Left Ear Australia Vinyl & CDs

Review: Japanese original Minoru Hoodoo Fushimi self released four albums between 1985 and 1992. With this compilation, Australia's Left Ear Records have selected 12 tracks for a double vinyl retrospective. Minoru set out to combine his love of all things funk, with traditional instruments and song from his homeland. His vocals switch between raps about cellular metabolism and haemoglobin, soulful crooning and vocoder. On "Shinz-San" he adds metal guitar to vintage Sugarhill Gang and he goes crazy with his sampler. Scratching in cats, frogs, babies, laughter, giggles, traffic jams, failing ignitions, opera singers and amorous sighs. Meanwhile "Furarete" mixes elephant roars and go-go. Curious oddities from a fogotten hero of the Japanese underground.

Review: Try Googling Influenza Pods in 2022 and you're unlikely to find the work of Bruno De Angelis and Giovanna Gulinello anywhere close to the top of the results. Add Memoire, the title of this LP, and things get even worse, with scores of pandemic diaries on offer for the grisly-minded. However, do a little digging and you'll soon realise these guys were among the pioneering electronic outfits of the late-1970s and 1980s, with this particular record a case in point.

Together the pair became a couple after moving to London, stayed there for a bit before heading back to Italy, where things began to formalise in terms of studio output. Often using recordings of dialogue from British soap operas, strange sounds and funky noises, they create heavily textured, subtly rhythmic and resolutely leftfield pieces that don't immediately invoke other artists and outfits. And there aren't many people you can really say that about.