‘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. But unheard recordings are revealing their lesser-known gifts for melody By 1969 student protests were raging across Japan, as anti-university, anti-war and anti-government movements mingled in strikes and classroom blockades. “Students were getting really violent,” Makoto Kubota recalls of Kyoto’s Doshisha University, leaving his studies in shambles. B