Portray Heads - s/t

Definitive double LP retrospective that collects together all known (and even more unknown!) recordings by Japanese minimal electronic trio, Portray Heads, which actually adds up to a surprisingly large amount of music. Prior to this, there were only two official releases in existence, 7"s stemming back to the mid 80s which were comprised of just five tracks. Hats off to Minimal Wave & Bitter Lake, then, for their archival work in unearthing a further nine songs, which rounds this off into an impressively robust document. There's a big European influence here that, for me, puts the band a little outside of the Vanity orbit, they're a little more histrionic (dark wave!), less metallic, more SM Nurse, Nine Circles et al then, say, fellow countrymates Sympathy Nervous. A few of these tracks are labeled 'demos', which is funny cos you'd not know unless you were told. All minimal wave should sound like a demo, surely? What is a 'demo' in this context? Honestly, this kind of music is better when it sounds rougher, instinctive, when ideas are being realised in real time. Compare the demo of Industrial Eye to the (i presume?) studio version - it highlights why these types of release are necessary. Nascent expressions via developing technology, the players learning as they go. The true appeal of DIY action! Limited to 999 copies (someone call the cops!).