LIVE 2004

This is my first approach to this Japanese formation, which has released a few albums prior to this live album. If you are not familiar to them, this album will appear a bit too influenced by Jean-Luc Ponty's later 70's solo albums. Although this might appear as quite an impressive reference, I unfortunately point this out more as more of a flaw: don't get me wrong the music is in itself quite fine but brings no new water to the mill of adventure. Obviously, the leader is violinist Tsuboy, but the only thing that might differ from JLP is that the spotlight is shared with keyman Takahashi. While the virtuoso qualities of the group are indisputable, there is a definite propensity to transform a certain showmanship into self-indulgence, which quickly wears you out, even it was impossible for me to stay cold or aloof to their music. I mean, I love this type of music.

Among the highlights is the 12-min Inner Flames (Mounting?), the 100-mph-and-stop fusion of No Kioku (with a touch of Wetton-era Crimson) and the very interesting I'm Not Here (neither was I, should I answer? ;-) and its Bartok-like improvs strongly reminiscent of ELP. Among the (slight) misses are the insufferably-long Shironiji (even though the slightly Arabian mid-section is excellent), the very-clichéd No Kawa, the opening Spiral and the rather boring and pointless closing Shoudou.

I actually enjoyed this album's few spins I gave it; it was on loan from a friend, but I chose not to copy or buy it, which in itself says quite a bit about the music's nature: nothing new under the sun, even from the opposite side of the planet. But if unlike me, you have not heard dozens (or even hundreds) of such JR/F albums, you might want to try this out, because there are many qualities to it, but also all off the Ponty-esque clichés, which for an old dog like me is rather hard to turn a blind eye to them. Still worth an earful, though, because the music is impeccably played AND let's face it well-influenced ;-) .

After the awesome new Japanese progrock band Interpose, here is another great discovery from the 'land of the rising sun', the new and very promising four piece band KBB. On this live CD you will find two tracks from their first album entitled Lost And Found (2000) and four tracks from their second one entitled Four Corner's Sky (2003) along the new song Inner Flames. I knew KBB from the second CD and was very impressed about the high level and splendid violin work. Well, on this live CD I was even more impressed, what a dynamic sound, what an excellent musicians and what an exciting soli on violin and keyboards!

The seven compositions sound pleasant and flowing, the focus is on the amazing interplay and the frequent soli. And these soli are often mindblowing: the violin alternates from warm and sensitive to flashy and very distorted (a kind of Ritchie Blackmore on violin!) and the keyboards from spectacular pitchbend driven on the synthesizer to swirling on the Hammond organ and swinging on the piano. The support by the rhtyhm-section is very dynamic and propulsive. KBB their melodic sound is close to fusion (like Mahavishnu Orchestra) but also worth to explore for symphonic prog fans, especially the Eddie Jobson aficionados although the violinist plays more in the vein of monsieur Jean Luc Ponty.

Highly recommended!