Recording is now complete for the tape compilation curated by Takushi Yamazaki AKA Maso Yamazaki that I wrote about in the “At Random” column from last month's issue. The title is “Gomi-Akta”. If you look up “gomi-akuta” in the Kōjien dictionary, you'll find this definition: “Garbage and refuse. Trash. Something of absolutely no value”. Contributors are a mix of 40 well-known and unknown musicians and non-musicians such as Eye Yamatsuka, Seiichi Yamamoto, Yoshimi Yokota, Hitoshi Akii, Yukio Fujimoto, Nobara Takemoto, Gandhi Ishihara, David Hopkins, John Duncan, Jojo Hiroshige, T. Mikawa, Mayuko Hino, Junji Hirose, Masaya Nakahara and Masami Akita, as well as three animals (Akita's two cats and Nakahara's dog).

Recording started on April 7 in the backstage of Bears, the night John Duncan played. The following rules were given to contributors: sounds must be produced without the use of electricity or batteries. Everything is to be done in one take, and editing is not possible. The piece has clock in under three minutes. Recording has to be done with the walkman provided by Yamazaki. Since the majority of the contributors normally perform with electrically amplified and processed sounds, adhering the first rule already means they are being denied their usual means of musical expression. Moreover, re-recording is not allowed. As a result, we catch a glimpse of their real-life personas that isn't conveyed by their usual musical approach. Also interesting is that thanks to the casual aspect of recording with a walkman, many of the performers show us a side of themselves which cannot be heard in their other works.

As for the content itself, we namely get to hear Yamatsuka screaming towards a toilet as he flushes it, Yoshimi mimicking dogs and frogs, David shaking a can containing pachinko beads, John Duncan picking up the sounds of the walkman's microphone cutting through the air as he swings it around, Fujimoto putting that microphone in his pocket, Akii singing “Mayonaka no gitā”, Hino humming Mako Midori's “Yasashii Nipponjin”, T. Mikawa yelling over the phone, then suddenly coming to himself, and Akita taking care of his cats. Each one of them delivers a unique and surprising performance. The best example of that would be Jojo Hiroshige's “Alchemy rescript”. Everyone else presents us the unreachable depths of their minds, and the results are a fun listening experience. Included as a bonus track are the sounds of Otokonoko Akita (a cat) having teeth pulled out at the Fujikake Animal Hospital. Listening to Gandhi Ishihara, the editor of this magazine, unpacking the first issue of G-Scope, we can feel the the essence and the sadness of the man who had to make so many copies of this magazine all by himself (is that a right way to put it, Gandhi?).

From a normal musical standpoint, this could be seen as a collection of extremely lo-fi and gadget-like sounds, and as the title implies, as mostly useless garbage. However, there exist value and truth that can only be found in junk and rubbish. Let's not dismiss this as some sort of joke.

“GOMI-AKTA” (COQUETTE)
Limited to 153 copies, 1700¥
Released early June 1993