but still plenty energetic) Bo Gumbos, who took Rosa Luxemburg's occasional frat soul tendencies and exploded them as far as they could go. Kudomi (who started calling himself "Donto," starting with this album) also had a varied (but always goofily positive) solo career before sadly dying of cancer in 2000. Rosa Luxemburg's career was short but enormously influential, and they're a vital piece of the puzzle of Japanese rock, showing that whatever the West could do in terms of manic creativity, Japan could do it louder and weirder. Both Puri Puri and II remain frustratingly out of print, but the endlessly reissuing Japanese record industry can only ignore them for so long. Hopefully. |