OUT FROM QUASER

A Japanese progressive act formed in 1976 with its only consistent member being keyboardist/singer Takuya Morita.The band played initially instrumental Symphonic/Jazz-Rock,influenced by E.L.P.,SPACE CIRCUS and PRISM.They had a great live activity and recorded many demos,before moving to Tokyo,where they added vocals in their music and made a contract with Alfa Records.However progressive rock was out of fashion and Quaser disbanded in 1982.About a decade later Morita reformed Quaser and released their debut ''Out of quaser'' on Belle Antique,actually this was more of a solo release with the help of some musicians like Yozox Yamamoto of Ain Soph on guitars.

Morita remained faithful to his old roots,thus the album contains mainly light Symphonic Rock blended with Fusion with plenty of vocals and filled with synth sounds.The arrangements are quite interesting with some good orchestrations on the instrumental parts and, quite surprisingly for a Japanese project, decent vocal lines,sung both in English and Japanese.They are also some piano-based Classical references along with lots of dissonant parts in a Fusion style,dominated by Morita's synths.Still the album ended up to be a little far from being really good.Some sampled instruments are over-cheesy,the synths of Morita are very digital-sounding and plastic,while I doubt the drumming comes from a human,it sounds very mechanical and far from live recorded.Additionally the mix doesn't help at all.Plenty of the instrumental parts remain in the background when Morita sings,while some bombastic parts sound too light due to the production.

Morita's Quaser made a decent comeback after all these lost years,but the lack of some real musicians and the amateur production did not eventually help.Still the album should normally find some luck in the collection of Symph/Fusion fanatics,despite not being of first priority...2.5 stars.