Les Rallizes Dénudés / '77 LIVE (Cassette Tape)

The definitive cassette release of "'77 LIVE," featuring the complete recording of the thunderous live performance by Naked Rallizes, which became a hot topic when it was released on vinyl for the first time, shows off their true essence!

"'77 LIVE," a recording of the Naked Rallizes' live performance in Tachikawa, Tokyo on March 12, 1977, is now available on cassette!
The content allows you to relive the overwhelming flood of sound and ever-changing improvisations of this miraculous hour and a half live performance.

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[ Explanation of Naked Rallizes " '77 LIVE " by Manabu Yuasa]

All my thoughts vanished. When I first listened to this album in 1991, I was filled with joy. I truly felt that there are no limits to music.

This album, produced by Takashi Mizutani, was released as a two-disc CD on August 15, 1991. It is a live recording of the Les Rallizes Dénudés concert held at the Tachikawa Social Education Hall in Tachikawa, Tokyo on March 12, 1977.

Thirty-one years after the original release, Makoto Kubota, a former member of the Naked Rallizes, has re-examined the original sound source, remastered it, and created this new recording.

In 1991, Takashi Mizutani of Naked Rallizes released three albums simultaneously: "'67-'69 Studio et Live," "MIZUTANI," and "'77 LIVE." In an interview in the November 1991 issue of Music Magazine (conducted via fax between Paris, France, and Tokyo; interviewer: author), he explained the reason for this: "There was no connection in the ordinary sense. There was no grandiose intention. To put it in our terms, it was a kind of fireworks, or playing with fire. However, the actual work that followed turned out to be extremely hard."

When we decided to make a CD , HEAD had no idea what the inclusion criteria would be. Of course, we hadn't thought about it beforehand, but the initial criteria was to cover everything from the band's original formation to their live performance at Bell Commons in the late 1970s.

In the 12 years between the formation of Les Rallizes Dénudés in the fall of 1967 and their performance at Bell Commons in Aoyama, Tokyo on November 1, 1978, Les Rallizes Dénudés performed numerous live shows. It is likely that they also recorded in studios quite a few times. Mizutani continued:

"I wasn't satisfied until I checked all the tapes we had during this period. I listened to about 200 to 300 tapes (most of them 90 to 120 minutes long). It was a wonderful period. I didn't expect that we, who are not easily shocked by small things, would be so strict."

These three works are carefully selected recordings. This is one of the things that Rallizes Dénudé is confident about. I think they represent the expression of Rallizes Dénudé that Takashi Mizutani has experienced.

Furthermore, when it came to turning the tape recordings into a CD, it took a lot of tenacious and thorough research. Mizutani says:

"During the analog-to-digital conversion, we were constantly in the studio, and to put it simply, we had to thoroughly destroy the unsightly digital sound and bring it closer to the original sound. This must have been extremely hard work for the studio engineers, but they put in as much effort as they could to achieve the sound we were able to achieve. I'm sure there were some parts that had to be cut out, but digital sound is a tricky thing to work with."

No sounds were added to the original live recording. Mizutani's comments reveal the difficulty of capturing the sound that Takashi Mizutani felt at the time, the sound of Les Rallizes Naked that had been ringing inside him since March 12, 1977, on a single album.

The sound image of "'77LIVE" is something quite rare. It brings with it an unknown listening sensation. There is even more distortion within distortion. The foreground and background of the sound rub against each other, causing waves of sound to expand in all directions. It's not just that a mass of sound hits the listener. The whole body is drawn into the sound, and it's impossible to escape.

It was not something calculated or constructed, but rather something that emerged from the overlap of various factors, a mixture of chance and inevitability. Of course, the venue had its acoustics designed, but you can't really know what the sound will be like until you play it. Live performances are particularly influenced by the circumstances of the day. They were completely different from today's stages, which are controlled by digital equipment. This is precisely why each of the remaining recordings is imbued with a different atmosphere and color. Was the March 12, 1977 live performance a culmination of the Naked Rallizes, who had been active since 1967? Or was it a new beginning?

