HIATUS

Blues Creation - Demon & Eleven Children, 1971 (320kbps)

" Demon & Eleven Children begins in a most spectacular fashion that only adds to the legend with the track Atomic Bombs Away. The song opens with a doomsday atomic bomb blast that completely decimates anything and everything. Nothing could survive the fall-out of such a catastrophe, right? Wrong! We immediately hear a noodling blues lick break through the chaos, then a couple of bass notes, before the guitar changes to an incredibly simple, yet totally heavy riff that would make Deep Purple jealous. The rhythm section joins in, and we are treated to a groove every bit as heavy as the previous years’ War Pigs by Black Sabbath. What a way to kick things off! As the vocals kick in, we get out first dose of what will be an album full of English sang/slurred almost phonetically.

The flip side begins with another slow, bluesy number One Summers Day. I’ve always been curious if this song features the same vocalist, as the lyrics are more clearly sung and are down-right pretty. The pace picks up again with some for the rest of the record, and culminates in the blistering title track. This track was surely Blues Creation’s response to Paranoid, and it absolutely whips ass. In the end, I give this record a 7/10. Bolstered by the incredible bookending tracks and it’s relevance in rock history, yet hampered enough by the slower songs to keep it from being a holy grail."
- Text from Freelance Fiend.

Named 17th best japrock album in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler Top 50. Instead of transliterating the track list I've provided the English track names as they are written on the album cover.

Blues Creation - 悪魔と11人の子供達

1. 原爆落し [Atomic Bombs Away]
2. Mississippi Mountain Blues
3. Just I Was Born
4. 悲しみ [Sorrow]
5. One Summer Day
6. 脳天杭打ち [Brain Buster]
7. Sooner or Later
8. 悪魔と11人の子供達 [Demon & Eleven Children]

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Masahiko Satoh and the Soundbreakers - Amalgamation, 1971 (192kbps)

"The album is Amalgamation by Masahiko Satoh and the Soundbreakers. Satoh is a jazz pianist. This album, which was one of the many "super sessions" which were created during this time period, featured many other musicians such as Kimio Mizutani, who was already known for his guitar work with the group Love Live Life + One.

This album is a bit difficult to describe. It is a mixture of psychedelic music, musique concrete, progressive rock and free jazz. The record is quite unpredictable, and features a lot of unique instrumentation, including some traditional Japanese instruments. Listening to it is a pretty strange trip."
- Text by Thunder Jolt!

Named 7th best japrock album in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler Top 50.

佐藤允彦&サウンド・ブレイカーズ - 恍惚の昭和元禄

1. Face One
2. Face Two

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Kaji Hideki - TEA, 1998 (VBR)

"After Bridge's 1995 breakup, Kaji Hideki traded in his bass for a guitar (or rather, added to his repertoire everything else one needs to make an de facto one-man band) and released an EP, Muscat, the following year. Hideki is very interesting for one reason in particular: he crystallized Japan's indie-pop obsession with Sweden, and never turned back. Instead of drawing primarily from the Sounds of Scotland, 1980, Hideki pulled specifically from the awesomeness that was Swedish pop, 1995. It wasn't hip to be in love with Sweden back then -- certainly not like it is today -- and the fact that Hideki brought that country's music up to a new level of admiration while simultaneously constructing his entirely unique sound is the simple and fair reason to appreciate the forty-one-year-old."
- Text by BiBaBiDi

100th Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time according to Rolling Stone Japan.

カジヒデキ - TEA

1. Suddenly, Sybilla
2. My Favourite Tofflor
3. Peanuts
4. Green Road
5. Tea
6. After The Twin Peaks
7. Ramlösa
8. Everything Stuck To Him
9. Made In Sweden
10. Like A White
11. We Were So Much In Love
12. Rain
13. Blue Mint Blue (Inst.)
14. corolla-2 (TV Size Ver.)

