All posts by Adam Reifsteck

About The Tracks

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1. Vor Geschlossener Tur (In Front of a Closed Door)    

The lyrics / spoken words are in German, SoSaLa’s favorite language. In 1994 he felt that his life in Tokyo was kind of boring and going nowhere. Every day he felt like he was standing in front of a closed door waiting to see it open. It was a lonely time for SoSaLa,  and he had a difficult time communicating and socializing with Tokyoites.

SoSaLa: soprano sax, organ & vocal. Mark C: guitar (right channel). Toshimaru Nakamura: guitar (left channel). David Motamed: bass. James Lo: drums

2. I’m Blind  

This song tells of SoSaLa’s dismay for apathetic people who unquestioningly believes in the status quo. In the song’s imagery, the only way to intrude into their mental ignorance is by shooting at them with a water gun.

SoSaLa: soprano sax & vocal. Mark C: guitar (r/c). Toshimaru Nakamura: guitar (l/c). David Motamed: bass

3. Dadada Dadada Daaa     

This shows SoSaLa’s love for Dadaism. SoSaLa feels that American politics lack wit and humor.

SoSaLa: soprano sax & organ. Mark C: guitar (r/c). Toshimaru Nakamura: guitar (l/c). David Motamed: bass. James Lo: drums. Peter Gordon: tenor sax.

4. Vor Deiner Tur (In Front of Your Door)          
This instrumental track evokes the story of SoSaLa imagining a fictitious person who he tries to meet, but in vain, because the door to the apartment was closed all time.

SoSaLa: organ, Mark C: guitar (r/c), Toshimaru Nakamura: guitar (l/c). James Lo: drums. Peter Gordon: tenor sax.

5. So What    

When SoSaLa was in NY in 1993, he expected New Yorkers to be (in contrast to Tokyoites) more communicative, critical, liberal, and emancipated. He was disappointed to learn that New Yorkers are not very different from Tokyoites in this respect. The atavistic aspect of New York City was a shock to him. He was also disappointed with the music scene in New York. This trilingual (English, German, Farsi) track expresses these sentiments

SoSaLa: soprano sax & vocal. Mark C: guitar (r/c). Toshimaru Nakamura: guitar (l/c). David Motamed: bass.

6. Omar Khayyam in New York    

Another multi-lingual track (English and Farsi), SoSaLa expresses his deep respect for Iran’s culture and history. In this song he imagined Omar Khayyam (1048-1131: famed Persian astronomer, mathematician, and poet) being in modern day New York and how he would fit in.

SoSaLa: flute & vocal. Mark C: guitar (r/c). Toshimaru Nakamura: guitar (l/c). David Motamed: bass

7. You Want to Be a Sex Star         

This song expresses SoSaLa’s distaste of how human sexuality is shown off, misused, degraded, and commercialized in daily American life.

SoSaLa: flute & vocal. Mark C: guitar (r/c). Toshimaru Nakamura: guitar (l/c). David Motamed: bass.

8. Khodahafez (Good Bye)  

The lyrics of this track (in English, German, Japanese, and Farsi) are a metaphor for dismissing people who need too much time to make essential decisions. With the state of the world being what it is, SoSaLa believes that doing nothing and staying passive are unacceptable.

SoSaLa: vocal. Mark C: guitar (r/c). Toshimaru Nakamura: guitar (l/c). James Lo: drums. Peter Gordon: jaw harp.

Liner Notes

SoSaLa

Liner Notes by Mark C (NYC 9.11.22)

In 1979, I was making the underground punk scene In San Francisco.  I saw the Dead Kennedy’s, Negative Trend, the Dills, Flipper and – from LA – The Germs, the Bags and the Screamers.

I also caught some early British bands like the Fall, Gang of Four, Public Image, and the Clash. As I was digesting the evolution of punk into post-punk, out of nowhere comes Eno’s ground- breaking compilation of New York’s premiere No Wave artists, No New York. I was stunned by this conceptual re-invention of the punk aesthetic.

I made a quick visit to the Big Apple and caught one of the best club-shows I have ever seen: Suicide and Teenage Jesus and The Jerks at Max’s Kansas City.  Within a few months my band had packed up our belongings and headed to the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

A couple of years later Live Skull reared its swollen head. And though I had previously, played in a No Wave influenced band called Body, Live Skull’s dark racket leaned more on the drama and cinematic atmosphere of post-punk. Like No Wave bands we played short, highly charged sets geared to provoke the audience; but we explored noise mainly as a harmonic element to contrast and toughen our melodic and rhythmic content.

Recently I had begun to feel, at least as far as official recordings, I had maybe missed my chance to dig deeper into the noisy abstraction central to No Wave, while it was still fresh in my mind. Then – right on cue – SoSaLa, who lived at that time still in Tokyo, Japan, and calling himself Sadato, appears with tracks from an improvised recording session from 1993 that I and another Live Skull-er, James Lo, had participated in.

Along with SoSaLa (on soprano sax, vocals, organ and flute) the intriguing line up included myself (on electric guitar / Live Skull / o13 / Spoiler / Int’l Shades / Body), James Lo (on drums / Live Skull / Chavez / Slash Orchestra), Peter Gordon (on tenor sax and Jews harp / Love of Life Orchestra), David Motamed (on electric bass / Das Daman, Cell, The Royal Arctic Institute), Toshimaru Nakamura (on guitar / SADATO / DATAI 99), who joined Sadato from Tokyo. To top it off the sessions were recorded and mixed by my good friend Martin Bisi at BC Studio in Brooklyn – where Live Skull had worked extensively in the 1980’s.

Hearing the eight tracks for the first time since ’93, knocked me out! I was struck by how much the core sound is indebted to the abstract and chaotic aggression of No Wave – albeit re-interpreted fifteen or so years after the birth of the original movement. I was excited by how energized and focused the improvised playing is; that No Wave is the common thread we each, individually latched onto, as a meeting ground for our diverse musical tastes and backgrounds.  As ringmaster, SoSaLa’s minimal but inventive directions got us going, but the color, texture and the mood of the riffs came from some dark corner in each of our psyches’ where we had stored away the big lessons of No Wave.

Unfortunately, due to his busy life in Tokyo SoSaLa wasn’t able to continue this music project until now, by arranging the release of the CD.

Sit back and… hmmm, no – get up and stomp around to these free form noise romps, as we endeavor to spark up the post No Wave demons in 1993.