Les Rallizes Dénudés

Les Rallizes Dénudés was formed in 1967 by a group of students at Kyoto's Doshisha University. Initially, the band planned to record in a studio, but after being dissatisfied with the results, agreed to exclusively play live shows.

The band was initially active between 1967 and 1988, and then again briefly between 1993 and 1996 before permanently disbanding. The true meaning of the name Les Rallizes Dénudés is debated. However, according to former member Moriaki Wakabayashi, the word Rallizes comes from the Japanese word Rari, which means being high, and the word Dénudés (French word for naked) representing their raw selves.[4][5] The band's style is typified by simple, repetitious instrumental passages, shrieking, cacophonous guitar feedback and folk arrangement. Their discography is made up mostly of live bootlegs, soundboard archives, and even a few rare aborted studio recording attempts. Archive releases on independent labels such as Univive, Rivista, Phoenix, and Bamboo exist, as well as releases from former members and affiliates of the band.[6] Three records from Rivista ('77 LIVE, '67-'69 STUDIO et LIVE and MIZUTANI / Les Rallizes Dénudés respectively) released in 1991 and a self titled 7" single released as a bonus with issue number 2 of the Japanese magazine Etcetera in 1996 are the only archival records purported to be official by the estate of Takashi Mizutani.[7]

Although the band itself was not explicitly political, members were known to participate in various protests, with the band even performing at a university auditorium while it was held by students during a protest. In 1970, original bassist Moriaki Wakabayashi, who was known to have attended several of these protests, assisted in the hijacking of Japan Airlines Flight 351 orchestrated by the Communist League's "Red Army Faction."[6][8]

Very little is known about the band's frontman Takashi Mizutani, aside from his former affiliation with members of the Japanese Red Army and involvement early on in theater at Doshisha University. After the hijacking of Flight 351, Mizutani became extremely paranoid and went into hiding for many years, only occasionally emerging to play shows. The last appearance of Les Rallizes Dénudés was a concert at Club Citta in Tokyo, on October 4, 1996.[9] The last public appearances of Takashi Mizutani without the Rallizes moniker were two live performances in 1997 with jazz saxophonist Arthur Doyle and drummer Sabu Toyozumi.

A live film about the band was released on VHS in 1992 by an independent filmmaker named Ethan Mousiké (who many believe to be a pseudonym of Mizutani), consisting of over 2 hours of live footage of the band.[10]

In October 2021, an official website was launched for the band by record label The Last One Musique, claiming to be a collaborative effort by former band members and associates of Mizutani. It announced its intention to release official Rallizes recordings with "more alive and striking sound than the bootlegs that have been circulating over twenty years".[11] The website states on its homepage that Mizutani passed away in 2019,[12] and this is further supported by statements from Aquilha Mochiduki (sometimes spelled Mochizuki), a photographer associated with Les Rallizes Dénudés.[13] In a 2020 interview, former member Makoto Kubota (who is himself credited on the official website) stated that he had conversed with Mizutani through phone calls in which he told him that his band had become popular in America and that it could even possible for the band to play a revival concert there. The article was amended on 28 October 2021 to state that the phone calls had taken place in late 2019, before Mizutani's passing.[14]

In 2022, the album "The OZ Tapes" was released on the Temporal Drift record label,[15] which was remastered from the original tapes, discovered after Mizutani's passing, under the supervision of former band member Makoto Kubota. Kubota stated in an interview with The Quietus that he plans to remaster all of the albums released under the Rivista label.[16]

On the 28th March 2023, an event called Enter the Mirror: A Celebration of Les Rallizes Dénudés was announced, organised by Temporal Drift, Empty Bottle and endorsed by The Last One Musique. It took place at the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago on the 17th June 2023 and consisted of Les Rallizes Dénudés inspired performances by Cindy Lee, Steve Gunn, Who Is The Witness?, Oui Ennui, Cafe Racer and MANDY, as well as a Les Rallizes Dénudés covers set by John Dwyer with Tom Dolas, Drew St. Ivany and Bill Roe.[17]

On the 26th May 2023, Temporal Drift announced a new album called CITTA' '93, the first all new album in the reissue campaign.[18] It consists of a newly discovered recording of a live performance at Club Citta in Kawasaki on February 17th,1993 and was mixed and mastered by Makoto Kubota. It was released on August 18th, 2023.[19]

• Cope, Julian (2007). "Japrocksampler", Bloomsbury Publishing.

• Official Les Rallizes Dénudés site
• Unofficial Les Rallizes Dénudés site (Japanese)