"“Without producing a single phrase, the two distorted guitars became simple “electric sound” generators, and like fish swimming freely in water, they each tear through time in their own fashion. And yet there is a remarkable sense of unity to how they fill the world with electric vibrations. Is there a simpler, more beautiful music than this?
…on this date, with a sensitivity to sound reminiscent of Ayler’s Ghosts, the performance reaches a plateau… Takayanagi’s trio offered the gods of free jazz the most beautiful fruit in existence.” - Yoshiyuki Kitazato

Mass Hysterism in Another Situation captures Masayuki Takayanagi’s New Direction Unit in its final incarnation, at an apex in its development; it also finds Takayanagi, one of Japan’s great iconoclastic artists, at a moment of crucial artistic transformation. Recorded in August 1983 as part of his “Another Situation” concert series, the album features one of the last performances of Takayanagi’s revolutionary and perhaps most famously violent piece, Mass Projection. By this date, New Direction’s line up had been distilled to a compact, searingly hot trio of Takayanagi joined on electric guitar by Akira Iijima and Hiroshi Yamazaki on drums / percussion. Over the course of 40 minutes, the group sustains an uninterrupted, highly charged attack propelled with unrelenting energy. The music is rife with noise and dissonance intruding from both sides; a vortex of sound and fury that begins to slip from even the expansive bounds of free jazz into something almost purely electronic. The trio would perform only four more times, completing the “Another Situation” series with its 24th edition in November 1984. Eleven months later Takayanagi would debut an entirely new modality, one he called “Action Direct”. It completely transformed his approach to guitar and sound in general by embracing an entirely abstract, solo noise music projected through massive, complex sound systems of his own design. Mass Hysterism is perhaps the most powerful link in this part of Takayanagi’s history- a perfect realization and farewell to one of his greatest forms en route to territories even further afield and radical.

Black Editions presents Mass Hysterism in Another Situation remastered and cut to double 45RPM 12” vinyl for maximum clarity and power. Housed in a heavy tip-on gatefold jacket with Pantone spot colors, spot ink pigment foil on gloss film laminate finish as well as printed inner sleeves. Featuring photographs by Tatsuo Minami and newly translated notes by Takayanagi scholar Yoshiyuki Kitazato."

Black Editions, 2023