Is Kōenjihyakkei’s Angherr Shisspa the greatest Zeuhl album ever made? It could be. I happen to think it is… although it’s debatable how much that actually counts for. So, any noise created that helps celebrate this excellent 20th anniversary reissue is not just good for the stature of the album but also for Zeuhl in general, as it is itself a largely overlooked genre. ‘What is Zeuhl?’ you might feel justified in asking. Zeuhl is a moody and bass-driven hybrid of jazz fusion, prog rock and chamber music, typically featuring complex compositions which slough off conventional song structures and apply operatic vocals. This form requires a lot, even from virtuoso musicians. In reality though any definition of Zeuhl is a closed loop because this is music that sounds like Magma; and the term means ‘celestial’ in the French band’s imagined ‘alien’ language Kobaïan.
The wide-ranging biography of the drummer behind Kōenjihyakkei, Tatsuya Yoshida – a mainstay of the Japanese underground who is now in his mid-sixties – has a linear thread running through it that leads inevitably to Angherr Shisspa. Zeuhl is a decidedly maximalist music but, before forming the (usually) five-piece Kōenjihyakkei – named after the neighbourhood where he lives – Yoshida’s band Ruins found a way to make something relatively similar with very few ingredients. Through the 1990s, Ruins performed virtuoso two-person drum and bass proggy cubist hardcore; and then Sax Ruins, his noughties sequel that co-exists with Kōenjihyakkei, plough a similarly virtuoso drum and sax punk-jazz furrow. And it’s not like the sax just replaced the bass: the modus operandi of each of his groups makes the most of self-imposed restrictions. The heaviness of Ruins’ propulsion contrasts with Sax Ruins’ relentness jerkiness, even when it hits the machine gun intensity of second album Blimmguass.
Kōenjihyakkei is Yoshida’s dream in technicolour. Where Ruins’ work bursted with excitement and experimentation – some of their tracks were less than a minute long and they trod a fine line between improvisation and rehearsed intricacy – Yoshida now surrounds us with a glorious ecosystem of sound. Every nook and cranny is precisely filled by a group with enough members – all of them contributing to vocals – to pay full tribute to the sound of Magma. The much wider range of sounds available means that, despite the songs being mostly fantastically busy, there is space in them that isn’t there in Ruins: midway through ‘Rattims Friezz’, there’s a sax, drums and bass breakdown that takes the listener inside a slinky rare groove.
For the seasoned Zeuhl traveller though, the standout element on Angherr Shisspa is the singing which is nearly always foregrounded, the interplay between all five members carrying rhythm and melody throughout. Yoshida has explained that he improvises vocals as part of the writing process, then transcribes what works. So ‘Grahbem Jorgazz’ opens portentously with the lines, “Kaizell silbah grahbem jorgazz, bequore yavariss overom zweedo grossyas dhiss” – according to the album’s lyric sheet at least – but there’s something glorious about such apparent import being placed on words with no meaning, puncturing (no doubt unintentionally) Magma’s ‘alien language’ pretence, that would have been so easy to adopt.
All the tracks here have time to develop, though none is longer than nine minutes. First track ‘Tziidall Raszhisst’ opens gently but embarks on an intensely structured journey where, just as you think you are finally entering recognisable terrain, instead you are faced with a weird parping tracked by operatic scatting. Its seven minutes show that Yoshida’s world is one where all time signatures are equal, changing tone and tempo more frequently than even the great Magma side-long pieces it inevitably recalls, as it builds towards an ecstatic peak. This sets the tone for the rest of the album, though the jazz rhythms of ‘Rattims Friezz’ feel more hypnotic and less narrative, and again there’s a sizeable build to a climactic release.
Magma level dynamics are pushed to the limit: ‘Fettim Paillu’ has quiet melodic operatic sections cut short by intense rhythmic vocals matching the beat of the percussion, and ‘Quivem Vrastorr’ a spell of vocal gymnastics where intonations – more scat than Yoshida’s linguistic transcription – tumble up and down with gymnastic, playful drums. ‘Mibingvahre’ is perhaps the outlier, opening and closing with chanting that sounds like a field recording of an ancient rite, bookending some groovy improvised prog where organ washes and bass battle for primacy. And then final track ‘Wammilica Iffirom’ is the most Magma of all, the track here most likely to be mistaken for Christian Vander’s gang. Vocals sound narrative more than overwrought, the track’s length and structure allowing space for changes of pace and for different instruments to take their turn in the limelight and then, towards the end, Yoshida intones in classic Vander style, a passionate spoken/ shouted exhortation. The biggest (ironic) difference between Magma and Kōenjihyakkei, reflecting the difference between his style and that of the jazz-schooled Vander, is the drumming: Yoshida can be an exceptionally funky rock drummer and there are times on this track where he sounds almost baggy.
There are three live tracks added as downloads to this reissue, each of a track from the album, recorded around the time of its release, and which sound meatier than the studio versions, the co-ordination needed to play live adding a visceral precision to even the most abstract passages. It’s post-rock-opera that whets the appetite for a planned return to European stages in May 2025.
Referenced artists
Magma
Magma
It’s tempting to say that Angherr Shisspa is timeless, as it sits outside of any trend beyond its own logic, but really it could only have happened when it did. Tatsuya Yoshida had taken Ruins as far as he could, so his band took Magma’s template and improved on it. If you can live with the relentless peaks and troughs, the tension and release – all these tracks could be about sex or death or first contact – it’s the perfect Zeuhl album and, if you’re new to the genre, the perfect introduction to Zeuhl.
Angherr Shisspa (Revisited) is out now via Skin Graft Records. Kōenjihyakkei tour Europe during May 2025 including 31 May at Cafe OTO, London
