Thirsty and Miserable: Fudge/Totsugeki Sensya

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Fudge/Totsugeki Sensya - split

Artist: Fudge/Totsugeki Sensya
Title: split
Release: 2002
Label: 625 Thrashcore

Track List:
1. Fudge - No Racism, No War
2. Fudge - Selfish Rock
3. Fudge - 生存 (Seizon, Existence)
4. Totsugeki Sensya - Reality
5. Totsugeki Sensya - Search for the Sun

Sometimes I like to go on eBay and search for records without anything in particular in mind. I'll often just go to the records section and filter out all the bullshit like easy listening and world music as well as everything that is over a few dollars (if I didn't know I wanted it before I started looking then it really isn't something I want to spend much on) and sort by ending soonest. Every once in a while I'll find a gem amongst a seemingly endless number of Sex Pistols represses and Jefferson Airplane records misclassified as punk. This split by Gunma bands Fudge and 突撃戦車 (Totsugeki Sensya, which transliterates to "assault tank" but I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess it means "tank assault") is one of those gems. The best part about this record, for me anyways, is that I won the auction with a winning bid of $0.01. How's that for some luck?

Here's what 625 has to say about this record...

Gunma City hardcore fighters! My friend Mamada from SHIKABANE is always telling me about these bands from a small town outside of Tokyo called GUNMA CITY. By chance I got into contact with a member of TOTSUGEKI SENSYA and got their demo and it fucking floored me. I couldn't believe that they had been around for a few years without some kind of output. Mamada then told me about FUDGE and we started playing around with the idea of doing a GUNMA CITY comp of some type. This is the product. While FUDGE play a more traditional style of Japanese metallic hardcore (guitar solos, shouted choruses, etc), TOTSUGEKI SENSYA play a mix between CONFUSE and BASTARD. Putting Gunma on the map! (1000 pressed, all on black)

Speaking of Shikabane, expect a few awesome and related posts in the next few weeks.

Since I'm a bit of a dork and am always curious about places I've never heard of before I looked up Gunma City but couldn't find anything. It turns out, according to Wikipedia that "On January 23, 2006 Gunma, along with the towns of Kurabuchi and Misato, all from Gunma District, and the town of Shin, from Tano District, was merged into the expanded city of Takasaki.". So there was a Gunma-machi (town) in Gunma-gun (district) in Gunma-ken (prefecture) at the time this record was pressed but it has since been absorbed by Takasaki which is considerably larger.

The only pictures I could find that were definitely of Gunma-machi were of an old (probably neolithic) burial mound...