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Documenting the band’s final era, when hardcore gigs in Sapporo were banned, and still had to be organized in private recording studios with seating. Before bands like Gai and Confuse existed on the opposite end of Japan, Real Control shows Deef diving into a totally raw and abrasive hardcore style, issuing a challenge for bands to leave the typical sounds of their peers in the dust, and replace it with something more fitting of the anger and frustration of cold war era, and if you weren’t going to, their opening salvo chanting the mantra “We Kill All Punk Rock Heroes” proved that they would. Real Control contains the second tape in its entirety, as well as their unreleased 1983 session recorded live at Studio Puff, which shows the band at their rawest, most unhinged, and most furiously hardcore, and at the time, more raw than most any band on the planet. The audio has been specifically remastered for vinyl and sourced from the original master tapes. The LP includes a booklet with color photos, flyers, and liner notes and history in both English and Japanese.
Our take: Real Control is the second (and last) in General Speech’s series of LPs collecting the recorded works of the obscure early 80s Japanese hardcore band Deef. While all of the first LP, 脳 (Nou), was recorded in 1982, Real Control captures the band in 1983, by which time they’ve matured considerably. Not that they’ve abandoned hardcore here; in fact, Real Control sounds even more hardcore, of a piece with the legendary Japanese hardcore recordings surfacing in 1983 like Kuro’s Fire, the Great Punk Hits compilation, etc. The Real Control tape, which appears as the a-side of this LP, finds Deef’s music exploding into technicolor, the band mastering a wider range of tempos and rhythms and their riffs becoming more creative, distinctive, and memorable. Even the singer sounds more dynamic, moving between growling, shouting, and screaming, and the recording is great, with a powerful drum sound right at the front of the mix. On the b-side, we get another strong live recording, capturing the band in similarly confident form. This time the mix focuses on the vocals, and the singer’s charisma is evident. You could sneak any of these songs onto the Outsider compilation and they’d fit just fine. As I said in my write-up for 脳 (Nou), I think both volumes of this Deef collection are essential, but Real Control I’d particularly recommend Real Control if you’re a fan of Kuro, LSD, the Execute, and the nastier end of 80s Japanese hardcore.