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In a truly bizarre meeting of the Eastern Asian underground, Beijing, China’s Cat AIDS and Osaka, Japan’s Go Tsushima get together for a mind-boggling split cassette release.
For their side, Cat AIDS, a balaclava-clad bass/drums duo, come off as kindred spirits of Butthole Surfers, with their ridiculous, twisted sense of humor and appropriation of marginally-known songs. Dark, heavy drums propel the ultra-noisy, at times synthesizer-like, bass and comical metal/hardcore vocals through such smash hits as “Mike Tyson’s Pizza Party,” “Kevin Bacon Reacharound” and “Death Metal Twister,” i.e., a psychotic implosion of Dead Or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record),” while the ten minute assault of “If Abortions Are Murder, Blowjobs are Genocide” treads into Throbbing Gristle or Ramleh power electronics territory, and “Moon Over Tianjin” is essentially a cover of Dead Kennedys’ “Moon Over Marin.”
Go Tsushima, on the other hand, firmly establish themselves as the garage cousins of Acid Mothers Temple. Through their two-part spacerock jam, “GT8,” the trio delve into the improvised krautrock universe of early Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, with the lo-fi recording adding to the psychedelic atmosphere. It’s a solid alternative to AMT’s, admittedly brilliant, hyper-production.
As releases continue to crop up out of China, it becomes more evident that a viable, idiosyncratic music scene exists there. It’s time to break down the paper tiger Great Wall of silence and welcome them into our speakers.
