THE LEGEND OF Les Rallizes Dénudés was arguably stored alive by way of bootlegs — unauthorized recordings, largely of stay live shows, that circulated amongst followers on-line and sparked new curiosity within the band within the 2000s. The supply of those tapes has lengthy been a curiosity, with some insiders speculating that Mizutani, or at the very least somebody very near him, might have been concerned, given the excessive audio high quality of a few of them.
To Temporal Drift, based by two former staff of the reissue label Gentle within the Attic who labored on its Japan Archival Collection, the recognition of these tapes proves the existence of a broad worldwide fan base, and a possible marketplace for new releases.
“The obsession that Rallizes followers have for the band is fairly unimaginable,” stated Patrick McCarthy, one of many label’s founders. “They’re folks which might be extraordinarily devoted, in methods you see with the Grateful Lifeless, the place they must have each article, each model of each bootleg.”
The street to the brand new releases started in 2019, when Kubota traveled to New York to assist with a documentary about an previous good friend, the Japanese folks singer Sachiko Kanenobu, who was taking part in in Central Park. “Everyone who was there — musicians, radio folks — they requested me in regards to the Rallizes. So I stated, ‘OK, one thing is occurring. I’ve obtained to contact Mizutani.’”
After leaving the Rallizes in 1973, Kubota went on to a profitable profession along with his bands Sundown Gang and the Sunsetz, and as a producer. However he had not spoken with Mizutani in nearly 30 years earlier than that summer time. To his shock, his previous bandmate stated he needed to do a “final tour.” Kubota stated that Mizutani additionally denied any involvement within the bootlegs, and expressed a want to lastly launch the Rallizes’ music formally. The 2 had frequent conversations for a month or two, Kubota stated, earlier than their textual content chain went chilly that fall. Later, he realized that Mizutani had died in December 2019, at age 71.
Kubota then started working with Mizutani’s property to kind by way of Mizutani’s archive of recordings; he declined to establish who controls the property, saying solely that it’s somebody who had been near Mizutani for a few years.