The performers on this album were Takashi Mizutani (guitar, vocals), Takeshi Nakamura (guitar), Hiroshi Narazaki (bass), and Toshiaki Mimaki (drums). Nakamura was an original member of Rallizes Dénudés. Mimaki was a former staff member at OZ. Narazaki joined Rallizes Dénudés after being a member of Datetenryu and Zuno Keisatsu. He subsequently performed with his own bands, Portcus and Nipritz, while also pursuing solo careers under the names Hiroshi and Kun Yuri. The rhythm section of Narazaki and Mimaki produces a diverse range of beats. The 12-beat rhythm of "Ice Flame" evokes Turkish music, "Deeper Than the Night" has an R&B feel, and "Night, Assassin's Night" has a pop sensibility reminiscent of "I Will Follow Him." A multifaceted musicality ripples beneath the intense sound.

This time, manager Tezuka Minoru has contributed a valuable piece of writing that describes what it was like at the time.

I was surprised to learn that the live show that day was performed using a 4-way sound speaker system.

"I remember clearly that the sound in the hall was amazing and it gave me goosebumps."

When I read this passage, I got goosebumps.

"That was the day the new Rallys sound was born, with clearly amplified noise."

Tezuka also wrote:

The Naked Rallizes kept on going. The unparalleled miracle of "'77LIVE" was just one part of the Naked Rallizes.

In the aforementioned fax interview, Mizutani Takashi stated the following:

"Fickle things, sweet things

Unchanging yet still sweet

More than the sweetness found in changeability

Something strict

The realm of night, space and dimension, and then deviation

Resulting deviation Unintended deviation

When a pre-planned deviation is achieved

Deviation from a pre-planned trajectory

There will be no more.”

September 2022 Manabu Yuasa

＜77 Tachikawa LIVE Memorandum Text by MINORU TEZUKA＞

I would like to write a little about the staff involved with Rallys.

In the beginning, Antonio and his team were in charge of lighting at many venues. The sound company changed from time to time, and we didn't have a dedicated mixer yet, but at some point, I forget when, Hisashi Kato joined the mixer team.

The lighting team was settled on a team led by Taku Yamada.

I met Taku at Horagai, a cafe in Kokubunji, Tokyo, said to be Japan's first rock cafe.

I think Conch Shell was a mecca in the 1960s and 1970s for poets, revolutionaries, artists, farmers, and dream-chasing travelers who called themselves tribes.

I started going there often, becoming familiar with the faces and they helped me set up a number of events.

Mako Takashima, the designer who created the posters and flyers, shared a house with drummer Shunichiro Shoda, who was a student at Musashino Art University, near where we lived at the time in Fussa's Japamar Heights.

I think he was also the one who put up the rose flags that were hanging backstage for a while and the tie-dyed cloth on the Guyatone amps, but it's a distant memory.

I think the photos used for the posters and flyers for the 77 Live concert were chosen by Mr. Mizutani.

I took the manuscript to Tamura Masanobu Aki of CCC Printing, an affiliate of the tribe, and asked him to print it.

The text quotes from "Puppets Play" using a photograph by the surrealist Hans Bellmer, which would likely be unavailable due to copyright restrictions today. In those days, paper media was the norm, and if you went to put up posters in the middle of the night, you'd see posters for Butoh and tent theaters lined up next to them, and next to them was a bizarre poster for Rallizes.

I placed 4-way surround speakers against the wall and used my first guitar, a Gibson SG, which I had just purchased.

The song we rehearsed was "Night Harvesters." It was the first time I'd heard that song, but I was immediately convinced it would be a success. I clearly remember the sound in the hall being so good it gave me goosebumps.

The recording was done in two ways: one by connecting a cassette directly from the mixer, and the other by recording with a microphone on an open reel by Kiyohiro Tadoko.It was the day when a new Rallys sound was born, with noise clearly amplified.

Tracklist

TAPE 1

Side A
1. Enter the Mirror
2. The Night, Assassin's Night

Side B
1. Flame of Ice
2. Memory is far away

TAPE 2

Side C
1. Deeper than the Night
2. Reapers of the Night

Side D
1. The Last One _1977

Product information

[3LP]
Product number: DRFT07
Released by Temporal Drift / Tuff Beats

Release date: February 9, 2024