Japanese Progressive Rock presented by DamoX

fuxi wrote: Damo, I noticed you're from Wakayama... Have you ever heard the album ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS by Shinsekai, an Osaka prog band? It's a wonderful mixture of Japanese rock, Canterbury Scene, King Crimson, Zappa and Focus (!) and it features a rocking version of "Jabberwocky" (a poem from ALICE) sung in Japanese by a girls' choir! I wonder what happened to Shinsekai. I tried to look at their website yesterday but the link didn't work anymore. Perhaps they've given up? If I remember it well, ALICE only appeared two years ago or so. I've often thought Shinsekai ought to be on Prog Archives, since they are "retro" in the same way as The Flower Kings or the Tangent, but with a Japanese twist...

...And let me introduce SHINSEKAI, an Osakan eclectic progressive rock project.




SHINSEKAI is a solo project of Yu SHIMODA (guitars, bass, mellotron, programming), who has been renowned in Osaka, Japan as a sound creator of games. At the same time he is a freak of 70s British progressive rock, and as a result, Yu, with his incomparable talent, tried to produce his own progressive rock world. Various artists belonging to various rock genres (e.g. KBB, NAIKAKU, NINGEN-ISU, KINZOKU-EBISU, GERARDetc.) assembled around Yu and his dream could come true - his project named SHINSEKAI associated with a famous place in Osaka finally got started with the eponymous debut album in 2005. And in the following year they released 'Alice Through The Looking Glass' with more and more aggressive & eclectic approach, like most of Osakan people.



Alice Through The Looking Glass (2006) - SHINSEKAI 

An eclectic music space constructed by various musicians, with a terrific Osakan power.

Have you heard about 'okonomi-yaki'? Suggest you have never ... Okonomi-yaki is a common food in Osaka, Japan - a mixture of cabbage, pork, sea foods, and wheat flour, baked like a hot cake and seasoned with sauce, laver powder, red pickled ginger, or mayonnaise. Oh no this is not 'Galloping Gourmet' but the important point I want to emphasize is that Shinsekai's soundscape should be an eclectic fusion with various essence - symphonic, avantgarde, jazzy, psychedelic, electronic, Raga-Oriental, yodel (!), and especially heavy (!!).  We can easily understand that by the established fact that all artists supporting this project are much renowned for various scene of Japanese progressive rock, and of course, that this project was around Yu SHIMODA, an Osakan multi-instrumentalist!

Furthermore, surely Suginami Junior Chorus can clad this album in more mysterious and more magnificent armour. The first part Alice Through The Looking Glass Pt. 1 ~ 2 can notify us this situation. After an ethnically beautiful mellotron solo, dignified falsetto chorus completely conquer the part, around heavy riffs by guitar, bass, and drums. Everybody may have never gained such an experience - yep, this eccentricity is absolutely one of the Osakan characteristics. The scene turns on the next song Jabberwocky and deeply heavy riffs and childlike but WEIRD chorus with WEIRD lyrics (about a monster named 'Jabberwocky' under the sunset) launch an all-out attack to us. The content of the lyrics is indeed cheesy like an RPG (because Yu is a composer of computer games or RPGs???) but this exaggerated direction does make this song more dramatic and more serious.

Here on I Love FOCUS (naturally, absolutely naturally the parody of Hocus Pocus!), the Yodel Master has come! Beautiful (but slightly freaked out?) yodel voices ride on the heavy metallic riffs. How queer but amazing the mixture of rock and yodel should be - this richness of ideas lots of Osakan artists have. Not only a heavy progressive style but a very eclectic one inviting various elements in various nations or regions. Another strange song is the next Turn Right On Sennichimae-Indian ... MEANINGLESS! Eerie Junior chorus can go wonderfully into our brain, though. Five Q reminds us ethnically heavy King Crimson during Discipline period and Tony Levin's delightful slap bass solo, like a fantastic speedy progressive machine gun. Well another side of SHINSEKAI is Return Of Progressive Rock 'Tadaima'. Suggest Yu's progressive rock may be complex but enjoyable sound and style featuring Oriental (Japanese, and Osakan) feeling. The song where Suginami Junior Chorus can push their real power should be Hamatai, I wanna say. Cannot understand the meaning of the lyrics at all but sharp-edged chorus is enough amazing for us.

The highlight of this album is the last part - particularly the suite Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung Part 1 ~ 2. This section may be a real copy of King Crimson, Fripp and Bruford! About 15 minute suite is not boring at all for us and let us enough enjoy the heaviness and progressiveness, with altered rhythms and eccentric riffs, inspired (maybe) by Bill Bruford's drumming. Beyond expression about their technique and their harmonized and thrilling plays, all of those can amaze us and simultaneously ease us. The bone marrow of their progressive rock. Music For The End Of Life means such a psychedelic FINE of us 'progressive freaks' ... we can find their various possibility!

By the way, KIMIGAYO is the national anthem of Japan ... please never forget it. ;-)




Thank you for reading this blog.


Edited by DamoXt7942 - March 22 2010 at 21:59

Oh, honganji-san, your recommendation is;



Whew, wonderfully freaked-out heavy progressive rock!

I find The Japanese and Koreans and The Chinese to be smart, Kind and Intelligent

Very Kind Honganji!

Luca Pacchiarini wrote: Hi Damo!   I don't have time to read all the thread, In your opinion, are Les Rallizes Denudes worth the attention of a prog fan?

EXACTLY!

We Japanese consider LES RALLIZES DENUDES should be the dawn of Japanese loud-noise psychedelic guitar progressive rock.

Not psychedelic, but Japanese all the same .... Fresh from the latest Progressor update, here's a trio of my reviews of Japanese bands:

TEE - The Earth Explorer: http://www.progressor.net/review/tee_2009.html
Midas - Beyond the Clear Air & 25th Anniversary Concert: http://www.progressor.net/review/midas_2009.html

Hope you enjoy them!

... And Katra Turana has been added in Progarchives Library. 
 

Hi, honganji-san. Always thanks for your perceptive opinions.
Katra Turana is, I consider, not only a Japanese underground band nor an eccentric commune but a Japanese gem as an original progressive avant one.
(Okinawan Folk or Gamelan ... exactly they could use these elements effectively ... understood.)

We all Japanese should recommend our gems more widely forever, and especially in this forum. 

ミッキー・カーティス＆侍も、「侍」はまだ完全な2枚組ではCD化されていないはず。 私が生きている間に、長尺曲を収録した完全版で出てくれるといいのですがねぇ・・・。