Japanese Progressive Rock presented by DamoX

SaltyJon wrote: I noticed that in your description above.  Does the Soft Machine resemblance go farther than the album art and band name?

Wow, I've NOT noticed that ... you bet, exactly.

Cool stuff - I'll have to give them a listen sometime. 

I just listened to Altered States' album 4 while doing some housework...they're always great fun as well.

As previously mentioned, Yumi Hara Cawkwell (Mammal Machine) has sent me her lovely Private Mail.
One of her projects HUMI ... with Hugh HOPPER ... let me recommend them today.


HUMI - the experimental music project formed by Hugh HOPPER and Yumi Hara CAWKWELL

HUMI were a short-lived two-piece experimental music project, formed by Hugh HOPPER (bass, loops, electronics; ex-Soft Machine) and Yumi Hara CAWKWELL (voices, keyboards, percussion) - they came across in August 2007 and made an immediate and intuitive decision to start a novel project. In the following year they released their debut (and only one) album 'Dune', and drew up a plan to go on a tour all around the world with this creation. However, this dreamy tour could not complete since Hugh fell into leukemia. And sadly, this 'Dune' had got to be Hugh's last studio work.


Dune (2008) - HUMI
(This album has been recommended here by Assaf Vestin. Thanks Assaf!  )

HUMI were a "short-lived" (very sadly for all fans ... the reason is well-known though) two-piece experimental music project, formed by Hugh HOPPER (bass, loops, electronics; ex-Soft Machine) and Yumi HARA CAWKWELL (voices, keyboards, percussion) in 2007. They released one (and only) album "Dune" in 2008 via Moonjune Records, that could be crystallized with two tremendous talents for uncivilized strange experimental music scene. They could have gone on a tour all around the world along with this fascinating album, but very sadly this (dreamy dream) tour could not complete because of Hugh's illness (leukemia), and this "Dune" had got to be his last studio creation. We can feel his magnificent scale via this work obviously.

Amazingly, this is HUMI's creation, not Hugh & Yumi's one. That is, in all songs of this album, not that one player plays with supporting another, but with stimulating another like an actress / actor upon a theatre stage or in a movie screen, let me say. Yumi's terrific keyboard play and mysterious, unexampled voices, Hugh's deep bass and refined electronic sounds throughout the whole production can be approved by almost all reviewers, and furthermore, this album notifies me how important an actress / actor can show and tell her / his play depending on the situation or atmosphere.

Taking the second track "Shiranui" for example ... Shiranui is a Japanese monster or illusory phenomenon (Sea Fire ... the subtitle of this song) that may be brought by the monster everyone says, and we can easily feel such an eerie air via Hugh's weird synthesizer shots and Yumi's scattered but graceful piano touches. But at least for me, in this song Yumi's piano sounds like a pretty girl playing with pleasure upon an extensive and ruined dune produced by Hugh's magnificence. Extremely more obvious in the three-piece "Dune" suite - Hugh's heavy, deep bass kicks can be compared to the huge desert, his weird elektronika to sand stirred up by a wind, and Yumi's keyboard sounds to stardust, and her voices to hot, dry, but mysteriously comfortable air over the dune ... in my mind.

Let me emphasize, Yumi's play is very eclectic and colourful ... wearing a sensual expression in "Hopeful Impressions Of Happiness", a serious and solemn one like a shrine maiden in "Seki No Gohonmatsu" (in Izumo, Japan ... anyway), dark green wind-blowing (very tough and painful) in "Scattered Forest", large drops of snow falling onto Hugh's eccentric rocky tract "Awayuki". And yeah, I love especially the last track "Futa", where all (both Hugh's and Yumi's plays) should be well-broken and scattered into piece ... addictive psychedelia beyond expression. Always stimulating each other aggressively ... this is the most important and impressive point on HUMI.

Kudos for them, and the late Hugh.



Seki No Gohonmatsu performed by HUMI


Thank you for reading this blog. ٩(̾●̮̮̃̾•̃̾)۶

So glad you can understand my happiness, Eetu ...

Today let me suggest another Yumi Hara Cawkwell's project ... GEOFF LEIGH & YUMI HARA.

Listened to their limited live album "Riverhead" (2009). Glad this album sent to me has a limited number yay!

Collaboration? No. Engagement in music battle between Geoff and Yumi ... it's obviously natural because both have strong personality and sharp-edged intention for "music".

Each player seems to pick a music battle with the other one ... in every song. That is, each player might try so hard to release the best sound bomb for the atmosphere around them upon the other, that both of them could not get beaten at all. A lump of sound bombs shot via two fantastic sound launchers can get entangled and well-united, refined for the air among stage and audience. Another impressive matter for me is, that their music approaches sound different from each other. Geoff played, as a multi-instrumental player, various appearances with various instruments (according to the credit upon the sleeve, he played flute, soprano sax, percussion, nose flute / voice drone, electronics), and contrary to that, Yumi played various appearances (same as Geoff) with her voices and keyboards only. Sorry for my ignorance in music theory but lots of music faces popping out of then, and their expression manners on stage impress me so much that I cannot help analyzing every single sound through their instruments and bodies (don't know whether my way to listen should be right or not, though).


