What we wrote at the time…

The Experimental Improvisers Association of Japan, [EXIAS-J] are a loose collective of musicians and dilettantes who seem to represent an entire and self sufficient scene in one band. Quite distinct from other current stirrings in Japan, they have the avowed goal to ‘deconstruct and reconstruct Japanese music’. Picking up the baton from Masayuki Takanyagi, a lion of the 70’s Japanese underground and one of the key forbearers of the Japanese Noise tradition, EXIAS-J specialise in a free and improvised havoc, with rafts of electronics, feedback and amplified electric guitar distortion. Equally capable of searing noise, and deep, quiet passages though territory at times similar to AMM [one of Instal 03’s highlights]; they are one of the most exiting live acts Japan has spat out in recent years. This is their first European performance.