If Tokyo's live houses have provided little in the way of new musical inspiration recently, the provinces have picked up the slack with a vengeance. Sapporo's burgeoning hip-hop scene has produced new rap heroes the Blue Herb, while Kyoto, with DJs 1945 and Nobukazu Takemura, is becoming the home of experimental turntablism. For a dose of guitar heroics, one need only head south to Fukuoka. Sheena Ringo is probably the best known Kyushu export, but with their new album, "School Girl, Distortional Addict," Number Girl has lobbed a sonic volley.

Number Girl is loud: ear-splitting, head-ringing loudness. "See us once and your ear's life will be shortened by 10 years," says songwriter, vocalist and guitarist Shutoku Mukai with the kind of cheeriness that only a 25-year-old, yet untouched by physical decay, can muster.

Beneath the roar, drummer Ahito Inazawa and bassist Kentaro Nakao lay down a tight, throbbing rhythmic matrix that allows Mukai and lead guitarist Hisako Tabuchi to play musical tag. If Nakao's basslines recall Southern California hardcore, than Tabuchi and Mukai's guitar play pays tribute to 1980s American indie rock. "Pixie Du," the second cut on their new album, gives the game away. Like Husker Du, Number Girl songs have a ferocious, desperate energy. Like the Pixies, they are, in Mukai's words, "hysterical pop."

Though Tabuchi is nominally the group's lead guitarist, their guitar style derives from a meshing of sounds that recalls Television's Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine. While Mukai holds steady, drilling his way through a chord, Tabuchi improvises around him, the duo weaving an amped-up polyphonic buzz.

"I like a guitar sound that is very original or special, that no one else can pull off," says Mukai. "Not the strange sounds that people make with guitar effects or gadgets, but the sounds that people make through their philosophy, that include all their traumas, everything from their past, in one sound."

"I guess my guitar sound is the sum total of my life."

With his regular-guy clothes and round glasses, Mukai looks more like a geeky intellectual than a guitar god.

"Yeah, people are always comparing me to Yo La Tengo because I look so normal and they think it's strange. When I had short hair and a motorcycle jacket, it was Steve Albini," he says.

His lyrics too reflect a decidedly literate bent, reading more like poetry than the usual simplistic lyrical fodder of most punk and pop. The new album is chock-full of dark, moody images of girls wandering into nameless, impersonal urban landscapes, a reflection perhaps of the group's recent move to Tokyo.

"I'm always deeply influenced by my environment," says Mukai, "so I guess I'm not quite sure what I think of the place yet."

The album cover decorated with Mukai's drawings of gun-toting schoolgirls and youngsters dreaming of hara-kiri would give Freud a field day. Song titles such as "Young Girl," "Seventeen," "Sexually Knowing," and a previous album called "School Girl Bye Bye," make it tempting to stereotype Mukai as yet another Japanese male with Sailor Moon fantasies.

"Yeah, everybody asks me that," he says sheepishly. "Schoolgirls are a kind of obsession, but it's not a sexual thing. They have become a symbol of a generation and the mood of the times, and I wanted to approach the modern world from a very cynical point of view."

"I have a fantasy about samurai," he continues. "They were very stoic and had strong identities and values. Maybe that's what I lack. Just like some kids idolize Batman or Ultraman, I have this sort of connection to samurai."

If Mukai's emotional life sits right on the surface, then Tabuchi is his cool, clear-headed musical foil. Courtney Love and Liz Phair have turned the guitar-wielding woman into yet another male sex fantasy. Not so with Tabuchi. Though she has the sort of cuteness that screams "kawaii," her plain-Jane approach to her stage persona puts the focus squarely on her playing.

At this year's South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas, Tabuchi, looking like a junior high school student, shot off guitar solos and almost casual embellishments with the panache of a seasoned pro. The gig foreshadowed a definite desire to bring Number Girl's sonic boom overseas. Their next EP was recorded with Mercury Rev and Scratch Acid producer David Freedman, and Mukai has been brushing up on his English.

Let's hope they warn their foreign fans to bring earplugs.

Number Girl plays Sept. 24, Fukuoka, Vivre Hall; Sept. 25, Osaka, Club Quattro; Sept. 27 Nagoya, Rock 'n' Roll; Sept. 28, Tokyo, Club Quattro.

For more information call Eightbeater at (03) 3587-9040.

While swing music packs dance halls in the U.S., Messin' with Teshin brings the boogie woogie to the pavement outside Kichijoji Station every Friday night. Vocalist Teshin has a voice that alternates between a sweet tenor and the deep growl of the two Louises (Jordan and Armstrong). Propelled by the slap of his partner's stand-up bass and the fulsome twang of his own hollow-bodied guitar he sets the concrete jumping with inspired covers of "Caldeonia" (complete with Louis Jordan style leaps and jumps) and other gems of big band swing done in stripped-down, jumped-up style. Duck the kids on stunt bicycles and there's more than enough room to jitterbug.

Messin' with Teshin every Friday night around 9 p.m. in front of the entrance to Kichijoji Sun Route, near the central exit of Kichijoji Station.