Great White Wonder

VINYL FORMAT. Originally released in 2006 on the Univive label, Phoenix Records presents this highly- collectable, numbered limited edition 4CD box set of three live gigs spanning 1974-1977 and one bonus disc of live material from a 1980 gig of legendary Japanese rock outfit Les Rallizes Dénudés. The group was formed in 1967 and incredibly, for a group that had only one official release (Oz Days Live, a double vinyl compilation release in 1973), played their last gig almost 30 years later in October 1996. As news of new rock music made it to Japan from the UK and the USA -- mostly via rock magazines and music papers, with most LPs tough to find even on import -- something was lost in translation in Japan that allowed it to mutate well beyond its original remit. Rallizes took rock music at its word while envisioning it as both unnecessarily complicated and too stupid by far. In doing so, they formulated an inspirational blueprint that would go on to have a marked effect on everything that came after them in Japanese underground music. It's a music that's as loose as it is uptight, as sophisticated as it is punk-primitive, as radical as it is simplistic.