1.Old punks don't die, they just hi-jack airplanes, retire incognito to the south of France and form primitive avant garage fuzz-busting units with members of Maher Shalal Hash Baz: Doronco Gumo presents the latest project of another of the key members of the legendary Les Rallizes Denudes, Doronco, who played in Rallizes at the legendary Oz Days blow-out and also turns up on Naked Diza Star and Double Heads. This new group features Hiragi Fukuda and Mako Hasegawa of Maher Shalal Has Baz on guitar/piano/vocals and drums/fagot/vocals respectively. The sound balances the idiot-avant stumble punk moves of the Org axis with classic dark Tokyo psych, with fuzz guitar leads and vocals from Doronco that sound one cigarette away from oblivion. There's a decadent, wasted edge to most of the proceedings, crossing the enka/psych divide with songs that orbit the Kazuki Tomokawa school of suave existentialism, high, childlike, almost Reiko Kudo-esque backing vocals from Reina Higa and some great overloaded garage rock moves. A ton of Tokyo heads have been raving about this CD and it's not hard to see why, some of the best post-Rallizes avant punk to emerge from that secretive cabal to date. - Volcanic Tongue2. Doronco is a bass player who is most well known for his stints in Les Rallizes Dénudés, Suishou no Fune and with Keiji Haino. Here he is joined by members of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, a Frenchman and an additional female vocalist who have made an album of sophisticated 70s style downer pop. The band uses vocals, bassoon and trumpet over a see-sawing battle of piano / guitar shrill balanced against warm rhythms that sound suspiciously close to how you want them to. Translated as "Mud Cloud," the name is actually poetic in a Zen beggar wandering monk kind of way. Their avant bar-rock style is not unlike Cinderella's Revenge recorded in the same studio as "Vintage Violence" with the conscious heartbreak of something like "Even Serpents Shine." A bright to bummer, and back to bright narrative flows throughout the album's nine songs. Resequenced to include an additional track not on the Japanese CD, "Old Punks" will nail down something for you that you didn't know needed to be nailed down. LP includes free download. - Holy Mountain