Les Rallizes Dénudés

Forgive me: I'm going to stumble through this one.

Les Rallizes Dénudés is extremely odd. They came together, under the stewardship of frontman Takashi Mizutani (水谷孝), in Kyoto, in the late 60s, as a bone-breakingly noisy, rattly ensemble that was as invested in performance art as it was music, perhaps in a way similar in ethos to, say, Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground's Exploding Plastic Inevitable project. Seemingly, though, they kicked the theatrical component to the side after not too long and became, for lack of a more precise descriptor, a rock band.

Super militant group of dudes, too. One of the members was involved in the 1970 highjacking of Japan Airlines Flight 351, and Mizutani was invited (right word?) to participate as well. Hardcore Japanese Red Army communists.

Their politics aside, their music is insane, a slurry of minor-key ambling folk, groove-obsessed jamming, psycho surf rock, stoned and brittle drone, and an intimidating iciness, a blank nihilism. It's intense.

They never really recorded anything in a studio, and they didn't perform much over the thirty or so years that they were "together," but there is plenty of aural evidence of their existence out there, trust. If you are so inclined—and you ought to be—you should at least dip a toe in, see if anything bites you.