EP-4 / Lingua Franca-1 / WRWTFWW

WRWTFWW reanimate some vintage Japanese Post-Punk, in the pumped-up form of EP-4. Sparse, tetsuo-jin, Robo-Funk. Sent back to the future from 1983.

Industrial dervishes. Free-Jazz-inspired drop-outs. A Certain Ratio`s whistle-blowing, dark, shamanistic carnivals. 23 Skidoo`s slapped B-lines. Guitar that moves between chicken scratch rhythm, and bent sheets of angular feedback. Keith Levene`s searing work with PIL. Sonics that rival the punch packed by either Tackhead or Bill Laswell. A Gang Of Four / Chakk mutant that must surely have informed Ryuichi Sakamoto`s Shogunade. They collaborated with Sakamoto on 1985`s Multilevel Holarchy.

Synthetic tones tumble. Bubble like molten metal boiling. Mudd Club New Wave bangs on Liquid Liquid`s cowbell. Their Vocoder-ed Garage Rock, twangs with Titty Shaker Exotica. Recalling The Cramps. If fronted by Darth Vader.

I discovered EP-4 in Kichijoji`s Ballroom Records. A shop where I`d hoover up all manner of Japanese and Western “Alt.” – if there were a “Dub” on the b-side. There was no Discogs listing for their music at the time. While they`ve since been booted a bit, this is the first legitimate reissue.

Following the Tohoku Earthquake and Fukushima disaster, the band came out of retirement in 2011, after a near thirty year hiatus, with the anti-nuclear protest single Radioactivity. Their power showing no signs of diminishing. Parliament / Mothership vibes to the fore.