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Osaka's recent Harsh Noise and War Metal Fest dressed to IMPRESS.

This past weekend in Osaka there was a real rager of an event held - the NWN!/Hospital Fest - that I did not attend. I had very high expectations for it, but alas, my schedule simply didn’t allow it.

NWN!/Hospital Fest is the combination of rosters from 2 record labels: Nuclear War Now! Productions, which focuses on extreme metal generally but real mean, raw Black Metal in particular, and Hospital Productions, who have a penchant for harsh noise and sonic experimentation that isn’t easily called music but is… enticing.

So they teamed up and got the likes of Blasphemy and Masonna (O_O;) onto the same bill, and went pretty hard in the whole preparation and production. For like a year this thing was looking like it was gonna be pretty great and, admittedly, I kinda dragged my feet on buying tickets which partially resulted in my scheduling problem.

Yup, that appears to be Kim Jong Il on the big screen in front of the devilish masses in Osaka. I can guarantee you no one is worshipping him.

As far as I can tell, they completely knocked it out of the park. Packed the house. Blew the doors off. Feeds across social were filled with folx form Germany, Chile, Sweden, The US, China, South Korea, Brazil, and elsewhere flocking to Kansai International Airport and having a real solid time with an international crowd of trve heshers.

Which is great! And also very interesting. You see, Tokyo’s considered the center of the metal scene (in a very punk country, btw), and for, I dunno, like a decade or so now the pre-eminent metal festival has been Asakusa Death Fest on the East Side.

Now, ADF is pretty well attended, and draws some notable international bands. The guy who runs it is quite well established in the scene and very much knows what he’s doing, but seeing this images of NWN!/Hospital Fest are jarring at best (in a good way). I’ve never seen that kind of turnout for such an underground festival in Japan, no matter how good the lineup is. And the best ones have always been Tokyo. Not to mention, they all focus on Death Metal and Grindcore, whereas this was Black & War Metal and Harsh Noise which is right up my alley and also considerably less accessible.

This is all to say I’m dreadfully curious about what this portends. Is it a one-off event, or is there actually something going on down in the depths of Osaka’s Underground that’s about to really go big? The timing’d be great, considering all of the activity in the business world going on there atm.

So yeah, keep an eye on Osaka, folx. They’re hardcore, and know how to mobilize.