Deep down from the Hamamatsu basements, amidst smoke and dark shadows, comes another epic masterwork of destructive power from the Japanese psychedelic freakout heroes Up-Tight! A glorious incursion into a vortex of massive fuzzed guitars and reverb vocals, mantric drums and menacing bass pulsations touching the extremes of bludgeoning noise and delicate beauty.
"No one does epic psych like Up-Tight and this has gotta be the ultimate hi-fi distillation of their sound to date: four tracks that explode classic Tokyo styles. Opening with "Our Own Portrait", a mantric instrumental that spikes Sound Of Confusion-era Spacemen 3 with Rocket USA rhythms and pure garage abandon, they drop into "A Song For Your Pain", a beautiful mid-tempo ballad with guitarist/vocalist T. Aoki following an achingly beautiful bassline all the way to nada. The next songs are more aggressively nuanced, opening with a post-Sweet Sister Ray style amp crack-up track that combines amazing feedback control with tortuous rending-of-time-and-space style guitar heat and some classic Haino/Sharrock six string heroics. An incredible free guitar track. But it's the final blast that'll take your head off, a classic death-decadent ballad in the tradition of Ohkami No Jikan/Shiuzka et al that combines wasted vocales with delayed nod-out rhythms and phenomenal lead guitar that matches the legendary Maki Miura for overdriven melodic iconoclasm. Totally classic Japanese psych, sure to be a monster in years to come, highly recommended. You need to hear this." (Volcanic Tongue)
"The Beginning Of The End" was originally released as a scarce LP edition on 8mm Records in 2009 and - after more than a decade - sees the light of the day on CD for the first time ever, fully remastered by Aoki Tomoyuki himself. Housed in our custom tip-on mini-LP gatefold packaging displaying unique and new artwork, plus OBI strip.
Also released as a handmade Boxset Edition with extra items.
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CD | 200 copies
BOXSET | 90 copies — SOLD OUT
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www.essence-music.com
released December 18, 2020
All songs by Up-Tight.
Recorded & mixed in Summer 2008 at Lucrezia.
Engineered by T. Aoki.
Artwork by Iremir Oscar.
ESS029 | ESS029-B