State Children – Bomb Shelter For Money Making

The text below (from riistetyt, June 2, 2012) is lifted from http://www.shit-fi.com/articles/JapaneseNoiseCoreRecords/StateChildren. I'm the original author. There is more to read and images to look at if you follow the link.

State Children “Bomb Shelter for Moneymaking!” flexi (1984 - More 04)



State Children’s one-sided black flexi, recorded in October 1984, is one of the most obscure records of noise-core gems to ever come out. It is certainly one of the most expensive records on the collector's market today. almost no one outside of Japan knows this band. In the intervening years bands like Atrocious Madness and Lebenden Toten have increased the legendary status of the record.

In one sense, I can understand the desirability of this flexi. It includes some of the most charming broken English available on a Japanese record from the 80's. The stark sleeve artwork looks great (though the very flimsy paper stock makes a mint copy difficult to find). It certainly is rare as it comes around once every few years. And the music is some of the most bonkers noise-core ever, surpassing Gai in the “extremely basic” department, with a blinding noise attack sound and the vocals of an insane person. But these qualities unite in a sound that does not strike me as particularly easy to listen to, and the average collector, seeking a rare record with raging tunes, would probably be disappointed by the “acquired taste” this music engenders.


The record begins with an explosion, followed by sirens and a voice announcing what seem to be evacuation orders in Japanese. Thin, high-pitched feedback rises from beneath the sirens. A very basic bass line quickly begins, accompanied by the rantings of a gang of lunatics, who shreik, caterwaul, moo, and grunt for 20 seconds or so. I get the feeling they are trying to express how utterly insane nuclear war is. Or maybe that paying $800 for this flexi is even more insane than nuclear war.

Once the music actually starts, it’s a fairly tawdry affair. Throat-wrenching, mic-swallowing screams, mosquito-buzz guitar, and bargain-basement bass and drums. I’d say that drummer Zero got his name when the other band members calculated how many time changes his abilities could accommodate. That guitar sound is even more noisy/fuzzy/WTF than Confuse’s or Gai’s. It is more like ambiance than actual riffing. I defy anyone to discern the chord changes. Only the bass seems to change notes once in a while. Really, it must be heard to be believed because despite all the noise, the “songs” are memorable. No one would confuse State Children with Confuse or Gudon.

State Children, unlike many Japanese hardcore bands of the era, seemed actually to espouse political beliefs. Their pacifist sentiment comes across as more than just sloganeering, though one would be hard-pressed to say that their music spreads the message well. Still, they seem more political than Gai or even Confuse. A short write-up of the band from before the flexi was released, along with lyrics to one song, and a note from bassist Death (one English word: “Lydon”) appeared in the first issue of a Japanese fanzine called 100 Club. This zine is clearly antiwar and includes an article on various nuclear disarmament campaigns around the world. I can’t read Japanese, but the piece on the ‘Children seems to indicate a few bits of trivia: there were at least two drummers during the year and three months the band existed (from formationed ‘til clashed); the existence of two tapes is mentioned; the flexi’s original planned title was “Fighting for Power Politics”; and they took influence from Discharge,Crass,Disorder and chaos uk.