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LP
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DOO 17005LP
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Oom Dooby Dochas present a reissue of Osamu Kitajima's Benzaiten, originally released in 1976. Benzaiten is world music and ethno sounds with an obvious Japanese origin, meeting progressive rock and psych rock. The result is a captivating piece of melodic and deeply atmospheric music that paints pictures of life in ancient Japan. If Pink Floyd were Japanese, their music might have sounded like this album. The frequency of the arrangements on Benzaiten is reminiscent of what English prog bands created in the early to mid '70s, just with a different ethnical approach. Benzaiten is even a more progressive effort than anything most British bands have ever managed to fabricate and is still utterly natural and vivid concerning the flow of the music. All participating musicians here are professionals and their performances are tight and still passionate. The sound is warm and vivid and the song structures are wide open and welcoming. Electronic elements in the percussion section add some oddity to the whole musical picture. The cool aspect of Benzaiten is the rocking guitar which keeps the whole album together. Must be the Japanese equivalent to German acts like Amon Düül II, Embryo and Guru Guru.
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LP
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DOO 17004LP
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Oom Dooby Dochas present a reissue of Osamu Kitajima's Osamu, originally released in 1977. This is the third album by Osamu Kitajima, one of Japan's most prolific artists from the ethno rock, world music, and progressive department. You certainly cannot divide all the mentioned stylistic aspects from each other for they were all incorporated in these complex arrangements and homogeneous sound. It is the same with his other albums like 1976's Benzaiten (DOO 17005LP/PSI 004-1CD) and or his fourth album, 1980's Masterless Samurai; traditional Japanese music meets Western jazz-rock and progressive sounds to form a new style unheard by most people in Western countries at the time. Osamu Kitajima easily plays with elements of reggae and funk, fusion jazz, and colorful pop while staying true to his Japanese roots with bits and pieces of traditional melodies and the use of old Asiatic instruments. The Japanese influence makes this music unique and still it gets as close to Western rock and pop sounds as it could. An adventurous journey through the world from East Asia to West Africa and to the steaming metropolises of the UK and USA is your reward when you put this perfectly produced album onto your turntable. The former Pink Floyd comparison coming with Benzaiten is not totally out of place with the self-titled album here but there is much more latitude in the allover style. Osamu Kitajima gathers a few well talented musicians around him on this record despite playing and arranging most of the instrumental passages himself. He, the multi-instrumentalist who discovered progressive rock music in the early '70s during a stay in London where he released a first album under the moniker Justin Heathcliff before moving to California around the mid-70s. And this group of musicians creates something special that sticks out of the mass of similar art pop and fusion bands in the late '70s. Osamu Kitajima is something like the Japanese answer to Mike Oldfield, and others equal in vision and output.
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