When I made a list not too long ago of the best record labels ever, P.S.F. figured somewhere in the top 10, along with Motown and the Ahmet Ertegun-era Atlantic Records. In the last ten to fifteen years, P.S.F. (“Poor Strong Factory” or “Psychedelic Speed Freaks,” depending on who you talk to) has put out some of the most astounding music from the Japanese underground. I’m not talking about the noise monsters like Masonna or Hijokaidan, but rather the folk-, rock-, acid- and blues-influenced champs who are making inroads into rock that are at least as interesting as anything done by the Germans in the Seventies, or any other nationality in any other time-segment of rock’s chronology you could care to name.

AOR stands for Album-Oriented Rock—the Seventies genre that gave bands like the Eagles (and most of the rest of California rock of the era) legitimacy. One of the largely forgotten kingpins of AOR was the Mark-Almond band—so named for its key members, Jon Mark and Johnny Almond. Mark had been knocking around for years in groups like John Mayall’s band, and Almond was a session musician of a similarly lengthy pedigree. Their first record was, in a way, a blueprint for the way much of their career would go: flashes of some real brilliance surrounded by some of the most maudlin and sugary material ever committed to wax.