ISSHOKU-SOKUHATSU

I am not too familiar with Japanese prog scene. Mostly it's Far East Family Band. Luckily I discovered Yonin Bayashi. I bought Isshoku Sokuhatsu at a record convention in Eugene, Oregon without knowing much about it, other than the person selling those records were big on prog, so he figured I might like this, and he told me Mellotron was used (Hidemi Sakasita was credited to using one). Wow! This album blew me away! After the first cut, which was just a bunch of electronic sound effects, comes "Sora To Kumo". Those melodies are big, with some great use of electric piano. Far East Family Band shows all too well the Japanese language isn't too well suited in prog (don't get me wrong, I enjoy FEFB), Yonin Bayashi proved otherwise, some of the best Japanese vocals I ever heard in rock. This piece also features some Mellotron (so at least the seller was right on the tron, it's not a lot, but at least you notice it). "Omatsuri" is another killer piece, with great compositions. I really love the jam at the end where they go in Santana overdrive (complete with Santana-like Latin percussion!). The music throughout the album is often heavy, at time veering towards hard rock. This is fantastic stuff, great vocals, great playing, a great album overall. It's not space rock like Far East Family Band, it's rock, at time veering towards heavy prog. This comes highly recommended by me!

By the way, I noticed the inner sleeve on the LP has some amusing "Engrish", for example: "The Crea:" (I believe they mean "The Crew:"), "All lyrics / Yasuo Suematsu (Except harf parts of "ISHOKU-SOKUHATSU" / Katsutoshi Morizono)" and "Recorded / February-Aplil 1974 at T.S.C.", basically the classic "R" and "L" mistake the Japanese have with the English language is clearly seen on this inner sleeve.