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Takehisa Kosugi - Catch-Wave, 1975 (VBR)

"Takehisa Kosugi is without doubt one of the most important and influential figures of the Japanese avant-garde still performing into the 21st Century. Over the years he has worked with everyone from John Cage to Sonic Youth as well as being an active member of the Fluxus group and starting his own performance units Group Ongaku and the Taj Mahal Travellers. Catch-Wave, originally released in 1975, features on side A "an excerpt from a meta-media solo improvisation" utilizing heavily-processed violin, voice, radio and oscillators (the latter modified via wind and light) to create a massive drone. Side B is "a triple performance by a solo vocalist" where a vocal phrase is taken and electronically modified until it loses any meaning other than as part of the wave form."
- Text by Second Layer Records

Named 9th best japrock album in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler Top 50.

小杉武久 - Catch-Wave

1. Mano Dharma '74
2. Wave Code #e-1

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Akiko Yano - Japanese Girl, 1976 (256kbps)

Akiko Yano was born in Tokyo and raised in Aomori, Japan. She began playing piano at the young age of three and demonstrated promising talent. When she was only fifteen, Akiko moved to Tokyo on her own and entered into Aoyama Gakuin High School where she pursued her musical career. She later began performing in jazz clubs where her masterful skill at the piano brought her popularity among other musicians. Akiko joined a band with roots in Tin Pan Alley.

Akiko recorded her debut album, Japanese Girl, primarily in Los Angeles with Lowell George and Little Feat. She began collaborating with Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). They continued to play on her next recording projects and invited Akiko to join them on two of their worldwide tours. Akiko expanded her musical collaborations with YMO on her subsequent CD releases. Akiko continued to release CDs joined by JAPAN and Pat Metheny and has performed on albums by Thomas Dolby and other artists. In 1990 Akiko relocated to New York where she collaborated and toured with some of the world's most renowned musicians including The Chieftains, Toninho Horta and Jeff Bova on his project THE HAMMONDS.
- Wikipedia.

26th Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time according to Rolling Stone Japan.

矢野顕子 - JAPANESE GIRL

1. 気球にのって [Kikyu ni notte]
2. クマ [Kuma]
3. 電話線 [Denwa-sen]
4. 津軽ツアー [Tsugaru tour]
5. ふなまち唄PartII [Funamachi uta Part II]
6. 大いなる椎の木 [Ooinaru Shii no ki]
7. へこりぷたぁ [Helicopter]
8. 風太 [Futa]
9. 丘を越えて [Oka wo koete]
10. ふなまち唄PartI [Funamachi uta Part I]

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Yosui Inoue - Koori no Sekai, 1973 (128kbps)

"Yōsui Inoue's Kōri no Sekai album marked unprecedented success for the Japanese music industry at the time, becoming the first long-playing record that has retailed more than a million copies in Japan alone. Universal Music Group stated that the vinyl release of Kori no Sekai was sold more than 1.35 million copies. Comprising other formats such as audio cassette and compact disc, the album has sold nearly 1.4 million copies to date.

In the history of the Oricon Albums chart started in 1970, Kōri no Sekai has been the album with the most weeks at number-one. About two weeks after the release, the album topped the Japanese Oricon Weekly LP chart for the first time, and stayed there for 13 consecutive weeks. Since then, it continuously remained on the top-ten of the chart for 113 weeks, and returned to the number-one spot again and again, while Inoue himself subsequently released some albums. Eventually Kōri no Sekai entered the Oricon for 150 weeks, spending 35 weeks in total at the top."
- Wikipedia

12th Greatest Japanese Rock Album of All Time according to Takarajima.

井上陽水 - 氷の世界

1. あかずの踏切り [Akazu no Fumikiri]
2. はじまり [Hajimari]
3. 帰れない二人 [Kaerenai Futari]
4. チエちゃん [Chie Chan]
5. 氷の世界 [Kori no Sekai]
6. 白い一日 [Shiroi Ichinichi]
7. 自己嫌悪 [Jiko Keno]
8. 心もよう [Kokoro Moyou]
9. 待ちぼうけ [Machibouke]
10. 桜三月散歩道 [Sakura Sangatsu Sanpomichi]
11. Fun
12. 小春おばさん [Koharu Obasan]
13. おやすみ [Oyasumi]

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Gedo, 1974 (256kbps)

"Formed by ex-members of early '70s festival stalwarts the M and Too Much, Gedo was a power trio whose biker fans followed them from bar to bar, making each gig into a show of ritual, full of euphoric moments, in-jokes and surprising outbursts of extreme collective male melancholy. With songs full of lyrics evoking images of hell, despair, pig’s flesh and fool’s paradises, Gedo's early LPs were sparsely-produced by Mickey Curtis, who kept intact the band's furious Born-to-be-Wild rush of proto-Ramones."
- Text by Juilan Cope

Named 24th Greatest Japanese Rock Album of All Time by Rolling Stone Japan, Julian Cope thinks this is the 30th best Japrock album in the book JAPROCKSAMPLER. Instead of transliterating the track list I've provided the English track names as they are written on the album cover. This UK reissue contains two additional tracks of audience cheers simply titeled audience.

