Fushitsusha

Fushitsusha is a Japanese psychedelic rock band whose blistering, no-holds-barred take on the idiom dismantles rock’s archetypes to arrive at a mind-splitting distillation of what can be accomplished with guitar, bass, and drums. Formed in 1978 by guitarist and singer Keiji Haino with Tamio Shiraishi on synthesizer, the group soon assumed its signature power-trio form, now comprising Haino, bassist Shingo Naruke, and drummer Noriaki Yoshida.

Inspired by early blues, krautrock, and psychedelia, Fushitsusha’s experimental free rock has been called the loudest in the world. Their staggering passage through fried guitar turbulence, dripping feedback, and harrowing fragments of contemplative melodic beauty remains peerless. Clad in the same black monochrome that adorns their enigmatic album covers, Naruke and Yoshida underpin Haino’s incendiary playing, alternately hushed and howled singing, and convulsive onstage theatrics informed by butoh and Antonin Artaud. Fushitsusha gropes through a sonic void, grasping for coherence only to push it to the brink of broken catharsis—with true abandon.