CONDOR

How huge, how elegant, and of course how spacey ROVO's concept is! This 7th album 'Condor' is exactly a conceptual one. The story is about a condor flying and flapping for the sky and the space, with three parts all can go on a large scale and take us listeners strictly and tightly.

The first part - AIRES - is opened with quiet and straight violin solo and slightly funky percussion. With listening to the part, I always feel a condor waking up from a deep sleep and slowly spreading his wings. Not only Yuji's violin solo, but heavy bass sound as an earthquake and light and sticky percussion and drums are all remarkably individual and of course important. Some phrases are repeated over and over, and the sound gets louder, huger, and more fantastic...his wings are spread widely and he can prepare a flight.

For me, the second part - n'POPO - seems as he is shaking his large body and clomping down rough ground. There, especially plenty of percussions by Yasuhiro and Yoichi can make the part perfectly. And my surprising and amazing thing is that Yuji's violin and Tatsuki's keyboard be very percussive too. All instruments can hop, jump, beat and roll around. Very impressive.

I wanna say the highlight is the third part - LAND -. He can fly quietly from the LAND and look down on the LAND around over. The sound gets faster and more massive as if he can fly higher and higher... All talented and skilled players can product this atmosphere and LANDscape exactly. And the condor should fly away to the outer space...all are over suddenly with a squeaky explosion.

YOU AND I CAN BE A CONDOR AND FLY FARAWAY TOGETHER! Highly recommended.