From Sean Cooper Sent Thu, Apr 23rd 1998, 19:32
a friend of mine just passed a cd my way by a group out of japan called Dumb Type. it's a reissue (on the french les disques du soleil et de l'acier label), and it isn't clear what year it was originally released, but most of the material is from the late '80s/early '90s. although it was performed mostly by a pair of names i'm not familiar with, the whole thing was produced by ryoji ikeda, who also contributed on a number of tracks. far from his minimalist sine-wave meditations, however, these tracks are rich and varied, from weird fusions of electronics untethethered to individual styles (maybe mego-esque in that respect, though less arbitrary), to deep, sprawling, emo-laden atmospherics reminiscent of some of namlook's most introspective material or perhaps terre thaemlitz's _soil_ (particularly the track "love/sex," which is amazing, the kind of track you could easily stand lasting an hour or so). anybody know anything about this Dumb Type? the aforementioned names are toru yamanaka and teiji furuhashi. nice stuff, anyway...recommended. sc