Japanese Progressive Rock presented by DamoX

HIRO YANAGIDA GROUP from the inner sleeve of Milk Time

HIRO YANAGIDA, born in Japan in 1949, appeared on stage for the first time as one of members of The Floral in 1966 through the audition for the Japanese Branch of The Monkees Fan Club. In 1969 The Floral changed their name into Apryl Fool, famous as an improvised psychedelic rock band in Japan, and was disbanded soon after recording their eponymous album. Whilst playing in FOOD BRAIN and LOVE LIVE LIFE + ONE, he released four albums as a solo artist - 'Milk Time' (1970), 'Hiro Yanagida (Nanasai No Rohjin Tengoku)' (1971), 'HIRO' (1972), and 'Hirocosmos' (1973) - all of those could gain much approval of worldwide psychedelic progressive rock fans or reviewers.  Recently Hiro, as a session musician, has composed various songs for TV jingles or commercials.


Milk Time (1970), the debut solo album of HIRO YANAGIDA

Exactly the dawn of Japanese improvised organ-based psychedelic progressive rock! (I believe 'another' dawn of Japanese organ-based psych-prog should be The Happenings Four.)

Their core storm gets started with the second track Running Shirts Long ... don't be deceived by the beauty of Hiro's keyboard solo in the short opening Love St. ... each instrumental solo gets exploded heavily and rampantly. And please carefully listen to Hiro's keyboard play especially - although his solo play goes forward at a moment on the latter part, basically Hiro should support the other solos with his strict (and deep) rhythm on the background. Their terrific heavy improvisation on the middle part absolutely, absolutely reminds me Acid Mothers Temple Speed Guru's exploded guitar solo in the song Acid Takion. Makoto Kawabata might be much influenced by Hiro's improvised heavy keyboard play (here's a difference of instruments between them though) I imagine? Kimio Mizutani's crazy guitar solo can make their sounds more aggressive, and Hiroki Tamaki's sharp-edged electric violin can season their style with extremely dry and bitter soundspice. Just in the song can we feel such a greatness of all instruments, all players.

Anyway dart a glance around - in this album is flute-based soft and graceful fairy-tale song like When She Didn't Agree and Yum, a short instrumental track Love T with plaintive violin sounds blended with solemn keyboard ones, or a jazzy freaky flexible jam session Happy, Sorry. And another peak of this album is, I'm sure, the miracle suite Fish Sea Milk / Fingers Of A Red Type-Writer. Based on such a weird keyboard rumble, Kimio's crushed guitar, Hiroki's keen electroviolin, Nozomi's loud flute, Kenji & Hiro Tsunoda's deep rhythm section can fall one upon another. We cannot close our mouth and close our eyes till the end of Me And Milk And Others, the song characterized as a slow percussion and violin inferno.

A great stuff, able to be defined as one of the dawn(s) of Japanese Progressive Rock. Recommended!


Hiro's childhood ... pretty but sharp eyes!

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I don't know if was discussed this band here but I think worth attention - Black Page - they release  a single album in 1986 named Open the next page, I have the album and is an intristing jazz fusion release full of clourfull elements, and aswell the digipack presentation is awesome. So, if anyone is intrested to enter this band in PA in jazz fusion corner, then anounce me if you need any samples. Here is the band on rym: http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/black_page.

あいや～。

honganji wrote: なるほど、Black Pageも抜けていますね。 一発技で消滅してしまいましたが、オリジナルは大手のキングからリリースされているぐらいで、期待は大きかったのが推察されます。私はオリジナルのＬＰをリアルタイムで購入しましたよ。懐かしいですね。 Black Pageも行けるなら、羅麗若なんかも是非追加支援したいところ。

Yeah Hiro Yanagida should be in, IMHO. 

EDIT: Oh, anyway, Flied Egg / Strawberry Path have been in PA library at VERY last!


