Sonic Flower LP color vinyl rare heavy stoner acid hard psych rock Blue Cheer

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Sonic Flower  - rare color vinyl issue of this cool record on wax - red splatter vinyl  - from limited edition of on Emetic Records.  #85/300.    like new open copy.    hard-to-find and collectible.  own this artifact!

"Originally released in 2003 this long out of print album from Tokyo’s SONIC FLOWER is getting the vinyl treatment for the first time. Hand numbered to 300 copies on marble vinyl. Features the line-up of TATSU (CHURCH OF MISERY, THE GATES), HOSHI (ex-Church of Misery), Arisa, and J.J. (Church of Misery). Total rock music inspired by Cactus, Grand Funk Railroad, Mountain, Sir Lord Baltimore and Captain Beyond."

"Side-stepping his role as bassist for Church of Misery, Tatsu Mikami put together Sonic Flower as a heavy blues rock side-project. Their lone record Sonic Flower, was released in 2003 on Japan’s Leaf Hound Records, and now that the label has been defunct under what were at the time somewhat mysterious circumstances, Sonic Flower has become a kind of fascinating asterisk in the Church of Misery canon. Enter Michigan imprint Emetic Records, who’s already backed reissues of Church of Misery’s Early Works Compilation (also originally a Leaf Hound release) and previously-unreleased Vol. 1 outing (review here), and Sonic Flower now finds release as a limited-to-500 hand-numbered CD and an already-sold-out limited-to-300 marble vinyl. The artwork matches the original, and there isn’t any bonus material included (I don’t think there was anything to include), so Emetic’s Sonic Flower is basically a chance for anyone who didn’t manage to pick up the original while Leaf Hound was operational to do so now. The six tracks total 25 minutes and are entirely instrumental, steeped in hard-jammed ‘70s blues, Cactus being a particular reference point for a song like “Astroqueen” or the off-the-rails opener “Cosmic Highway.”

Production-wise, Sonic Flower’s Sonic Flower has plenty in common with what Church of Misery were doing at that time, which is expected. Joining Tatsu in the band were guitarists Takenori Hoshi (ex-Church of Misery) and Arisa, and drummer Keisuke Fukawa (now ex-G.A.T.E.S.), who’d later be replaced by Church of Misery’s Junji “J.J.” Narita. In 2003, Church of Misery released their split with British stoner heavyweights Acrimony, and the following year saw their ultra-blown-out The Second Coming released, so Sonic Flower’s overall sound is right at home between the two. Keisuke’s cymbals are nowhere near as prominent in the mix as were Junji’s on The Second Coming, and the lack of vocals gives the guitars space to breathe and fill the void with harmonic interplay and soloing. The songs are built around and follow the riffs exclusively, with Tatsu adding funky flourishes in fills between cycles of “Black Sunshine” before the song moves into and out of spacey freakouts and revives its bluesy stomp. It’s a solid 25-plus minutes of grooving, and Sonic Flower didn’t seem to have anything more in mind than that; the unabashed stoner rockness of it being half the appeal. Church of Misery’s singularity of focus on serial killers is absent here, but many of the same musical influences persist – Tatsu being principle songwriter, it stands to reason – and even the closing Don Nix cover “Going Down” is inflected with heady distortion and well-fitting rhythmic heft.

“Indian Summer” into “Going Down” feels a bit like Sonic Flower are doing variations on a theme, but the latter is probably the stronger, the band taking Nix’s original 12-bar structure and beefing it up with persistent bass drum and dueling guitar and bass solos. It makes it that much more of a shame that Sonic Flower never did anything else beyond this, as it would’ve been cool to hear them go back – and if Church of Misery’s penchant for covers is anything to go by, you could imagine they probably would have – and further mine the reaches of blues or Southern rock for material to reinterpret, and also maybe on a full-length tempered some of the heavy groove of these tracks with psychedelic interludes or something of that sort. In any case, it’s hard to feel wistful while Takenori and Arisa are layering wah-driven leads on “Sonic Flower,” however much the quieter beginning of “Indian Summer” might speak to what could’ve been had the side-project continued, since the song and so much of the EP around it seems unrelenting in its forward motion. Newcomers to Church of Misery’s discography will probably find Sonic Flower fits pretty well alongside what that band has become – madman vocals aside – but it’s important to realize how much this EP may have played a role in making that the case. As ever, Tatsu is a master of writing heavy riffs, and in setting a different context for that than some of his followers might be used to, Sonic Flower remains both a fascinating curio for diehards and a cool listen on its own term" - the obelisk

take note fans of White Hills, black Angels, Black Mountain, Gnod, Six Organs of Admittance, Earthless, Dead Meadow, Bardo Pond, Wooden Shjips, Datura, Arc of Ascent, Pharaoh Overlord, Ash Ra Tempel, Amon Duul, Acid King, the Melvins, Sleep, Comets on Fire, Che, Saint St Vitus, Om, High on Fire, Bongripper, Early Man, Mainliner, Mudhoney, Pelt, Circle, Bong, Electric Wizard, Obsessed, Saint Vitus, Hidden Hand, Spirit Caravan, Shrinebuilder, Beaver, Josiah, Los Natas, Nebula, Fu Manchu, Pentagram, Black Sabbath, Kyuss, Blue Cheer, Queens of the Stone Age, Unida, Slo Burn, Desert Sessions, Dozer, demon cleaner, Earth, Sunn 0))), Man's Ruin, All That's Heavy, psychedelic grunge rock stoner metal desert rock etc.

CONDITION: excellent - like new open copy.

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