Corrupted
Felicific Algorithm / Mushikeras
UK COLD SPRING RECORDS CSR333CD (2024)
Corrupted are one of those low-profile bands who work hard to protect their aura of unknowability. No interviews, no press photos, very little information printed on the records; their personnel keeps changing, and very often the album titles and lyrics are in Spanish for no apparent reason.
At one time I tried to find a way into their music, since they tick a number of boxes for me – excessive Japanese guitar music, which appealed to me ever since hearing the PSF Tokyo Flashback releases in the 1990s; use of “gothic” typeface for the band name, cementing an association with Black Metal, although they never made a BM record in their life; and extreme heavy metal drone, since I must confess that some 20 years ago I was actively seeking any advances on the work of Earth and Sunn O))). One band I tried was Burmese, but they didn’t quite fit the bill. Neither did Corrupted, oddly enough, but I’m still intrigued by the mystique of their shrouded endeavours, so I guess their strategy is working.
Even this release is odd and perhaps even untypical of their output, but be aware that it brings together two separate releases in a new package. The first of these, Felicific Algorithm, appears to be simply field recordings – not a genre I’d expect to be attempted by these blackened sorcerers – gathered in Amagasaki, Osaka, and Fukushima as long ago as 2012. Along with these menacing, low-frequency mechanical hums, there’s a short terrifying text referring to radiation, rubble, and a Geiger counter. The obvious implication is that we’re slowly exploring (in forensic detail) the aftermath of an atomic explosion, an impression made all the more unsettling by the line “we cannot hear children’s voices from anywhere”. Arrgh! Proceeding with remorseless slowness, this is dismayingly grim fare, though not without its darkly compelling attractions embedded in the carefully-managed dynamics, which keep us in a constant state of tension with the low purring before erupting into howling storms of noise.
This head-scratcher originally surfaced as a vinyl LP in 2018 on Cold Spring, playable at 33 or 45; its status as a canonical Corrupted release is disputed by hard-core fans, some of whom pointed out that it arrived just after a change in the lineup of the band, and there was even a suspicion that it was concocted in the studio by Martin Bowes, house engineer for this label, with no members of Corrupted appearing on it at all. No such ambiguity applies to Mushikeras, which was played by Kaz Mike, Rie Lambdoll, Mark Y and Chew – i.e. Chu Hasegawa, who has also played in Omoide Hatoba, the latterday psych band. Mushikeras is from 2023, originally “published” online as a digital release, perhaps the first record made by this particular lineup; it may be closer to the ultra-slow doom sludge that Corrupted fans crave. Starting out as a maudlin “ballad” – yes, there are vocals and even an uncredited piano, played in the sentimental way that only metal guitarists can manage – it gradually morphs into lumbering shapeless monster-mode, punching home its ambiguous message with primitive drumbeats, tortured vocal howls and whispers, and anguished guitar riffing. I want to say it’s set in a “minor” key, but somehow these Japanese wizards have managed to reinvent minor chords on their own terms, with mixed and layered guitars, arriving at something even more disturbing to the human psyche than the key of C-minor.
In short, if you care to spend the best part of one hour staring directly into the cold hard face of pure nihilism, here’s your perfect album. (12/04/2024)