Rage Against The Machine
Rage Against The Machine

Wewantsounds is delighted to announce an extensive reissue program of Meiko Kaji's first five album released in Japan between 1972 and 1974 on Teichiku Records. The program, in partnership with Teichiku and Meiko Kaji, will see her first five albums reissued on vinyl for the first time ever in their original Japanese artwork and remastered audio. Famous for her early 70s exploitation movies ('Lady Snowblood', the 'Female Prisoner Scorpion' and 'Stray Cat Rock' series) revered by Tarantino, Meiko Kaji was also a singer releasing albums to tie in with her movie career. These albums are a fascinating mix of Japanese Pop and Groove with superb funky cinematic orchestrations as displayed in "Hajiki Uta". The album is reissued with original artwork on deluxe Gatefold sleeve LP, OBI strip and a 2-p insert featuring new liner notes by by Hashim Kotaro Bharoocha who has interviewed Meiko for the occasion. It features "Urami Bushi" the theme song for the Female Prisoner Scorpion series which was used in Kill Bill Vol 2 and also "Onna No Jumon" the theme song for the film "Female Prisoner Scorpion - Jailhouse 41."A cult icon on the international film scene, Japanese actress Meiko Kaji, born in Tokyo, has been put into the spotlight internationally by Quentin Tarantino when he heavily based his Kill Bill film on the 1973 revenge genre film 'Lady Snowblood,' one of Kaji's most famous films. By the time she appeared in it, she had already made almost fifty feature films (she began her career in 1965) among which the cult 'Stray Cat Rock' and 'Female Prisoner Scorpion' film series and she was one of the most famous exploitation actresses in Japan doubling as a sex symbol. This gave the studios the idea of getting her to start a singing career and release music closely associated with the films she starred in often singing the theme songs. Thus she began releasing records at the dawn of the 70s, recording several 7" singles and five albums for Teichiku which have become sought-after and almost as cult as her films. ​Drawing on her film roles, the music on these albums were an uber-cool mix of kayokyoku (Japanese Pop), traditional Enka Music, Acid Folk and Funky beats arranged by the best producers of the time in a cinematic way that could sound like Ennio Morricone or Jean-Claude Vannier. that explosive cocktail is featured in full blow on the first album from the Meiko Kaji reissue program, 'Hajiki Uta' released by Teichiku in 1973. ​The album featured two film songs, namely 'Urami Bushi' used for the film series "Female Prisoner Scorpion" and 'Onna No Jumon' featured in the film 'Female Prisoner Scorpion - Jailhouse 41,' which have been composed by Shunsuke Kikuchi who also composed the score for these films. At first Kaji was unsure of her singing talents as told to Hashim Bharoocha in an interview but she quickly rose to the challenge: "I told Shunsuke Kikuchi that I couldn’t imagine myself singing the songs. He said I could ignore the melody that he wrote, and just sing it the way I wanted to. That really lifted the pressure off my shoulders, and I decided to sing the song as the character in the film. The director was also happy with that idea.”​The rest of the album follows the same pattern with atmospheric songs such as "Onna Hagure Uta" or "Onna Somuki Uta" displaying Meiko's sombre singing over a superb slow-burning groove, which precedes the funkier "Hitori Kaze" featuring a wah wah guitar, a breakbeat-like rhythm section and slick string arrangement, shaping the unique Meiko Kaji signature sound.​Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue "Hajiki Uta" and the rest of Meiko Kaji superb early 70s albums for the first time in fifty years in their glorious original Japanese artwork, with remastered audio, cementing further the actress' reputation as a true international pop culture icon. 

Angular, jabbing, psychedelic post-industrial/post-punk from early ‘80s Holland, drawn from hard-to-find and obscure tapes releases by Emotional Rescue and Mannequin Records​"Taken from two 12” EPs, a split 7” and a flexi 7”, all released in 1982, the music within Word & Numbers captures striking compositions, part of, but some way removed from their contemporary post-punk bands coming out of the Dutch “Ultra” scene of the time.Developing out of a series of concerts in Amsterdam, Ultra expanded to Eindhoven, Nijmegen and Haarlem, with artists and musicians creating their own work spaces and studios. Driven by the DIY mentality of the punk movement, this uniquely Dutch take on the post-punk ethos embraced avant-garde thinking and experimentation that disseminated in ideas and from that, sound.Coming from Haarlem, Nexda – consisting of Ivo Schalkx, Karin Hueting, Martienden Nijs – played music on handmade drums, metal, organ, saxophone and voice. Releasing a series of cassettes on their and Wim Dekker (Smalts, Minny Pops) Studio 12 label, the latter’s link with Wally Van Middendorp’s Plurex label, resulted in the release of Nexda’s two EP – 246, 121 and 657 (PLUREX 0026) and Second (PLUREX 0031) - with artwork of Ivo Schalkx, are included here, both in their entirety. Capturing the bands’ heavy percussive backdrop, raw, dub baselines contrast with questioning, mainly spoken word lyrical poetics, saxophone underplay and occasional Pablo-style melodica. The avant nature of the music is apparent and enticing, where experimentalism and artistic expression was sought over commercial success and technique and song form were less important than the process of exploring ideas.The none-descriptive titles match song structures that jettison the traditional verse, chorus, verse; weaving across the 8 songs so that they can be heard as one, as much asshort bursts of individual statements."