In the 30 year history of Alchemy Records, I would say, the most exciting band to appear was the Hanadensha. There was a time when Alchemy Records, along with the venue called Egg Plant, was leading Kansai's underground rock scene, and during that period, the most glorious days were from the late 80s until the early 90s, when quite a number of bands from Kansai, such as Sekiri, Genbaku Onanies, Hanatarash, Auschwitz, Mescaline Drive, Omoide Hatoba, Folk Tales, Subvert Blaze, Rapes, Danse Macabra, Griffin and others had their works released from Alchemy Records.
The scene was so called West Psychedelia. Though it was the heyday of straight styled punk rock (called Beat Punk in Japan) then, in the Kansai district we had so many bands who were heavily inspired by sixties or seventies psychedelic rock and played modernized and louder version of it. Among those bands, the Hanadensha played most loudly and at full blast. Roaring sounds, psychedelically gurging guitar, high speed drum beats braving irregular meter, ground scrubbing bass, and above all, Hira’s vocal, which was very close to a scream but highly delicate and lyrical, was fantastic.
The history of Alchemy Records is not yet over, but I can swear I won’t exclude Hanadensha’s works from the list of my most favorite albums from Alchemy because the loudest, the highest skilled, and the coolest band from Osaka was definitely Hanadensha. Their sound was beyond doubt a pure and genuine rock. It was the finest band.