FULL WOLF MOON (19 January 2011)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

ITSUTSU NO AKAI FUSEN

FLIGHT 1 & 2


Original Issue: 1970 Underground Record Club URG-4006)
Original Issue: 1971 Underground Record Club URG-4007)

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Margot-meter: 4 moons / 5

Impossible-to-find holy grail ranking at #47 in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler is finally available in Margot's coven!!!!

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from Julian Cope's Japrocksampler:

Imagine an LP half full of songs such as Erika Eigen's 'I Wanna Marry a Lighthouse Keeper' from the A CLOCKWORK ORANGE soundtrack. Mo Tucker's Velvet Underground ballads 'After-hours' and 'I'm Sticking with You', and that ubercute ditty Tonight You Belong to Me' that Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters sang together in The Jerk.

Imagine that same album also contains a few euphorically strung-out cosmic folk ballads somewhere in the style of Tim Buckley's Straight Records LP BLUE AFTERNOON united with Culture's super-sweet TWO SEVENS CLASH, but sung by a man and a woman in the manner of Emtidi's SAAT. Then imagine that some of that material was extended to cover a whole side of 12" vinyl, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser-style.

Okay, now imagine there were two such LPs and that they were released one year apart on a cult label called Underground Record Club, and you've hit exactly where Itsutsu no Akai Fusen is coming from. It's a weird combination of urban torch songs, rural lovey-dovey indoor campfire, and transcendental tripped out meditative space folk. Both LPs were packaged in cosmic spacious gatefold sleeves, and the records were mainly sung by female singer Hideko Fujiwara and written by songwriter Takashi Nishioka, the man responsible for a fairly legendary Japanese album, MELTING GLASS BOX. that I've never really found much time for.

These two records I like very much indeed, however, so they're hidden away at number 47 because I listen to them all the time, despite having never had much time for the Japanese early-'70s folk scene. So please excuse this review hyping two LPs simultaneously, but by 2012, you'll most likely have found time to investigate these records and, hopefully, are by now digging them.

FULL CORN MOON (04 September 2009)

The musick dedicated to this Esbat is:

NIJIUMU

LIVE

Original Issue: 1997 Big Cat (ABB 1000/2CD)

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Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

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01 Untitled (3:11)
02 Untitled (49:38)
03 Untitled (12:29)

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from The Sound Projector:

Top of the range is Nijiumu, one of Keiji Haino’s quieter musical hats, and for sheer pathos this live recording worth your entry money by itself; to call this slice of sheer emotion tear-inducing is not enough. You will weep!

RISING MOON (japrocksampler musick)

CAESAR J.A.
JASHŪMON

Original Issue: 1972 Victor (SF-1021)

Reissue: 1999 Blue Interactions (PCD-1465)

Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

Impossibly hard-to-find (even the reissue) masterpiece by J.A. Caesar ranking #10 in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler bible!

Recorded live at a theatrical performance by Tenjo Sajiki at Shibuya Kokaido on January 30, 1972.

This guy was a graphic design student, who adopted the name J.A. [Julius Arnold] Caesar, often also found spelled Seazer and even Ceazar [just to confuse internet searches even further!], and was known by the late 60's as one of the few 'true hippies' on the local scene. He apparently won a competition for hair length!

His music often featured elements of Japanese percussion, 'sekkyobushi narrative music', progressive and psychedelic rock, raw heavy rock, and other influences as diverse as Carl Orff and Pierre Henry.

1 Kyōjobushi
2 Jin
3 Shishi no Ko
4 Tōkyō Junreika
5 Haraisō
6 Kyōchō
7 Hahasute Hannyakyō
8 Okasaretara Nakeba Ii
9 Doko e Doko e to Satsu!
10 Kurama Tengu
11 Jashūmon
12 Bokoi Jigoku
13 Karasu
14 Kanokeburo
15 Wasan
16 Tsuru no Tēma
17 Kuchibue Sanka
18 1970 nen 8 gatsu
19 Wasan

from Volcanic Tongue:

Beautiful book/CD Japan-only reissue of a particularly inspired side from Tenjo Sajiki, the Japanese avant guerrilla theatre company founded by legendary poet/film maker/counter-cultural provocateur Shuji Terayama that existed contemporaneously to first wave avantists like Flower Travellin’ Band, Keiji Haino’s Lost Aaraaff and Les Rallizes Denudes and that featured dusted acid/rock/folk/avant moves composed and executed by the young wunderkind JA Seazer.

Alan Cummings rates this particular one as a real early peak for Seazer’s music. Written for a series of foreign performances in 1971 – Nancy, Rotterdam, Belgrade, Zagreb and other areas of the Balkans – Seazer is rumoured to have composed and recorded all of the music for Jashumon/Heresy in the space of a few hours the night before the troupe left.

This particular recording is drawn from the only Japanese performance of the play, January 1972 in Tokyo. Released at the time on a now very rare side by Victor, this massive new edition adds a clutch of new material, including two powerful performances by Kan Mikami.

The music is fairly astounding throughout and for the most part defies any attempt at pithy generic description but the piece include flashes of huge, organ-led marches supported by clouds of choral song and throat-shredding death/folk vocals, brief episodes of forlorn traditional breath lost in a thin soup of electronics and gongs, massed acid chants ala Ya Ho Wha 13 and bursts of modal guitar psych.

The accompanying book is a beauty, featuring a ton of performance shots and all-Japanese text.

Highest recommendation.