"LOVER'S ROCK," the masterpiece album released a year after MUTE BEAT's 1987 debut. The band's profile was raised by the fact that mixer Izumi Miyazaki (Dub Master X) — a sound staffer at Harajuku's Pithecanthropus Erectus, which opened in 1982 and was the cutting edge of pre-bubble Japan, the very ignition point of the country's club culture — was counted among its members as dub engineer, by their live performances at Pithecan, and by the synergy with "Tokyo Soy Sauce," the event launched in 1986 around four bands — S-KEN & THE HOT BOMBOMS, JAGATARA, MUTE BEAT and Tomatos — that showcased the new sound of Tokyo.
The jacket uses a photo of the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island in the United States, site of the 1979 meltdown, and, as if echoing that cover image, the album includes the classic B3 "Kiev no Sora" (sample3), written in response to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster — delivering a powerful message. Nine tracks in all. Amid an album full of classics, the experimental, minimal hand-played dub engineer track A5 "RHYTHM TRAX" is equally captivating.
Cutting by Dave Turner @ CURVE PUSHER in the UK. Includes inner sheet, obi and liner notes (Takeshi Fujikawa). (Original Japanese text by COMPUMA)