CD Review by Bruce Lee Gallanter (Downtown Music Gallery, August 21, 2025)
SoSaLa with TOSHIMARU NAKAMURA / MASAKI SHIMIZU / RYO KATO – 1994 – Live at CBGB (DooBeeDoo Worldwide Music; USA) Featuring Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi (a/k/a SoSaLa & Sadato) on tenor & soprano saxes & vocals, Toshimaru Nakamura on electric guitar, Masaki Shimizu on fretless bass, and Ryo Kato on drums. Recorded at CbGb’s in January of 1994 by Martin Bisi.
Swiss-born saxist/vocalist/composer & musical activist, SoSaLa, has long been working in different bands of varied genres, as well as dealing with justice through activism. I know of Japanese guitarist Toshimaru Nakamura since he has been a longtime part of the Erstwhile/Onkyo scene. Fretless bassist Masaki Shimizu was also a member of the Sadato band with SoSaLa, releasing five records between 1989 and 1996.
The New York No Wave scene existed from around 1977 until 1980 and featured bands like DNA, the Contortions, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks and Mars. Its brutal noise elements influenced quite a number of future punk, noise and new wave bands around the world.
The No Wave influence seems to be at the center of the storm for this band and release. “Yurei (Ghost)” opens with a throbbing bass pulse, harrowing effects-laden guitar, SoSaLa’s disturbing, brutal vocals, and sax sounds in the distance. SoSaLa sounds like a preacher, bellowing out his observations about the tortured lives we are living through.
SoSaLa is angry and letting it out here, his band punk-rocking slowly, churning, pounding, throbbing… Mr. Shimizu’s rubbery fretless bass is often at the center of these throbbing, post-punk diatribes.
In the mid-1980s, I caught many of these post-no wave, post-punk bands like Ritual Tension, Live Skull, Scornflakes, and Cop Shoot Cop. This is what comes to mind here as I listen to this disc. The music here is very focused and much tighter than you might imagine; nothing sloppy in the least. Toshimaru Nakamura, who later quieted down for his Erstwhile records, takes a number of strong, spirited guitar solos as SoSaLa does on sax. SoSaLa switches to soprano sax on “Tavalod,” singing in an odd language, the angry vibes continue. SoSaLa sings in Farsi, the Iranian language, which he mentions as being the “number one enemy of America” in a song called “35 Cent Puppy Sandwich” which is dedicated to Fugazi, one of the most popular of all hardcore punk bands.
Although the vibe here is unsettling and at times disturbing, it is also heartfelt in describing what many of us feel about the injustices of life then and now as well. I lived throughout and dug this era of Creative Music in many ways, way back when. I do not listen to much of this music today, but I can still feel the surge of adrenaline that pumped through my/veins. Historic and timeless as well.
