J. A. CAESAR

Julius Arnest "J.A". Caesar (aka. J.A. Seazer) - Kokkyo Junreika

After all, his true name is Takaaki Terahara. This film and theater music score composer finally gained some notoriety after writing songs for an intriguing japanese animated surreal thriller called Shoujo Kakumei Utena (or Revolutionary Girl Utena). He also wrote the classic soundtrack for one of the few countercultural, brutal "ero-guro" manga to become an animated movie, Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show (or Midori: Shojo tsubaki), also excellent as any Maruo Suehiro work. Kokkyo Junreika is one of J.A.'s early works, and no doubt it's 70s. I must admit, it is not for anyone. Can you imagine an operatic show featuring music like fuzzy traditional japanese folk, enka, blues gitar solos and licks, proggy psychedelic organs, that zeuhl influence all those jap freaks used to dig back in the day, spoken word, storytelling atonal symphonies, all mixed and melting inside a big hot cauldron? If you can't, get this one and try it. If you have any problem to visualize scenes through music, it will be a hard listening. Other hand, this trippy cover art could be helpful giving an image to this album.

Taking the case of the first track "Echigo Tsutsuishi Oyashirazu", deep drum beating and melody flying / floating blended with mysteriously horrible voices following horrible flute (wabue?) vibes in the very beginning have obvious musical innovation. This project has been based upon illuminative theatre and this makes sense. Takaaki, as a couple of theatre casts, plays auditory dramas. His voices are a bit cheesy but sometimes remind us a strong passion like Demetrio Stratos. "Tenshotan" is a lazy, sloppy story created by a female reciter, with unstable melody lines ... going to extremes is amazing, please feel enough. Bluesy "Haha Koishiya Sangosho" is slightly poppy but a deeply dark bullet launcher. Cannot help stepping back with hearing that, oh man. "Kyojobushi" means "a song for crazy women", followed by "Eimei Shihen", another madness ... that's it. Drenched in continual shouts and mind-blowing high-tone voices, without refined melodic texture, but this stuff consists of innovative collective, namely such a neat phenomenon brushed up by crazy mademoiselles and crazy Takaaki.

Female extreme pitchshift horror based upon symphonic / psychedelic slowdown in "Wasan" gives us palpitation and chill. Regardless of its melodic beauty and power, something fuzzy can be felt around us. Who knows the reason. Mystery. "Jinriki Hiko No Tame No Enzetsu Soan" is another symphonic psychedelia along with Takaaki's inorganic but aggressive storytelling, which content is too difficult for me to give an explanation but his mind-altering power affects our brain massively. The following "Minkan Iryojutsu" sounds like an ambient sound hoaxer, that shows fishy medical appearance for addicting common people without knowledge enough. So tough to listen carefully indeed. "Otori No Kuru Hi" is quite suitable for the last scene of this dramatic theatre. Female high-tone voices are crazier than previously, and psychic symphony takes off and flies over and over. Magnificent, powerful percussion and guitar blows our minds so impressively that we cannot avoid squeezing breath into our throat. Our tears get brilliant expression via such a tragic keyboard play upon the very last part.

Nothing can be found except fascination. Excellent.