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It’s a rarity, but it happens — I will find Japanese indie rock at the thrift shop.

Most finds are bands with deals in the US, but a handful have been long-time favorites. I never got around to buying ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION’s Surf Bungaku Kamakura till I spotted it at Lifelong.

But when I see Japanese text on the spine of a CD, I’m drawn to it immediately.

Such is the case with Sanka Sanbusaku (Hymn Trilogy) by bloom field. The band’s name, unfortunately, is a search engine optimization nightmare, so I bought it with the intent to do further research later.

Judging by the length of the tracks and the cover art, I guessed correctly bloom field was a post-rock band. They’re not as dense on the effects as MONO, downy or envy. Rather, the trio hews closer to Slint.

Like the better post-rock albums, the three pieces on the half-hour EP unfold organically, starting quietly and building to a wall of distortion. The 7- to 10-minute length of the “hymns” never overstay their welcome. The middle track, “Noumin Sanka”, does go a bit overboard with the fake vinyl surface noise.

Where contemporaries such as downy and MONO sit closer to the metal end of the post-rock spectrum, bloom field is more like the Album Leaf and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

Not much information exists about bloom field, even though their incredibly ancient official site has an English version. The discography section indicates the band lasted from approximately 2001-2009. Not a bad run.

Information is so scant, in fact, that the Discogs entry for the album was entered by me, including the hi-res scan of the cover. If you want to hear the EP for yourself, it looks like it was uploaded to YouTube.

Tags: bloom field, thrift store find