Violent Onsen Geisha is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese noise music

Noise music

Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...

 group, distinctive among many noise acts for frequently displaying a bizarre, sarcastic, and mischievous sense of humor. The group is essentially the solo project of Nakahara Masaya (中原昌也), though early in the group's history Nakahara fabricated a story, for years related as fact in the music press in Japan, that the group had at one time had several other members who died. Such conceptual conceits are common in Nakahara's work and public persona. A typical Violent Onsen Geisha album may contain music done in more conventional musical styles such as disco

Disco

Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

 and hip hop

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

, field recording

Field recording

Field recording is the term used for an audio recording produced outside of a recording studio. The recording is typically recorded in the same channel format as the desired result, for instance, stereo recording equipment will yield a stereo product...

s, and appropriated or "found

Found art

The term found art—more commonly found object or readymade—describes art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function...

" music, in addition to (or even instead of) straight-ahead noise.

The September 2007 edition of Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

 Japan listed Violent Onsen Geisha's 1996 album Nation of Rhythm Slaves at number 63 in their 100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time.