Various Artists - Nippon Psychedelic Soul 1970-1979 - Import LP Record

Credits:

Various Artists

Description:

A reexamination of psychedelic soul in Japan in the 1970s. From a star-studded cast of artists such as Happiendo and Kamayatsu Hiroshi to self-produced artists, we look back at the Nippon of that time, awakened by the funky grooves and heavy reverberations of extreme colors. Following on the heels of the label's previous release, "Nippon Acid Folk 1970-1980," this album takes a step into the more trippy, psychedelic world of the same period, where the young Japanese musicians of the time were trying to find their way around after the anti-establishment movement of the late 1960s had come to an end. Young Japanese musicians, while taking inspiration from abroad, found their own soul-searching while keeping their feet on the ground as the country's economy developed. Some were successful, others were forgotten, but the music they left behind still shines brightly. At the center of this story is Happiendo, led by Haruomi Hosono, one of Japan's greatest treasures. Their signature song "Haruyo koi" with its distorted guitars and crisp backbeat and spontaneous Japanese lyrics completely overturned the paradigm of rock music in Japan.Yoshiko Sai's impressive string arrangement of Philadelphia Soul-like music was composed by Yuji Ohno, famous for his work on the soundtrack of Lupin the Third. Her unique worldview, heavily influenced by fantasy novels and other weird and wonderful stories, is reminiscent of Rotary Connection. The debut album by Jun Fukamachi, a keyboard player who would go on to lead fusion music in Japan, was surprisingly the first work by a keyboard-playing singer-songwriter in Japan. The album includes "You," a cinematic arrangement of psychedelic organ, space-distorting effects on guitar and vocals, and an intoxicating horn section, as well as Hiroshi Kamayatsu's classic "Have You Ever Smoked Goloise? The band was in Japan at the time. The band also caught up with Bay Area funk legends Tower of Power, who happened to be in Japan at the time, and improvised an on-the-spot recording of a classic tune from the era.Recorded simultaneously with such large-scale studio production are the two remaining independent releases, "August Impressions" by the Osaka band Pinks and "Inside the Room" by Kazushi Inamura and Volume I, Chapter 100 from Hokkaido. Both are soulful and dramatic, psychedelic tones of flutes and guitars that develop over a rough-hewn but heavy rhythm section. And among the unique recording artists, the most distinctive is self-published science fiction author, musician, activist, and self-proclaimed scientist, Tadashi Goino. He transformed his fantasy novel "Messenger from the 7th Dimension" into a prog suite that could be described as operatic, and created a complete and matchless sound world with "Beyond Time" included in this album. Nippon Psychedelic Soul 1970-1979" is not a compilation of a certain music scene, but rather a collection of emotions that broke with the folk and rock traditions of the time and projected the psychological conditions of the time through its diverse personalities.