Friday, December 24, 2010

Toshiaki Yokota & Primitive Community - "Primitive Community" {Japan} [1971]

Merhaba dostlar! What we got here is probably Japan's best kept secret. For somedays i was amazing myself listening this album over and over again. Toshiaki Yokota's "Flute Adventure" album is one of my favorite, and i was wondering "Primitive Community" like many others. Since album is private press, 300 copies were made, and since it costs some thousands; we wanted everybody to taste this delicious album. My regards and thanks goes to Toshiaki Yokota himself, to give me a chance to introduce this album to you. A real treasure for the lovers of 70s prog/fusion..

"Born in 1944 in Tokyo. Started his musical carrier at 17 years old. Led his own group 'The Beat Generation' and 'Primitive Community' for 10 years, as well as playing lead flute in Takeshi Inomata's Sound Limited. A pioneer of jazz flute in Japan. Now, He lives in Izu-Inatori and maintains his own studio with beautiful and magnificient sea view. There Yokota creates his original instruments taking nature for a friend. The instruments created by Yokota are mainly fue(Japanese flute or pipe),that is shakuhachi, ceramic flute,YAYOI-BUE and other original instruments of his own ideas. He has been doing several live performances using those instruments."

"Toshiaki Yokota and Genshi Kyodotai is at the meeting place of jazz and rock. That exciting time at the turn of the 1970 decade, long before what is commonly referred to as fusion, when the ambition of free jazz met with rock's exciting psychedelic nature. It wasn't important to display Berklee-trained chops, but rather it was about texture, atmosphere and creativity at its most radical. But fortunately it stops short of free jazz's reckless abandon - that point where it's just noise for the sake of noise. There is meaning to every note, instrument and pattern. As well, we get a peek-through-the-bushes look at a Japanese sacrificial ritual as described by the tribal drumming, Hammond organ shards, wordless monk chanting, Yokota's flute and Mizutani's acid fuzz guitar blazing a wah wah trail all to be one with Kami. And that's before we get to the Hare Krishna chorus. An album like this becomes mythical because it is mystical. It's in the same league of sixth dimensioners like Älgarnas Trädgård's "Framtiden Är Ett Svävande Skepp, Förankrat I Forntiden", Lula Côrtes e Zé Ramalho's "Paêbirú" or Pierrot Lunaire's "Gudrun". If Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser had heard this band, they would have been signed to the Ohr label on the spot...read more here"

Toshiaki Yokota and Primitive Community
Toshiaki Yokota  (Flute / Indian / Alto&Bass Flute), Shunzou Ohno (Trumpet), Kimio Mizutani  (Elec. Guitar), Kimio Koizumi (Elec. Bass / Acorstic Base), Yuhsuke Hoguchi (Hamond Organ), Larry Sunaga (Percussion), Pedro Umemura (Percussion), Tadaomi Anai (Percussion), Yoshinori Nohmi (Percussion), Fujio Saitoh (Percussion), Minoru Ishiyama (Percussion), Chito Kawachi (Drums)

related links;
http://tutibuefuki.inatori.info/e/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/user/fuefukijp
http://unencumberedmusicreviews.blogspot.com/2010/12/toshiaki-yokota-beat-generation-flute.html
http://cdreissuewishlist.blogspot.com/2010/12/toshiaki-yokota-and-genshi-kyodotai.html
http://www.amazon.com/Flute-Adventure-Toshiaki-Yokota/dp/B000M5BADO/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1214246350&sr=8-10

hAre kRishNA...

our thanks goes to Shige :)

Saturday, December 18, 2010

Dew - "Live" Nunoya Fumio 布谷文夫 {Japan} [1971]

Dew was formed in January 1970. Dominated by vocalist Fumio Nunoya, ex-singer with New Rock act Blues Creation and Group Sounds act The Bickies, both of which he had formed with Kazuo Takeda, in 1969. Nunoya was also with band Taboo whom he formed with future Happy End star Eiichi Otaki. Evidence of only two Dew songs survive, both recorded at the Genya Protest Festival, and both featuring on the soundtrack LP on Elec Records. However, the band split up soon afterwards. http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/japrock/dew/



1 Empty Bed Blues
2 Hurt
3 The Summer Is Over
4 Hoochie Coochie Man
5 Pair-Blues
6 My Angel
7 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

- Fumio Nunoya (vocals)
- Hisao Ono (guitar)
- Tsuneo Matsumoto (bass)
- Masami Naito (drums)

1 Empty Bed Blues...
3 The Summer Is Over...
6 My Angel...

Link in comments...

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Everfriend - "Sphere of Influence" {USA} [1981]

Here's an interesting discovery, if I do say so myself! Totally unknown private press LP by this band, who seems to have been mainly the project of keyboardist Bill Rhodes. It's hard to tell where he was actually from, because the album was recorded with a few different lineups at a number of separate times (1978-1981) and places (New Jersey, Florida, Georgia) and there's no label address on the sleeve. Anyway, it displays an interesting mixture of styles, from spacey and classically influenced keyboard pieces featuring tons of vintage gear (including Mellotron!) to full-blown complex symphonic prog and even some weird synth-fronted jazz-rock. This one could only have come from the US prog underground. It just totally has that "feel", if you know what I mean. I do know that he/they released an equally obscure album in 1980 called "Tropicsphere", and there might be one more from later on as well (I seem to remember seeing it once, but can't remember clearly). I'll definitely be trying to track those down now, as I find this album strangely endearing and have listened to it many times since I picked it up.

Given the Time...

thanks to fusionaut :)