Kawaguchi Masami & Toshimitsu Akiko Enka Mood Collection Volume 4

Masami Kawaguchi has been an influential figure in the Japanese underground scene for 2 decades, playing with bands such as Miminokoto, Broomdusters, Los Doroncos and more recently with his New Rock Syndicate. He’s also known as a major & regular Keiji Haino collaborator in Aihiyo, and more recently in Hardy Soul. He’s one of the greats of modern Japanese psychedelic rock and more recently he recorded the beautiful “The Mad Guitar Sings” album on Black Petal, which is a dark solo take on Masami’s signature sound, balancing between late night/early morning comedown blues and black, luminescent storm-song.

On this release Masami covers 2 different songs, delivering a personal & bleak version of a great enka standard (if not the prototype of the enka song) and a fiery cover of a weird and rather unknown song.

Toshimitsu Akiko is better known under her maiden name of Terashima Akiko and she led a band called Doodles for more than 15 years. She and Kawaguchi Masami teamed up together for a short time as Homemade and after releasing a cassette, the first Doodles CDR was released on Masami’s Purifiva imprint, followed by a CD on Alchemy Records. Doodles played plodding, haunted psych-rock, with storms of guitar distortion hovering on the horizon, and sweet, sad vocals quivering deeply soul-ward.

More recently she mostly plays music as a duo named Aminome that could be heard as a Doodles follow-up with slightly rounded corners. On this release Akiko plays guitar, drums & accordion, covers these enka songs with her timeless & forlorn voice, picking up any human with a heart.

The album comes in a silk-screened gatefold jacket with obi (blue, pink or brick red) insert + postcards.