NIPPONJIN

FAR EAST FAMILY BAND play a spacey, laid back style of music with English vocals.This band was originally called FAR OUT and put out one self-titled album out under that name. Actually that excellent record consisted of two side long suites.The first song on this album was originally on the FAR OUT album but has been changed a little, mostly by adding mellotron and synths to it, as mentioned in Proghead's review. I must say i do prefer the original. Even though there is some good guitar on this version, the original really featured some amazing guitar melodies. Most of the other songs on this record were originally on their first album called "The Cave- Down To Earth" that was produced by Klaus Schulze.

"Nipponjin" is almost 17 minutes long and is the epic on this album. It features spacey synths, mellotron, Eastern sounds, vocals, and some excellent guitar work. This is a very good song with plenty of mood and tempo changes. "The Cave" opens with the sound of wind and other various sounds before vocals and organ arrive. There is a change after 3 minutes and it really reminds me of PINK FLOYD. Actually "Dark Side Of The Moon" comes to mind often on these first two tracks. Six minutes in were back to the vocal / organ melody. "Undiscovered Northern Land" features spacey sounds with no melody and mellotron after 2 minutes. "Timeless" has a good instrumental interlude part way through with some steller guitar. "The God Of Water" is 2 minutes of spacey winds.

"River Of Soul" is a change of pace as acoustic guitar and flute are featured. Mellotron and some great guitar after 4 and 6 minutes. "The God Of Wind" has some fast paced percussion as well as some Eastern sounds and spacey synths.This song blends into "Movin' Lookin'" as vocals come in, and the last 30 seconds are a real toe tapper. This blends into "Yamato" which continues the toe tapping music. Haha. The final track "Mystery Of Northern Space" is my favourite along with the opening song.This one has some Gilmour-like guitar to open and even the vocals remind me of a FLOYD song. Organ and heavy drums come in too.

This is a good record but I would suggest getting FAR OUT's only release from 1973 then the follow-up to this album i'm reviewing called "Parallel World". I really feel those two albums are of that same Krautrock spirit while this one is different, more FLOYD-like and a step down.