Artist: SoSaLa
Title: 1994-Live at CBGB
Format: CD (Limited edition of 100) and digital
Record label: DooBeeDoo Rec
Genre: NO WAVE
(Note: the CD is numbered, autographed, and 24bit fidelity)
Digital and International Releases: January 3, 2025
Distributed Worldwide by CD Baby
Stream here: https://soundcloud.com/sohrab-saadat-ladjevardi/sets/sosala-1994-live-at-cbgb
Buy here: https://doobeedoobizllc.thrivecart.com/sosala-1994-cd/
An Album Review by Dawoud Kringle
Those of you close to Musicians for Musicians and regular readers of doobeedoobeedoo.info will be familiar with SoSaLa (Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi); saxophonist, founder, and leader of the ensemble SoSaLa, publisher, founder, and president of MFM, and music producer. Last year, he released a retrospective studio album titled 1993 that he’d recorded the year of the title (https://doobeedoobeedoo.info/
He has released another retrospective album. This is a live recording of his old ensemble SADATO titled 1994 – Live at the (legendary) CBGB. The tracks were recorded live at CBGB by recording engineer, mixer, and producer Martin Bisi at B.C. Studio in Brooklyn, NY.
SADATO was SoSaLa’s Japanese indie rock band during his time living in Tokyo (between 1984 and 2008). He used the professional name Sadato at the time, which was the band’s name. They were the only social-political performing band in the Japanese indie music scene. They were ahead of their time and had the vision – and balls – to introduce NO WAVE into the Japanese independent rock music scene. Nobody had done this before, and they made it work. It is clear evidence of the skills, talent, and charisma of Masaki Shimizu (fretless bass and backing vocals), Ryo Kato (drums and backing vocals), Toshimaru Nakamura (electric guitar), and SoSaLa (saxophones and vocals in English, German, Japanese, and Farsi) that they made this music accepted in a foreign environment.
Despite critical acclaim and support among the Japanese music community and artistic circles, SADATO was underrated by music critics. Now, Sadato will have the final say in how this unique historical moment is presented and remembered.
It’s worth mentioning that CBGB’s manager, Louise Parnassa Staley, to whom this concert was dedicated, loved their music so much that she invited them to perform twice in the same week. Very few bands (and no Japanese band) could say the same.
The album opens with “Yūrei.” Shimizu’s wobbly ostinato, Kato’s relentless drums, and Nakamura’s dissonance provided a framework for Sadato’s howl of frustration from his saxophone. Yūrei are mythological creatures in Japanese folklore analogous to Western ghosts. Sadato used this analogy to describe how the Japanese ignore foreigners who live there.
This sets the stage for SADATO’s relentless and meticulous explorational war with existential dread and celebration of existential joy. The lyrics explore a vast array of ideas and states of emotion. The listener is drawn into everything from the dread of death exorcised and forced into acceptance to disillusionment with existence, with the notion that you’re born again every day, to a jubilant positivity to counteract negativity.
The whole band is afforded ample opportunity to display their chops. Shimizu’s bass work throughout is genuinely outstanding. His capacity for solid bass lines with immense melodic content is always at the forefront. Kate’s drums are on point, driving the band and adding to the power of the music. Nakamura’s guitar deftly colors the music with genre-defying melodic explorations and jagged feedback. Sadato’s saxophone brings a free jazz / harmolodic sensibility to everything. His voice and vision lead the band and give cohesion to what would otherwise be chaos.
Rarely is any SADATO piece easily categorized in terms of genre. Everything they do is aggressively individualistic. Stylistically, while the band is undoubtedly a NO WAVE band, they have their own concept of what the music should be. Some songs bring unexpected elements of contrasting genres, such as a blues shuffle bass line setting the stage for “Life Drunk.” a tribute song to the UK indie band Gallon Drunk, Or “POSTIV JA” manifests in a framework of a punk/blues / psychedelic rock song form. There are also other songs where SADATO asserts its iconoclastic individuality. On “35 Cents Puppy Sandwich,” Sadato pays tribute to the style-transcending music of Fugazi and its DIY ethics and business practices. The most inexplicable song in the collection is “65.” This is an affectionate tribute to Sadato’s favorite guitar amp, the Fender 65 Deluxe Reverb. What manner of Dadaism was going on in his head to inspire him to write a love song about an amplifier? There is no answer to this, but the ghost of Frank Zappa must be nodding and smiling.
Listening to this album, one relives the days of an earlier age when musicians fearlessly experimented with forms and concepts. Where old rules were broken, and new ones were being written – and broken. Sadato had the vision and balls to introduce No Wave into the Japanese independent rock music scene and make it work. It is clear evidence of Sadato, Shimizu, Kato, and Nakamura’s skills, talent, and charisma that they made this music accepted in a foreign environment.
Retrospectives serve multiple purposes for someone as adventurous and intellectually restless as SoSaLa. One seems to be to pave the way for new and innovative ideas. Knowing SoSaLa, his fountain of ideas is far from running dry. His retrospectives may be preparing the way for new musical ideas to augment his already impressive list of accomplishments.
I look forward to hearing what he does next.
