Good morning! Today's Bento Box pick of the week is a gloomy counterweight to an otherwise sunny Thursday morn: ANGEL'IN HEAVY SYRUP
Angel'in Heavy Syrup (エンジェリン・ヘヴィ・シロップ) was a Japanese psychedelic rock band formed in 1990 in Osaka. Emerging from the Japanese noise rock scene, they were influenced by krautrock bands such as Amon Düül II, but drew primarily from psychedelic and progressive rock, resulting in their characteristic ethereal neo-psychedelic sound. After the release of their last album in 2002, the band appears to have fallen into indefinite hiatus status. Alchemy Records (Japan) re-released the band's first three albums as well as a 7" single in 2022 and 2023 as part of the Alchemy Records Essentials Collection.
In 1989, Mineko Itakura (voices, bass) came across Mine Nakao (guitar, voices) at a live house in Osaka, Japan, where HANADENSHA played a gig with the collaboration of a Japanese independent label Alchemy Records and the chairman Jojo Hiroshige.
The founding members of ANGEL'IN HEAVY SYRUP - Mineko, Mine, and later, Yoko Mandrake (drums) - signed Jojo's Alchemy Records (better known as the home to many Japanese noise and experimental artists like Hijokaidan, Balzac, Hanatarash, Masonna, Incapacitants, Borbetomagus, Nihilist Spasm Band and Merzbow) and released their debut album 'Angel'in Heavy Syrup' (1991). This album was also released via a US label, Subterranean Records the following year.
Yoko was replaced by Tomoko Takakura (drums, percussion, flute) and the trio recruited a second guitarist Fusao Toda (guitar) to develop and refine their loud, fuzzy-guitar-based sound and style before recording their second album 'Angel'in Heavy Syrup II' (1993). The new quartet then released their third album 'Angel'in Heavy Syrup III' (1995), and later toured the US with international psych-prog outfit. GONG.
Just before 'Angel'in Heavy Syrup IV' (1999) had been released, Tomoko left the band. ANGEL'IN HEAVY SYRUP fell into indefinite hibernation after their compilation 'The Best Of Angel'in Heavy Syrup' (2002). Fusao later joined another psychedelic rock band ACID EATER, alongside Yamazaki Maso, also known in the Japanoise scene as Masonna.