外道 - 外道

1. 香り [Scent]
2. 逃げるな [Don't Run away]
3. 外道 [Gedo]
4. audience
5. ロックンロールバカ? [Rock 'n' Roll Stupid]
6. ダンスダンスダンス [Dance Dance Dance]
7. ビュンビュン [Byoon Byoon]
8. いつもの所で [At the Usual Place]
9. 腐った命 [Rotten Life]
10. 完了 [Completed]
11. audience
12. やさしい裏切りを [Tender Betrayal]
13. スターと [motorcycles]

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REBECCA - IV ～Maybe tomorrow～, 1985 (192kbps)

Doesn't seem to be any information about this album available on any English sites. Excellent eighties pop/rock album from a group who had a slew of hits back then. The singer Nokko is still in the game with a pretty small but rabid (aren't they always) fanbase.

43rd Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time according to Rolling Stone Japan.

REBECCA - REBECCA IV ～Maybe tomorrow～

1. HOT SPICE
2. PRIVATE HEROINE
3. Cotton Time
4. 76th Star
5. 光と影の誘惑 [Hikari to Kage no Yuuwaku]
6. BOTTOM LINE
7. ガールズ ブラボー! [GIRLS, BRAVO!]
8. FRIENDS
9. London Boy
10. Maybe Tomorrow

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People - Ceremony ~ Buddha Meet Rock, 1971 (192kbps)

"Released in answer to Ikuzo Orita’s superb ‘Polydor Super Session’ series of LPs, this riposte/rip-off, written by Buddhist poet/songwriter Naoki Tachikawa and organised by Teichiku Records’ A&R director Hideki Sakamoto, challenged every one of Orita’s projects and beat most of them cold simply by working though Orita’s own blueprint line by line. People even deployed the arsenal of Orita’s own guitar star ex-Outcast hired gun Kimio Mizutani, whose subtle licks inform the entire work. Mizutani shines brightest on side one’s 12-minute drone chant ‘Shomyo Part One’, but the bluesy bell tone of ‘Shomyo Part Two’ is pure and exquisite cosmic monotony, as is that employed on ‘Flower Strewing’, which elevates the track right out of authentic religious bore into a Funkadelic Deadmarch. On the five-minute wa-funk of ‘Gatha’, the apparently egoless Mizutani conjures up a typical Hideki Ishema-style axe scrawl giving the track a sound just like Kuni Kawauchi’s KIRIKYOGEN.

By the middle of side two, the tension has broken and the record starts to sound like Tim Leary’s 7UP collaboration with Ash Ra Tempel, as orgasmic Gille Lettmann/Rosi Muller-style female shrieks overwhelm ‘Prayer’. Director Sakamoto kept it all spacey and minimal, then adding plenty more LUMPY GRAVY-period Frank Zappa and mucho David Axelrod (whence came many of the original concepts) to the stew. As if to prove People’s pragmatism, ‘Epilogue’ concludes with 2-minutes of jamming over Axelrod’s immaculate ‘Holy Thursday’ from SONGS OF INNOCENCE. People’s success is their tenacity in holding on both to the drone and, therefore, to the metaphor, which permeates the entire recording and lays serious meditative usefulness on to the listener."
- Text taken from JAPROCKSAMPLER

Named 16th best japrock album in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler Top 50.

People - Ceremony ~ Buddha Meet Rock

1. Prologue
2. 声明-Part 1 [Shomyo-Part 1]
3. 讃歌 [Gatha]
4. 切散華 [Flower Strewing]
5. 声明-Part 2 [Shomyo-Part 2]
6. 祈り-Part 1 [Prayer-Part 1]
7. 祈り-Part 2[Prayer-Part 2]
8. Epilogue

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