That's what I get for not checking this thread earlier. Angel'in Heavy Syrup is one of Japanese rock's great tragedies, having lapsed into inactivity because bassist-vocalist Mineko went to live with her serviceman husband in Germany or somewhere in Europe. (Can we have a big collective "Oh, well!")

 

AiTS recorded four impressive if not amazing modern dreamy psych albums, and they all more or less went out of print right after they were issued. The exception was the IV, the final CD, which was issued on Monotremata and can still be acquired for a reasonable, don't-have-to-hock-a-vital-organ price. LOL! The CDs have some killer instrumentals, too.

 

Of the two remaining guitarists, Fusao Toda was one-half of Christine 23 Onna with vocalist-synthesist-weirdo boyfriend Masonna (Maso Yamazaki's pseudonym), and they later added two members and started calling themselves Acid Eater. Mine Nakao formed a band called She Brings The Rainbow that is no longer active, the only bit of info being that the band is defunct due to "Mine's personal circumstances."

 

In the mid-late '90s, I stumbled upon a ton of cool non-prog female-centric Japanese rock, of which the Syrup remains my favorite discovery. I tried to avoid the noise rock stuff that's so prevalent (see: Acid Eater, Mainliner, Jojo Hiroshige and his long-running band Hijokaidan) and tracked down, with varying degrees of difficulty, CDs by Slapp Happy Humphrey (Mineko's pre-Syrup hippy psych trio), Shizuka (aka Shizuka Miura, RIP), Onna Kodomo, Mady Gula Blue Heaven, OOIOO (didn't like them that much), Bleach 03 (all-girl post-punk trio), avant-vocalist Haco and her predecessor band After Dinner, ex-Girl (decent at first but didn't wear well) and the first few CDs by Noodles are great (from the fourth on, they're more alt-rock, more hipster). EDIT: I just read that Shizuka died in January, 2010 (cause of death: suicide).

 

Sadly, that "scene" seemed to have vaporized by the mid-2000s, unless somebody can inform me. Some of those CDs weren't cheap to come by, either. If another band could pick up Angel'in Heavy Syrup's torch, I'd be all over that!