It is only a rock song, in the same way that Friction is only a band. But try telling that to the fans for whom Friction has been a Tokyo institution for the past 17 years.

Reck's approach to his music is both casual and extraordinarily meticulous. Live, Friction plays relentless, 10- or 15-minute workouts on one or two simple motifs. With aggressive energy, coherent execution and heavy repetition, these songs quickly become hypnotic--until a deft shift in rhythm or a key change snaps them onto an entirely different plane. The band turns on a dime, although this has less to do with the present lineup's continuity--guitarist Imai has been on board for only a year, drummer Minoru Sato for almost 10--than with their chemistry and the tension when they play live.

This raw immediacy is not lost in the studio, as the new album, Zone Tripper, shows. Produced by Reck and the prolific musician/engineer Seigen Ono, Zone Tripper is a primer in effective recording technique. Before entering the studio, Ono and Reck rearranged the songs into concise, album-friendly versions and recorded rough instrumental "guide" tracks. As a base for these bare skeletons they set a metronome clicking, which Reck adjusted incrementally to match the band's natural looseness when it plays on stage. From there, recording was a simple matter. The technique worked so well that some of the guide solos ended up on the final album--a testament to how first instincts are often the best.

While the studio tapes of Zone Tripper had the hard, straightforward sound of vintage Friction, the final album is a more cohesive and glossy production. Mixed by Roli Mossiman, producer of the Swiss industrial-rock band Young Gods, it is rich in heavy echo, big guitar sounds and multiple studio effects. But Friction has lost little of its timeless simplicity, and Zone Tripper finds Reck in the same excellent form that prompted New York Times critic Robert Palmer, in 1987, to describe the band as, ". . . a fine catch for an adventurous American label, if more American labels were as interested in today's music . . . as they are in the proven and familiar."

Despite Friction's long history and big-name collaborators such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, who produced Friction's first album in 1980, the only thing stopping the band from being more commercially "familiar" may be Reck's solid insistence on working at his own pace. Zone Tripper is Friction's first recording in seven years and fourth studio album in 17, and contains almost all of the new material Reck has written since 1987's Replicant Walk. "That's about a song a year," he jokes. A glacial pace, but then, Reck has never rushed to accommodate the demands of mainstream success. His attitude is evident in his music and Friction's ongoing endurance. "It's good to rock," he says, "but you've got to be able to roll."

Zone Tripper will be released 10/25. Friction plays at Liquid Sky Dancehall, 10/14.