Les Rallizes Dénudés are a very interesting band that formed in 1967 by a group of students at Kyoto’s Doshisha University. Led by the enigmatic frontman, Takashi Mizutani they were a group true to their own beliefs and had initially set out to record in a studio, but ditched that idea. After being dissatisfied with the results of their studio recordings, they later agreed only to exclusively play live shows.
Their career spanned over many years, albeit disjointed, and lasted from 1967-1988 originally, and then again briefly between 1993 and 1996 – after that they disbanded permanently. The last appearance of Les Rallizes Dénudés was a concert at Club Citta in Tokyo, on October 4th 1996!
Though never confirmed, it is believed that their band name translates from French (valises dénudées) literally meaning “naked suitcases” – a term derived from fake French slang invented by the defunct theatrical group Gendai Gekijo. Musically, their style is based on organic, raw structures, orchestrated by simple and repetitious instrumental lines, plenty of loud guitar and lashings of feedback. The perfect punk storm! A lot of their releases consists of live bootlegs, soundboard archives and even a few rare aborted studio recording attempts, but there is some official stuff out there! Archive releases on independent labels still exists, pressed on the likes of Univive, Rivista, Phoenix, and BambooThree. There are also one or two from the 1990’s.
Reading about the band, it becomes very evident that one of the reasons they are so revered is because of their experimental nature, and thus their exploratory creations are regarded as a pioneering factor of the noise-rock genre. Lots has been written about the mysteriousness of their frontman, Takashi Mizutani too and it has been suggested that a live film released about the band in 1992 by an independent filmmaker named Ethan Mousiké, was actually created by Mizutani himself (using a pseudonym). I’ve included a link to that film (see the title above) and its well worth checking out!!!
Wilderness of False Flowers (or “Wildness” as I first read it) is a song the band recorded at OZ, Kichijoji, Tokyo 1973, though it didn’t feature on an official album until about a year ago. Issued as The Oz Tapes this record also contained unedited versions of old songs, as well as previously unreleased tracks….I think today’s song falls into the ‘unedited’ category, though I’ve also just found a truly glorious extended version of this song too (titled as “version 2”)…15 wonderful minutes of Wilderness of False Flowers!!!…what a treat!! Enjoy!
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