In the mid to late '70's, and early '80's a rather brilliant young Japanese guitarist / multi-instrumentalist named Osamu Kitajima released a handfull of excelent prog albums ( Benzaiten, Osamu, Masterless Samurai, The Source) that combine Japanese traditional music with modern western rock and jazz and electronic in a most progressive way. His later output sadly became polluted by nasty lite jazz, although even these albums have couple of good tracks on each of them.

Anybody around here know this stuff ? If so, do you like it? Hate it? Don't care?

I can't say I've heard of that. I'd like to check it out sometime. I assume those are tough to find?

Also, speaking of traditional Japanese music, I picked up an album from the library called "Enchanted Forest: Melodies of Japan", featuring James Galway (flute) and Hiro Fujikake (synthesizers). A beautiful listen!

The Source (the most electronic of the albums I mentioned) is not too hard to find on CD on ebay, it was the only one released on a major label (Columbia). However the others I only have on vinyl. I don't think that they have been issued on CD yet. Sometimes I see them listed on ebay.

That Galway album is very nice.