Los Doroncos - Sun and Fireworks

Format: LP
Catalogue No.: AN42
Release Date: 03 Nov 2023
Genre: World Music/Japanese

LP ltd to 400, black vinyl, 2 colour silkscreened jacket with obi (in orange or dark blue), inserts and postcard

A
1 裏町 (Pocket Pistol)
2 ルル 2 (LuLu 2)
3 A マイナー (A minor)
B
1 僕は音痴 (Tin Ear)
2 ドラム (Drum)
3 青空 (Sunny Morning)

Hasegawa Mako, drums
Kawaguchi Masami, bass
Mugishima Tetsuya, guitar
Takada Kiyohiro, vocals, harp, guitar

Sun & Fireworks is the first studio recording, after several live albums, for Los Doroncos, the Japanese psych-rock quartet led by Kiyohiro Takada, aka Doronco. The group’s singer and songwriter, he’s perhaps best known as a sometime bass player for legendary Japanese group Les Rallizes Dénudés; he was also an early member of their sound crew, recording the material that appeared on OZ DAYS LIVE. In recent decades, he’s performed with Suishou No Fune, Sadahiro Yamada, and in a trio with Keiji Haino and the late Rallizes drummer Sami. He's also co-helmed Doronco Gumo with Hiiragi Fukada for three glorious albums (Old Punks, Man Star and Oldtribe), and recorded with Mitsuru Tabata and Yuka Ijichi in RQRQ.
But his main squeeze is Los Doroncos, a quartet with Masami Kawaguchi (bass; New Rock Syndicate, Usurabi, Keiji Haino & The Hardy Rocks), Mako Hasegawa (drums; Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Macomelogy), and Mugishima Tetsuya aka Seven (guitar; Shizuka). Previous albums, such as their self-titled 2013 collection, or the split double-CD with Majutsu no Niwa, Live at Showboat 2012, hinted at their capacities, but Sun & Fireworks is a remarkably focused set, perfectly framed – simple, unadorned, almost documentary in approach – to allow the clear, unpretentious songs of Doronco the perfect context within which to shine.

Much like the subsequent music of another ex-member of Rallizes, the much-missed Hiroshi Nar aka Youri Kun, Takada’s songs work with the nuts and bolts of garage and psychedelic rock. The opening “Pocket Pistol” see-saws on a resonant, classic rock set of chord changes, before Takada breaks out a harmonica solo that’s pure ‘60s Dylan; “LuLu 2” is as lovingly fragile and tender a pop song as the music bandmate Kawaguchi makes as a member of Usurabi; the closing “Sunny Morning” is a classic, blues-inflected road song, like Jonathan Richman’s “Roadrunner” roaring down the highway, carefree and unaffected.
But the heart of Sun & Fireworks is two meandering, ten-minute epics, “A minor” and “Drum”, that spiral into a psychedelic vortex of railroading noise guitar, great blasts of fuzz-wah strung over the hypnotic groove of a fully locked-in rhythm section. It’s a beautiful confusion, made more blissful by the feeling that it could – and should – never end, Los Doroncos shooting for the eternal spirit. Sun & Fireworks is Los Doroncos at their most effortlessly cool.

秋山典子(Akiyama Noriko - photograph) 中村宗一郎(Nakamura Souichirou - sound engineer)
Recorded at Peace Music, Tokyo. 9th, 10th April 2022 Mixed at Peace Music, Tokyo. 1st May 2022 Mastered at Peace Music, Tokyo. 4th July 2022. Liner notes by Jon Dale Printed by Alan Sherry