***A cult teenage Japanese punk group which existed from 1979-1983, and during that time managed to release the rarest punk record in Japan, operate their own cassette label, organize house shows, help launch the career of popular Japanese punk band Shonen Knife, and fascinate and inspire with their music, which is truly like any other. Over 40 years later, Die Öwan has the incredible ability to act as one of the most pure time machines capable of transporting the listener into a place where you can get a sense of what it must have been like to have been listening to and inspired by the evolution of underground music in the late 70s in real time. The concurrent explosion of punk, post punk, new wave, industrial, experimental, and avant garde music in the UK, Krautrock in Germany, Dub and Roots Reggae in Jamaica and the UK, was unlike any other. To Die Öwan, enjoying Crass, The Damned, Adverts, Wire, Metal Urbain, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, Neu!, Brian Eno, and Burning Spear was not only not unusual, it probably seemed obvious, as they were all pushing music forward. Armed with this mentality and limitless gallons of inspiration, in an almost Desperate Bicycles-esque non-commercial mindset of making and releasing music with any amount of resources one had available, set out to make a limitless amount of songs with that inspiration. The music, which is sonically punk at its core, is a web of entangled, urgent, fast bursts of teen angst made with...
LP $21.95
11/15/2024
***Die Öwan’s final cassette release, 1983’s Mikawa Ken-Ichi, shows the band at their most focused, crafting a full on album’s worth of music in their trademark style of DIY experimental punk, bursting with their typical wide range of influences which focus heavily on the sounds of punk, experimental and industrial groups like Crass, Metal Urbain, Wire, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, and countless others, while simultaneously sounding little like any of them. With a heavy dose of Ramones It’s Alive style “1-2-3-4!’s”, once again Die Öwan transports the listener back to what it would have been like to be a teenager experiencing the diverse musical evolution of the 70s and early 80s, and feeling compelled to continue pushing that evolution forward with music that not only pushed the envelope, but broke convention so much, that it’s taken almost 40 years for people to understand how groundbreaking this band could have been, and for it be made available for most people to hear for the first time. The audio has been remastered from the band’s tapes specifically for vinyl, and the LP comes with a 16 page booklet which reproduces the band’s own Change 2500 Yen fanzine, and includes a Japanese language chronology, photos, and more.
LP $21.95
11/15/2024