hibushibire: turn on, tune in, freak out!

ltd repress on curacao blue vinyl. The long-awaited follow-up to Osaka's Hibushibire Freak Out Orgasm! debut album from 2017 is here with Turn On, Tune In, Freak Out!. Who are Hibushibire?: 821 on bass, Ryu Matsumoto on drums, and Changchang on guitar and vocals. It would be fair to say Hibushibire's 2017 debut album Freak Out Orgasm! went down well with fans of psych-rock. It garnered quite a few influential underground reviews and seemed to sell through on word of mouth alone. UK-based music blog Dayz Of Purple And Orange said this of their debut: "Fuck me! I think I've died and gone to psychedelic heaven! If anyone had asked me what I would really want from a freak out, heavy-as-fuck psych band I would have to say I would want the sheer guitar pyrotechnics of Acid Mothers Temple, the hard-as-nails scuzziness of The Heads, the lead heaviness of a fucked-up Blue Cheer, and the instrumental dexterity of Hendrix on speed. Guess what, that band exists and they are called Hibushibire!" Their follow-up Turn On, Tune In, Freak Out! is produced again by Makoto Kawabata (Acid Mothers Temple, Mainliner) and it's the next logical step in the band's sonic development. As with its predecessor, side one consists of three tracks, "Ecstasy Highwaystar", "Blow! Blow! Blow!", and "Overdose, Pussycat! More! More!". Some of these titles will be familiar if you've followed the band's live shows in recent times, and it's pretty much a guitar to the front, full gonzo-style hard-rocking psychedelic freak out from the first blast of Changchang's guitar panning from left to right before the main riff kicks it all off. Again, as with their debut, side two comprises of just one epic length track. "Rollercoaster Of The Universe" clocks in at seventeen minutes and is the sound of the band moving onto the next level during its journey. It's a shudderingly beautiful piece, with many hypnotic twists and turns. The band did initially attempt to produce this album by themselves, but got "brain fever" in the studio and called their old friend Makoto to come down and help them finish it off. As he had no preparation in advance, he knew nothing about how the recording was going in the studio, and moreover there was little time left for adjustments to be made. But his technique of mixing was, as always, both mighty and almost destructive.