Riverhead (Japan Tour 2009 Limited Edition) - GEOFF LEIGH & YUMI HARA

Analysis aside, can feel atmosphere tense with aggressiveness and comfort (simultaneously both of which can exist on stage, mysterious situation) in the former 4 tracks of this album ... those were recorded on stage in London. Let me emphasize what a chilling tension and heart-warmed wind stream can live together. Guess they might play harder and harder for squeezing the most suitable sound for the stage and the air out of their minds and bodies (including instruments they played), but not all of the end products received by the audience should be hard mass really. Some hard sounds can change themselves into hearty sound bubbles in front of the audience I imagine. As for the latter 3 tracks recorded in studio, we can consider similarly to the live performance, can't we? These can be mentioned as battles between them (in Japan this battle may be done as a battle with serious swords ... surely their sounds all can be sharp for cutting our mind), and the end products (aka songs) can get well-refined and much merged enough together. Yumi's keyboard solo can be sometimes gracious, sometimes weird, sometimes delightful, and sometimes serious ... wonder how she can exert so various appearances only via a keyboard (or an organ). And wow, also Geoff's flute is awesome, with aggressive kicks and easygoing whispers ... perfect dissociative faces he has definitely.



Previously Yumi told me that musicians should try hard to create the best (for the air) sound one by one without thinking anything else, and only the audience can cultivate the end creation (combination of sounds, aka a song) wonderfully ... got it!


Thank you for reading this blog. ٩(̾●̮̮̃̾•̃̾)۶

Anthony H. wrote: Speaking of Yasutaka Tsutsui, Salmonella Men on Planet Porno is a fantastic collection of short stories. I highly recommend it.

Thanks Anthony! I'll check it soon (a bit difficult to search such a short novel though Not found his "Dema" yet ).

Rivertree wrote: Hey, Keishiro, are you aware of the project VAMPILLIA? They describe themselves as a 10 piece “brutal orchestra” and turn classical into hardcore music. Three distinct vocalists backed by twin violins, piano, twin guitars, bass, turntables. Toyohito Yoshikawa (ex Boredoms) and Kazuhisa Chikada (World’s End Girlfriend) on drums as well as Tatsuya Yoshida . I could listen to their new 'Alchemic Heart' album and hear massive post rock guitar walls, doom, drones, shoegaze, exccentrical vocals - experimental, melancholic  ... hard to digest

Ouhoh, a new bizarre ... thanks Uwe for your recommendation with PAINFUL appearance and beats.

I'll check them ASAP.

DamoXt7942 wrote: Another Masahiko Satoh’s (See The Soundbreakers and New Herd / Masahiko Satoh) terrific project, let me recommend today. “Dema” Project … Yasutaka TSUTSUI / Kohsuke ICHIHARA / Masahiko SATOHThis “Dema” Project got started with Kohsuke ICHIHARA's occasional idea - Kohsuke had been much immersed in a short novel titled Dema, written by Yasutaka TSUTSUI, and he brought this novel to Masahiko SATOH for persuading him to product a suite for Dema story … also Masahiko got interested in this project and composed some material for it. In 1973 Kohsuke ICHIHARA All Stars and Masahiko SATOH & Garandoh came together for the sake of a music novel called ‘Dema’, that was released via a Japanese big major record label CBS / Sony (and re-released as a CD album via Disk Union, a Japanese CD distributor).Dema (1973) - YASUTAKA TSUTSUI / KOHSUKE ICHIHARA / MASAHIKO SATOHAnother Masahiko SATOH's gem released in 1973 ... very surprising that CBS / Sony, a Japanese big major record label, could make an excellent decision to shoot such an aggressive progressive album at that moment.As their biography says, the "bizarre" project had started over Kohsuke's curiosity about Yasutaka's novel named "Dema (Rumours)". I have not read this novel yet (for the reason that I'm afraid I have something of preconception or bias toward this album) but such a painful tension via this album can be enough for us to realize where the original story goes. The short opening "Prologue" is a quiet omen, with weird synthesizer sounds, percussive rumbles, dark guitar bazookas. And the tensive basis cannot be altered upon the following stage "Information 1 - Information 22" ... Cool but burning keyboard sound-fire, dry and achy flute knife edge suddenly attack against our ears, as if a terrible alien with dreadful weapons would run around here and there under the dark sky. And furthermore, in the middle part the riffs pick upper-tempo, just like an activity of the strange murderer (actually, this novel can go ahead as this, can't it?) Until the very last of the track, we cannot avoid chilling by the burning keyboard iceberg and sharp-edged & self-assertive bass explosion ... but amazingly comfortable in such a refined air.In the next scene "Information 23 - Information 49", this aggressiveness gets more extensive ... quiet piano, scattered saxophones and flute, ethnic but not simple (remarkably complex) percussion ... all instruments come and attack against our brain as though they should lie next by next on top of each other upon this stage. Just when a noisy synthesizer sound darkness comes here, we listeners (and also the players?) can do nothing about this "rumour" finally ... Under serious and cynical loudness, psychedelic piano, sharp-edged violin, avantgarde loud saxophones, fuzzy messy bass assertion, and synthesizer darkness - all popped up and invade easily into our mind that expand more easily. Upon the last track "Epilogue", there's nothing except vacant atmosphere, which can be made by plaintive synthesizer streams and sad string eyes.Indeed, enough for us to feel the novel vividly. Recommended as a newly-formatted novel.The inner sleeve of Dema … very psychedelic, avantgarde!Thank you for reading this blog. ٩(̾●̮̮̃̾•̃̾)۶

Really interesting experimental music, possibly more on free-jazz side

snobb wrote: Really interesting experimental music, possibly more on free-jazz side

And they played definite Rock, anybody could not have done in those days.

Thanks Slava for your appreciation.

Let me post my review about the tremendous (expected) stage here.