Ohkami No Jikan

***Black Tape II is only the second widely available release by Ohkami No Jikan (The Time of the Wolf), one of the more esoteric groups of the 1990s Tokyo underground. Recorded in 1992, it illuminates a largely undocumented facet of Nanjo Asahito's psychedelic cosmology, distinct from his better-known work with High Rise, Musica Transonic, and Toho Sara. Aside from a handful of limited, handmade cassettes and CD-Rs on his La Musica label, there's only been one Ohkami No Jikan album, Mort Nuit, that made it beyond the collector inner circle. One of Nanjo's longest-running, most mysterious outfits, Ohkami No Jikan's conceptualization—as a psych outfit "that explores 'stasis' and 'motion,' both actively and philosophically"—hints at the intensity of the music here. There's a pellucid beauty to much of Black Tape II, with the simplest, most erotically charged chord changes descending from the heavens, Nanjo moaning consumptively as the songs slip by in an acid daze. The 1992 line-up here, with Asai Fumiyo on bass and Nagao Kouji on drums, was one of many variations of Ohkami No Jikan; simultaneously languorous and heavy, at times pushed into the red with arcing blasts of feedback, the group feels cosmically aligned with Nanjo's purity of vision. Housed in a custom die-cut, "Uni-Pak" style gatefold with metallic ink, spot finishes and matching La Musica inner sleeve.