TADASHI GOTO

Tadashi Goto (keyboards and drum programming) was born in 1976 and grew up listening to classical music as a child. He began his musical career playing the organ at the age 5 and by the time he was 10 years old he had begun composing. His recognition for his creative talent grew when he joined the Yamaha Original Concert in Japan. While he was performing with the JOC, he met Yoshihiko Ujihara, professional guitarist and lead guitarist of former member of X-Japan. He taught Goto synthesizers oriented composition and progressive rock. Later, Goto met Donny Schwekendiek,a professional jazz pianist from Atlanta who taught him jazz rock. Goto traveled to Newcastle in Australia, lived there between 2000 and 2001 and in 2005 he released his first solo album Soundscape, in 2008 followed by this stunning second effort entitled Innervisions.

The 12 compositions mainly deliver heavy and bombastic atmospheres featuring thunderous drumming, strong bass lines (a wide range of guest bass players, including Tony Levin), blistering guitarwork and dazzling synthesizer runs with a variety of spectacular sounds, incredible! Some songs sound dreamy or more electronic/ambient oriened with a modern keyboard sound and the use of samples. For instance the final track The Spirits Within: a mellow blend of piano, voices and keyboards, halfway a sensitive guitar joines, very beautiful. But in general it's a breathtaking keyboard driven progressive mix of several styles, very powerful, bombastic and dynamic.

To me Tadashi Goto his second album Innervisions sounds like 'a wet dream for bombastic keyboard driven prog aficionados'. He even tops Japanese keyboard wizard Toshio Egawa, what an overwhelming keyboard sound, so incredibly over-the-top and super bombastic, wow!

My rating: 3,5 star.

An all personal effort and a true hymn to dissonance,''Soundscape'' is filled with Goto's piano and synthesizers, surrounded by a programmed rhythm section, effects and other programmed instruments like marimbas.His work is characterized by the complicated breaks, the atonal parts, the technical offering and the virtuosic solos, while the compositions are split between structured sections and more improvised moments.The overall sound is very rich,quite heavy with also plenty of lighter moments, always in a classic Fusion style presented by acts like PLANET X,LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT,MINDFLOWERS or DEREK SHERINIAN (minus the guitars).However the album suffers from two big problems: The absence of any kind of melody,which becomes more and more evident as the album unfolds, and the childish programmed drum sounds, which can only fit in a video game but not in a professional release of adventurous music.

This man is a talented keyboardist,no doubt.His ideas are interesting and the fact he composed such a highly technical and cohesive work cannot be overcome.Still the addition of some melodic parts and the help of some session musicians should give him the needed push in terms of development.''Soundscape'' is a good album for fans of heavy Jazz-Fusion,all the others try some samples first before buying...2.5 stars.