Die Öwan – Mikawa Ken-Ichi [LP]

Die Öwan’s final cassette release, 1983’s Mikawa Ken-Ichi, shows the band at their most focused, crafting a full on album’s worth of music in their trademark style of DIY experimental punk, bursting with their typical wide range of influences which focus heavily on the sounds of punk, experimental and industrial groups like Crass, Metal Urbain, Wire, Cabaret Voltaire, Throbbing Gristle, and countless others, while simultaneously sounding little like any of them. With a heavy dose of Ramones It’s Alive style “1-2-3-4!’s”, once again Die Öwan transports the listener back to what it would have been like to be a teenager experiencing the diverse musical evolution of the 70s and early 80s, and feeling compelled to continue pushing that evolution forward with music that not only pushed the envelope, but broke convention so much, that it’s taken almost 40 years for people to understand how groundbreaking this band could have been, and for it be made available for most people to hear for the first time. The audio has been remastered from the band’s tapes specifically for vinyl, and the LP comes with a 16 page booklet which reproduces the band’s own Change 2500 Yen fanzine, and includes a Japanese language chronology, photos, and more.

General Speech, 2024