Yes, you guessed it, you canny, perspicacious Terminal Sound Nuisance reader, there was no fooling you after years of educating yourself, with intensity and religious-like fervor, in this honourable place of learning, you knew what a record entitled Soul of Soya would entail: Isolation were indeed a vegan band. Or at least did their best to look like one. And not just once but twice since their second Ep - or at least presumably since its songs were recorded in 1999 as opposed to those on Soul of Soya that were recorded in 1998 - was graced with the name Love, Peace and Soya. It makes me smile to imagine a faithful 2020's masculinist coming across these records and shrieking in horror, repulsed like a small-time vampire sniffing garlic powder in front of a band proudly arguing that soya - yes, soya, Real Men's arch nemesis, I mean, have you ever seen a Real Man, like a skinhead or a Madball fan for example, eat a soya-based yogurt, or any yogurt in fact? - is a viable, ecological food source in the face of meat overconsumption. The stuff of nightmares. Proto-wokery gone mad that will have your son grow tits and question great historical heroes like Napoléon, Churchill or your great-uncle Robert.
I became acquainted with Isolation when decorticating DIY Records' discography on my favourite porn site Discogs. The Tokyo label actually released a tape version of Soul of Soya in collaboration with the small label Enemy of the Sun that must have been run by a member of the very underappreciated OrDER for reasons that will be elucidated later on. The present vinyl version appeared on Osaka's Radical East Records, a label that was heavily specialised in USHC style bands, the massive clue being that they released an Ep of 25 Times Ta Life. An odd connection on the surface to say the least. In any case Isolation cannot have been active for very long since, beside their two Ep's, even their appearances on compilations happened in 1999 and 2000. In fact, I would infer that, more than your usual, classic, conventional punk band, Isolation might have been something of a side-project instigated by punks involved in Result and OrDER.
The lineup of Isolation included Miyake on guitar who had the same job in Result and Filth Chain (a short-lived project with members of Result and OrDER) and even CFDL according to Discogs; Bunta on vocals also played the guitar in OrDER, was also part of Filth Chain and would eventually be involved along with Isolation's second singer Takemai in Turtle Island, a rather big post-rock/punk/world-music orchestra that makes music far beyond my tiny hardcore punk mind. A man has to know his limits and anything that has bamboo flute is clearly off. The compilation Ep 無関心 = 自滅 / Apathy = Self Destruction, including Isolation, Result and OrDER (along with Tomorrow, a hardcore band singing in Italian that I have never bothered to check out but probably should) reflects the strong ties between these Aichi bands.
That's for context but what about the music? And why is there absolutely no artwork and visuals included on the Soul of Soya page on Discogs? Unusual, innit? Japanese punk and the myriad of scenes it is made of are often seen as self-sufficient and rather insular, not meaning they are separated from the rest of the world but that they are, to an extent, autarkical, which may sound counterintuitive when one takes into consideration the boundless love and respect many Japanese bands express for specific foreign genres and bands (how many times has Doom being replicated over there?). In Isolation's case, it is fair to say that, instead of referring to a specific bunch of bands, they encapsulate the mood of a time and the relation the anarchopunk spirit and aesthetics entertained with the 90's. In other, more palatable terms I mean to point out that Isolation didn't play d-beat or crust. I know, I know, I should have put a trigger warning for our more sensitive readers.
Although the band undeniably came very late to the party (the recording is from 1998), any educated ear should be able to deduce that Isolation were profoundly a 90's anarcho hardcore band influenced by their international peers. If you count the traditional male and female dual vocals, the fast thrashing riffs, the speed, the hooks, the direct political messages and the intensity, not to mention some melodic and epic moments, it is fair to say that Isolation definitely spent nights browsing through and listening to the Flat Earth Records and Nabate catalogues. Disaffect and Sedition would be the ones that immediately come to mind but early Unhinged, Jobbykrust and I suppose late 90's LIFE and Mental Disease, because of the context and the unique Japanese distorted sound and ferocity, must get mentions. And I cannot think of that many bands then and there who displayed such love for Disaffect and the likes and I therefore have to admit that Isolation speak to the old heart or rather to a determinate room inside my brain where the memory of listening to the Scots for the first time still lingers.
If you scoff at and disregard the fast 90's anarchopunk style, Soul of Soya will not be to your liking (and neither will Love, Peace and Soya it goes without saying) but if you have already reached your 50's and crave for a warm madeleine de Proust then look no further and take your old Profane Existence shirt out of the closet (you know, the one that no longer fits).
Soul of 90's anarchopunk
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