Masonna's Astro Harshtronism came out way back in 1996 on the short-lived label Anti-Music Records and has been out of print ever since, but I was stunned to recently discover a stash of this record had turned up in some cobwebbed corner of a warehouse of one of our suppliers. If you are a fan of extreme noise from Japan, you are probably a fan of Masonna, who's amplified vocal terror is one of that country's most well-known noise exports, and the two tracks featured on this 8" record are as brutal as his stuff gets.

Side one starts with a brief intro of mindless pop music before exploding into the brain-shredding vocal Armageddon of "Sonic", where Masonna's shrieking, gibbering vocals are amplified and processed through an armada of effects into an ultra-violent barrage of feedback and high-end skree. It's just a couple of minutes long, but this psychotic voice/feedback assault slices through your skull like a swarm of razors, and definitely ranks as Masonna at his most extreme and violent.

The flipside is "Astro Magic", which is basically a more psychedelic take on the blistering harsh tronix on the first side; here, those screeching vocals and wild feedback blasts are treated with all kinds of whooshing cosmic effects and synth noises, sending the abrasive electronic noise blasting through the cosmos, breaking away into brief sections of looping rhythmic sounds and clanking samples, then getting sucked back into a black hole at light speed...there aren't any liner notes or details to be fouind on this release, but after hearing the crazy spaced-out electronic noise on this side, and seeing that title, I have to wonder if Hiroshi Hasegawa (Astro/CCCC) wasn't involved with this recording somehow....

On orange marble vinyl.