Reissue of this Japanese early '70s performance group. The group's name is literally the icons for a "circle," "triangle" and "square," with "Maru Sankaku Shikaku" substituting as a translation for those images. Circle Triangle Square were a painted bunch of commune rockers and percussion tribe second to none, whose random bells, flute and remedial tea-tray flailings were still more like the Godz or Nihilist Spasm Band than the deep theta-space obliterations of Taj Mahal Travellers. Led by future Murahatchibu drummer Sahuro "Kant" Watanabe, CTS were part of an elite bunch of Shinjuku Futen bands who actually made it onto record. Digitally remastered. Includes a 16-page booklet with notes by band leader Sahuro "Kant" Watanabe. Contains the original LP artwork.
"Unlikely triple CD reissue of this amazing Japanese underground obscurity: Maru Sanaku Shikaku aka Circle Triangle Square, were a radical free-improvising street theatre ensemble founded by Sakuro Watanabe in 1970 and featuring a rotating ensemble of musicians that included Reck and Chiko Hige of legendary Japanese No Wave groups 3/3 and Friction. Disregarding skill or technique, the group play extended acid jams that marry the cultic feel of classic Kraut séances with a goofy Familiar Ugly approach to joyful noise and the kind of abstruse musical strategies that would reconcile the higher-minded drone of Taj Mahal Travellers with the total musical freedom of NNCK and The Godz. It’s mind-boggling to think that these studio recordings came out in 1973 as they sound completely contemporary, taking freak folk modes and radically deconstructed rock jams and extrapolating them to the moon. There are ginchy guitar jams that come over like Tom Rapp jamming Corky’s Debt To His Father, percussion pile-ups and soft lunar ragas that are pure Tower Recordings and the kind of massively dislocated spontaneous psychedelia – complete with mind-phasing F/X and massed vocal chants – that would link them to a tradition that runs through Group Ongaku, East Bionic Symphonia, Marginal Consort et al. A phenomenal set that turns linear underground histories on their head. Highly recommended." Volcanic Tongue