Edited by DamoXt7942 - April 22 2010 at 18:34

b_olariu wrote: Ok, so you take this band in consideration, did you need any samples from my CD?? just ask. I think they fit perfectly in jazz fusion section.

Of course!

Another Japanese pioneer I can recommend here!



Kimio MIZUTANI was born in Japan on June 17th, 1947. He appeared on stage as a guitarist in his teenaged days and formed OUT CAST in 1966, which currently were considered as the Japanese Garage Punk progenitor. 1971 was the special year for him. He carried out two important progressive rock project - LOVE LIVE LIFE + ONE and PEOPLE - with his improvised guitar play and terrific sound production. And also as a solo player he released 'A Path Through Haze' in the same year.

He is very active as a session guitarist and sound creator but for over 30 years he had not released any album under his credit.  But at last in 2003 the project of Kimio and Hiro Yanagida named MA-YA produced an album 'Floating'.

'Try to do something new just when you get confident in yourself and everything gets well for you.' is Kimio's motto.


A Path Through Haze (Uchu No Kukan) (1971) - KIMIO MIZUTANI

Spacey, heavy, jazzy, avantgarde ... his style can be altered again and again in this album.

What a fantastic sound creator he is - one of pioneers in Japanese Progressive Rock scene, this phrase can be exactly fit for Kimio MIZUTANI. Anyway the Japanese title of this album is 'Uchu No Kukan (Space in the universe)' and this might mean his magnificent guitar style I suppose? And look at the support members - Masahiko Satoh and Hiromasa Suzuki (jazz-pianists), Takeshi Inomata (jazz-drummer), Masaoki Terakawa (nu-rock bassist; Love Live Life + One), Hideaki Takebe (session bassist), and Hiro Yanagida (keyboardist; needless to say) - surprisingly Kimio can surpass them (what fascinating supporters!)  in loudness and magnificence. His guitar has various faces ... mainly of heavy rock but sometimes bubbling and noisy, sometimes folksy, and sometimes jazzy ... but all of them are absolutely Kimio's ROCK appearances. For example, Turning Point, composed by Kuni Kawachi, is characterized by a heavily spacey and minimalistic guitar solo, based on simple keyboard sounds. On the contrary, Tell Me What You Saw by Kimio himself is a violently exploded heavy guitar rock. Various genre artists can season Kimio's solo album with various essence and spice ... we can see eclecticism in it.

Listen to a Japanese Rock progenitor's album.


Kimio Mizutani and his friends (from the inner sleeve of A Path Through Haze)


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Ethos wrote: I really like Kazumi Watanabe.  I bought a laser disc 10+ years ago called "The Spice Of Life Live."  It was a live performance by this amazing guitar phenom.  The group was made up of  three men with Bill Bruford on drums, and Jeff Berlin on bass.  The reason I bought it originally was because of Bill Bruford.  The concert is one of my favorites in my entire music collection.  It is more on the prog jazz fusion line but absolutely stunning playing by all musicians. I did a search and found one other post on this site from 2009 .  If you get a chance (and haven't already heard of him) check him out for sure. http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=62794&KW=watanabe     Do a search for him on youtube as well! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vQt0FYk7No   No mistake about it, it is pure prog!

Thanks Ethos for your appreciation of Kazumi Watanabe.

He has already been approved by Jazz Rock/Fusion subgenre team but not been added yet.
I'll check him again and help & support the addition sooner.

I think the only Japanese prog band I've heard is Bi Ryo Kan (sp?), who although good, are a blatant rip-off of King Crimson.

Logan wrote: Hoodlum wrote: I think the only Japanese prog band I've heard is Bi Ryo Kan (sp?), who although good, are a blatant rip-off of King Crimson. There's a lot of progressive rock from Japan I love, but Geinoh Yamashirogumi's Osorezan is one of my favourite discoveries of the last year.  You might want to check it out if you have the time: "Osorezan" part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9JDx6TL40s "Osorezan" part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpKa1ogS-RI "Osorezan" part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAFyCXn0Ez0I