摩天楼 (Matenrou)

Intro

摩天楼 (Matenrou) was a short-lived kurofuku-kei band that existed from 1990 to mid-1992. It is notable for having Mana and Közi as members, before they formed MALICE MIZER.

Matenrou is surrounded by myth and misinformation. I myself have discovered some “shocking” truths and debunked some myths about this band’s discography, all will be explained on this page.

 

History

Matenrou was formed in 1990 by vocalist KAIE, who had connections to the Japanese goth scene, and drummer JUN.
Before that Mana and Közi were members, there was another guitarist and bassist in the band.
This unnamed guitarist and bassist’s names were never known! JUN wrote on his website that they asked to remain anonymous afterwards, not connected to the band.
The four-piece lineup with KAIE, JUN, and two unknown members never performed any lives. They also never released any music.

Somewhere in 1991, probably very late, the two unnamed members left, and Mana joined on bass, Közi on guitar, and KENICHI on guitar.
They performed their first live, and only live of 1991 on the 22nd of December, at 原宿RUIDO (Harajuku).
It wasn’t a “oneman” (live with only one band), but it was part of a big event with many bands, just like all of Matenrou’s live performances.

Throughout early 1992, they only had 5 live performances before disbanding, that all were part of events.
Only one of these lives was recorded, the one on the 28th of April, 1992 at 市川CLUB GIO (Ichikawa).
This was included on the “NERVOUS NIGHT” video tape which released on the 18th of july that year.
Matenrou also released a handful of flyers advertising their live schedules, maybe just two or three kinds.

After 摩天楼 (Matenrou) disbanded, KAIE formed the band “Düne××××” in 1996 after a break(?) from the music scene, and JUN formed the band “翡翠” or “HISUI” in 1994, also after a short break. 翡翠 (HISUI) remained active until 2002, with moderate success.

KENICHI immediatly formed a new band after 摩天楼 (Matenrou) disbanded, called “Jesus+Christ” in May of 1992, but left after just four months. In September that year, he formed “KNEUKLID ROMANCE”.

Mana and Közi noticed their musical visions were similar, so decided to bless the world by staying together after 摩天楼 (Matenrou) disbanded, and forming MALICE MIZER in August of 1992, with Mana going to guitars like before Matenrou. They were quickly joined by Tetsu, Yu～ki and GAZ.

Live Schedule:

1991.12.22 – 原宿RUIDO (Harajuku RUIDO) – 1st Live
1992.01.15 – 目黒鹿鳴館 (Meguro ROCKMAYKAN)
1992.02.11 – 横浜CLUB24 (Yokohama CLUB24)
1992.03.24 – 高円寺LAZY WAYS (Koenji LAZY WAYS)
1992.04.28 – 市川CLUB GIO (Ichikawa CLUB GIO) – Recorded for “NERVOUS NIGHT”
1992.07.18 – 市川CLUB GIO (Ichikawa CLUB GIO) – Last Live, VHS Release Concert

Demo tapes? No, all fake!

For the rest, Matenrou released or recorded NOTHING.

Then why is it that supposedly, they released two demo tapes, that are freely available on YouTube, and even sometimes on sale second hand, for crazy prices?
Because these demo tapes are very old fakes, made up tapes.

Theory: Somewhere in the mid-to-late 90s, when MALICE MIZER was becoming popular, some second-hand shops or sellers who wanted to cash in on the popularity of the band created these to sell to unknowing fans for high prices. Eventually, these fakes got duplicated over and over again by more and more copiers and bootleggers, which made these fakes so widespread. They got bought by foreign (non-Japanese) fans, ripped, put on YouTube/etc, and then it became widely believed information.

Fact: The thing is, these demo tapes were never made by the band!

This is what’s on them:
The U-RA-GI-RI・・・ demo tape is just an audio rip of the same song performed live on the NERVOUS NIGHT VHS, without any modification, but in extremely low quality. It’s nothing more.

The self-titled 摩天楼 (Matenrou) tape actually contains two songs not even created by Matenrou! Some bootlegger copied two tracks from a super rare and unknown demo tape by the very short-lived 1993 visual-kei band “Diss-CRY”, and thought it would never be found out. Well, nobody found out, until I bought the Diss-CRY demo tape out of my love and curiousity for early 90s unknown indies bands, and was flabbergasted to find the supposed “Matenrou” songs on them, but in high quality. At first, I thought someone accidentally swapped the tape of my Diss-CRY tape with a Matenrou tape, but then I asked a friend of me who also had Diss-CRY to rip his copy of the tape, and turned out to be the same songs too! So no mistake here…. Also, the two titles written on the Diss-CRY tape correspond to the lyrics sung by the vocalist (the same words get repeated). And as final proof, the vocalist of the two songs has the same voice as the other bands of the vocalist of Diss-CRY… So it’s him.

Then, were do the cover images of the two Matenrou demo tapes come from? One is a direct copy of a part from a Matenrou live flyer, and the other one maybe comes from another flyer I haven’t seen yet, or it is made in a similar style than MALICE MIZER’s “SADNESS/SPEED OF DESPERATE” promotional demo tape. (It uses the same statue, but with text added).