Divin

In much the same way that fellow countrywoman Phew abandoned the sound of punk for electronics between her 1979 debut album and 1981 follow-up, so does Osaka’s Junko Tange strip down to exposed wires and ungrounded buzz on Tolerance’s Divin. Favoring keyboards and sputtering drum machines, the dental student/ deconstructionist takes the example of Yellow Magic Orchestra to a primal extreme. On “Tiez Rekcuz,” she verges on approaching new wave before letting her gear run haywire. When the melody of “1 F Yuragi” threatens to be too cloying, she submerges it until it’s a muffled cry. Most prescient is the epic trepanning of “Pulse Static (Tranqillia),” which anticipates the flickers of minimal techno by a good two decades. As is often the case with timely reissues, there’s a sense of anticipation, of being prescient about our current moment. Seen from one angle, Tange uses electronic gear to make abstract music. At another, Tange learned early on how technology can amplify that acute sense of dread and isolation and somehow got that depression onto tape. Tange has not been heard from since.