Zankyo UK Releases Tokyo Post-Rock Instrumentalists te’s Fifth Album

Zankyo Record is possibly the coolest name in Japan’s indie guitar scene. It’s a powerhouse that sticks two-fingers up at mainstream rock music, and instead carves its own route, nourishing artists that posses a certain sound and mentality, and in turn creates its own little niche in the market. And now the label’s going international by setting up Zankyo UK, based here in London.

Amongst Zankyo UK’s first releases is the blinding new album from te’ (or té, take your pick). However, you won’t be finding it in any shops. Instead if you want to sample it or buy it, you’ll have toddle over to Zankyo UK’s bandcamp page. There, it’s available to buy on vinyl (including a digital copy) for £14, or just digitally for £11 and in nearly any format you desire (MP3, FLAC, etc). The Japanese version (which is the same but with all song titles in Japanese) is available from iTunes. No CD though. CDs aren’t very indie.

The album’s a fantastic demonstration of Japanese post rock and instrumental music. With the likes of LITE, MONO, toe and even Boris, to an extant, already carving their place in the UK, is there room for te’? Absolutely yes. The album, which we’ll just shorten the title of to ‘Therefore‘ (see below for the full name), is track-after-track of energy, madness and expression – all without a single word being spoken. That said (hah), their track titles are longer than most pop song lyrics… Check out their bandcamp page and have a listen to the album in full. Here’s some information on ‘Therefore‘.

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Inappropriately Long Album Title: Therefore, the illusion of density breach, the tottering world “forget” tomorrow

Inappropriately Long-winded Tracklisting:
01. The pleasure of life is the “inoculation” of death and the raw power with which we walk to the end (3:34)
02. Magic smoulders in the depths of optimism as the remnant of “sin” conceived by the collective unconscious of a million people (3:44)
03. Realize that morality is a device of power, and “shackles” the ultimate freedom of the people (4:59)
04. With the fluctuation of a “string”, is spun a pattern of diversity, so the transient ensemble plays (4:06)
05. The seeker, the inhabitant of the chromatic scale world, wandering in the relative events of the “middle tier” (5:04)
06. A honeymoon of “particles” in the obscure is the mortal coil of my sparkling, momentary existence (4:08)
07. Having fun at the boundary of the continuous and the discontinuous, the thread of life “sacrifice” a plaything (3:25)
08. “Convulsive” beauty in sound is the horror of the body beyond the idea to visit the wild (4:27)
09. The dream world does not fear the “censorship” of gravity as the ethereal body breaks through from the closed inside (4:00)
10. I am a dip in the river. The current flows through but ripples remain. The “dynamic” order (7:54)
11. Only the obstinate roar to reject money violates the taboo. “Shout” in meditation (1:21)

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Here’s the video to ‘Magic smoulders in the depths of optimism as the remnant of “sin” conceived by the collective unconscious of a million people’: