KOKOTSU NO SEKA
Original Issue: 1971 Teichiku
Reissue: 2006 Tiliqua (TILAR-5002)
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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5
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1 女はそれをがまんできない (3:21)
2 よこはま たそがれ (2:47)
3 めまい (2:37)
4 雨がやんだら (3:04)
5 夜明けのスキャット (3:03)
6 さすらいのギター (2:44)
7 私という女 (2:40)
8 雨の日のブルース (3:09)
9 恋の奴隷 (2:55)
10 経験 (2:40)
11 天使になれない (2:49)
12 愛のきずな (3:22)
from Boomkat:
Just in time for that ever-creeping Christmas season we’ve managed to secure a VERY small handful of this utterly crucial piece of Japanese musical history. This disc is one of a series of releases from the stunning Tiliqua label, and documents an area of Japanese culture most of us know very little about – erotica.
Yup you heard me right, and although many of the internet-savvy amongst us will be more than familiar with Japan’s strange take on the world of the naked lady often being compromised by something tenticular and from a distant planet, this is an era more focused on titillation and shattered innocence than anything you might find knocking around on a Hentai babes calendar.
This particular lady named Ike Reiko was only a mere 17 years of age when she recorded this record, and was already a star in the world of Japanese erotic movies. Yup in that age old tradition of lying about your age, Miss Reiko did it to slide her way into the seedy world of porn – not exactly buying a packet of fags and a 6 pack of Strongbow is it?
Apparently these movies were somewhere in-between the girl-gang revenge movies of the Blaxploitation era and the Women in prison style savage eroticism and dubbed ‘Pink Violence’, with tooled up honeys wearing just little enough to bare their ample breasts while they laid waste to the enemy (men?). I can’t say I’ve managed to track down any of these movies but after reading about them I feel almost duty bound to observe them closer, I mean it’s my job as a reviewer surely to make sure I have as much background as possible is it not? Funnily enough then, with all the tough-gal image the music is pretty darn life-affirming, but don’t think for a second you’re getting an easy listening album here – this is about as sexual as music can get.
Throw ‘French Kiss’ out of the window and kiss goodbye to your Serge Gainsbourg records goodbye, Ike Reiko is more sizzling than a branding iron as it makes it’s mark on the farmer’s herd. The sex is literally dripping from every note on this record – I’m told that the style is ‘Iroke Kayôkyoku’ or erotic kayôkyoku (kayôkyoku being a style of Japanese pop) but the sort of naïve jazz and pseudo spy theme movie music is all draped in a shroud of sexual shouts, screams and coos from the clearly excited Reiko. One must assume that she was in some kind of state of euphoria in the recording studio from the evidence on offer here, either that or she’s a pretty realistic faker – it’s a smouldering collision and that’s about all that needs to be said. ‘Kôkotsu no Sekai’ has to be one of the finest gifts for the music fan in search of that killer oddity – not only is it a fabulous record but it’s so wonderfully presented with gorgeous artwork and extensive liner notes, I can’t think of a saucier and more appetising delight this Christmas. Buy, before it’s gone for good.
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from Tiliqua Records:
Tiliqua Records continues its quest of digging up lost and forgotten sonic gems out of the bowels of oblivion. This time Tiliqua Records is more than thrilled to be granted the permission to unleash one of Japan's rarest erotic artifacts being Ike Reiko's sole recorded album out of 1971.
Heralded by those few who have been blessed with an original copy of this ultra rare disc as the ultimate Iroke Kakyoku album that even surmounts Sandra Julian's "Sexy Poem" on the brutality scale as far as unabashed, urbane eroticism, a calculated addition of licentious overtones and unbridled carnal insinuations are concerned.
Ike Reiko is mainly known as one of Japan's finest early seventies porn and pink violence starlets, tearing up screens with her naked presence in such films as "Sôkatsu Rinchi" of Ishii Teruo, the The "Sukebanchô" series and "Onsen Mimizu Geisha" of Suzuki Norifumi. Until now, this sonic gem has never been reissued and Tiliqua Records acquired the legal rights from Teichiku Records in order to restore this masterpiece to its former glory and introducing it anew.
In an attempt to describe the sonic sleazyness the disc venture into, here is a snippet out of the extensive linernotes. "Her erotic presence flutters across a multitude of erogenous non-verbal modes - moaning and uttered shrieks of ecstatic pleasure, sibilating suffocated whispers of excitement, and grunting and growling like a bitch in heat. When Ike does sing, it is in a subdued, husky voice about sex, submissive love and seduction. Although all the songs are cover versions, Ike confines herself to whispering but a small part of the original lyrics, spending the remainder on guttural erotic incantations backed by the desolate sound of a cheesy organ and a muffled yet ecstatic mellifluous vocal sound that is reminiscent of the 13th Floor Elevators’ Tommy Hall breathing down a jug. The entire recording is suffused with a unique atmosphere, a ripe and heady Japanese eroticism now sadly overwhelmed by the intrusive and infelicitous import of cheap Westernized thrills and assorted uneuphonious cultural junk. Nevertheless, Kôkotsu no Sekai launched Ike as the nightingale of the pink new wave."
