‘My body ached from the volume’: the mystery and majesty of Japanese noise-rockers les Rallizes Dénudés

The incendiary Japanese group who emerged out of late-60s unrest were suspicious of studios so their legacy was long left to bootleg obsessives. “Students were getting really violent,” Makoto Kubota recalls of Kyoto’s Doshisha University, leaving his studies in shambles. But when his quiet, magnetic fellow student Takashi Mizutani invited Kubota to the first gig by his band les Rallizes Dénudés, their deafening psych-rock became his calling. My body ached.” Les Rallizes Dénudés, which Kubota soon joined, have become the stuff of rock mythology: a mysterious, ever-shifting group whose early use of extreme distortion has won fans ranging from Osees’ John Dwyer to Lady Gaga. Discovering these had generated a cult international fanbase long after the band’s final gig in 1996, and Mizutani and Kubota reconnected in 2019 with plans to reunite – cut short by Mizutani’s death later that year.

In his memory, Kubota is restoring and releasing their music, including an extraordinary lost album. “Students were getting really violent,” Makoto Kubota recalls of Kyoto’s Doshisha University, leaving his studies in shambles. But when his quiet, magnetic fellow student Takashi Mizutani invited Kubota to the first gig by his band les Rallizes Dénudés, their deafening psych-rock became his calling. My body ached.” Les Rallizes Dénudés, which Kubota soon joined, have become the stuff of rock mythology: a mysterious, ever-shifting group whose early use of extreme distortion has won fans ranging from Osees’ John Dwyer to Lady Gaga. In his memory, Kubota is restoring and releasing their music, including an extraordinary lost album.

Months after that first gig, Mizutani’s bandmates left. In late 1969, Kubota recalls Mizutani inviting him to start jamming together. He played intermittently with les Rallizes Dénudés for three years, but he left as his own career began taking shape. But in 1991 Mizutani asked permission to release Mizutani/Les Rallizes Dénudés as one of three albums on the Rivista label, alongside ’67-’69 Studio et Live and ’77 Live. “Rallizes was a live band, not a recording band,” Kubota says, claiming Mizutani couldn’t find producers able to capture their live sound.

By this point Kubota was a well-travelled career musician, and had discovered les Rallizes Dénudés fans across the world. Like brothers.” But soon, Kubota stopped hearing back. In 1976 journalist Aida Akira produced les Rallizes Dénudés sessions at Tokyo studio Big Box. “He was so passionate about Rallizes’ music, and he wanted to introduce it to Virgin,” says Kubota. “He was a good melody maker,” says Kubota.

“Students were getting really violent,” Makoto Kubota recalls of Kyoto’s Doshisha University, leaving his studies in shambles. But when his quiet, magnetic fellow student Takashi Mizutani invited Kubota to the first gig by his band les Rallizes Dénudés, their deafening psych-rock became his calling. My body ached.” Les Rallizes Dénudés, which Kubota soon joined, have become the stuff of rock mythology: a mysterious, ever-shifting group whose early use of extreme distortion has won fans ranging from Osees’ John Dwyer to Lady Gaga. In his memory, Kubota is restoring and releasing their music, including an extraordinary lost album. ‘My body ached from the volume’: the mystery and majesty of Japanese noise-rockers les Rallizes Dénudés