Well. Finally got time now, so here goes. First of all though: great thread. Gotta love obscure music.
I already mentioned noise; I always had the greatest trouble finding any noise. Until I discovered a store in some back alley in Rotterdam called V2. It's a store selling obscure music in general. Naturally, that includes noise. I got my Merzbow, **** ESP, Alan Licht CDs and whatever there. Merzbow is definitely my favorite noisician. This man, hailing from Japanese, has presented us with +/- 500 albums/EPs/vinyls by now. It's all quality though. I love it.
They sell a lot more though. I bought some Muslimgauze release there. It's brilliant, the only thing that kept him from getting through to a bigger audience was his sympathy towards the islam, I guess [note: he had nothing to with Al Qaeda or whatever, the man behind Muslimgauze, Bryn Jones, passed away in 1999, aged 38]. Another thrilling record I picked up there is Kiyoshi Mizutani's 'Yokosawa-iri: 12 pieces of mixed soundscape'. It's an album of field recordings, edited later on (only slightly though, it's still field recordings, not music). Beautiful, to say the least.
Anadorei. Well, where to start. Their bandname rocks (@n@l slave), they're chicks, and they're supposed to sound like Melt-Banana. I have never before heard anything by them, but that's because I've never come across ANY CD by them, nor MP3s. Wow. Thus, can't say I really like them, but they're hella obscure.
Envy, wow they're great. What to call it. Screamo, maybe. Think bands like Snapcase, Thursday, maybe Atreyu, but louder and yet more melodic. Great screamer/singer, he gives it his all. I love that band.
Next: Mono. Japanese band, they're somewhat similar to Godspeed You Black Emperor!, but they're less orchestral, more rock. I love they're spun-out instrumentals, they're bliss.
And Kirche of course. Their singer, Noriko Mitose, did the vocals for the vocal track on the Chrono Cross soundtrack. That song enchants me to this very day and is actually the song that got me into Jpop. However, their band is far from famous. I found some MP3s through their site, and they're all amazing. Too bad I can't find their CDs anywhere, it's a pain, really.
More next time.
