This album existed long before any dwarves spoke strange words on a chequered floor. The second and last album from Japanese dentistry student Junko Tange was originally released in 1981 and is now being re-released. It is and was a force to be reckoned with. It’s hard to believe that a student with limited means recorded this album a good 40 years ago. »Divin« is proto-so-much. Proto-dub techno, proto-Autechre – just the way the drum machine marches through delays on the opening track, stoically, while it whistles and mutates in the background, foreshadowing a sound that has shaped the aesthetics of entire labels (VOD, Staalplaat, Kashual Plastik, etc.) since the early eighties, without which there would have been no Lena Willikens, no Salon des Amateurs, no tape hype. It’s really hard to believe that this album exists. That a young person from so long ago (with what role models??) produced these pieces. Junko Tange aka Tolerance must have simply been brilliant. He created a lo-fi tape industrial sound, with borderline dissociative vocals by Masami Yoshikawa as well as whiplash, total BPM openness and an atmospheric density that almost amounts to horror vibes. His music can compete with the great cinematic works. A true masterpiece.
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Divin
