Kan Mikami - Bang! (2002)

A true legend of the Japanese countercultural underground, having over time worked with everyone from Shuji Terayama and his Tenjo Sajiki theatrical troupe to leading lights of the PSF-related Japanese noise psych camp via his work in Vajra and the Haino/Mikami/Yoshizawa trio, though it must be said that the deeper resonances of much of what Mikami has created over the years seems mostly available to Japanese speakers, predicated as his style is on rawboned and direct emotional conveyance and play with the Japanese language, though his ravaged articulation and soul bearing naked angst has it's western admirers even when just operating as just a man a his guitar. This early explosion of inscrutable avant folk rock/studio fucked strangeness will however go some ways toward initiating those not yet ready for the austere blast of otherness that comprises so much of his solo canon; the nerve shattering Friendsound-worthy psychotropic meele of the title track in particular being one of the more confounding/astounding artifacts of the whole Japanese psych/prog era.