Tapes+

Trust High Rise to release a live/outtakes cassette with better sound quality than their debut album. (Note: it’s still murky.) This one originally landed in 1986, was reissued by High Rise leader Asahito Nanjo on his La Musica imprint a decade later and was finally bumped to CD (with extra tracks) in 2014. It consists of material from their Kansai tour of 1985, and studio material recorded alongside High Rise’s contribution to Alchemy Records’ Renkinjutsu compilation, and it’s great – while they spend much of the set in overloaded, ‘motorpsycho’ garage-punk mode, “Orange Desire” is surprisingly tender, and some of the riff action suggest a little more familiarity with countercultural heft like The Deviants than originally expected. Tapes+ offers another angle on the first few years of this sainted trio’s lifespan.