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2LP
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BE 020LP
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Black Editions presents Mass Hysterism in Another Situation remastered and cut to double 45RPM 12" vinyl. Mass Hysterism in Another Situation captures Masayuki Takayanagi's New Direction Unit in its final incarnation, at an apex in its development; it also finds Takayanagi, one of Japan's great iconoclastic artists, at a moment of crucial artistic transformation. Recorded in August 1983 as part of his "Another Situation" concert series, the album features one of the last performances of Takayanagi's revolutionary and perhaps most famously violent piece, "Mass Projection." By this date, New Direction's line up had been distilled to a compact, searingly hot trio of Takayanagi joined on electric guitar by Akira Iijima and Hiroshi Yamazaki on drums/percussion. Over the course of 40 minutes, the group sustains an uninterrupted, highly charged attack propelled with unrelenting energy. The music is rife with noise and dissonance intruding from both sides; a vortex of sound and fury that begins to slip from even the expansive bounds of free jazz into something almost purely electronic. The trio would perform only four more times, completing the "Another Situation" series with its 24th edition in November 1984. Eleven months later Takayanagi would debut an entirely new modality, one he called "Action Direct." It completely transformed his approach to guitar and sound in general by embracing an entirely abstract, solo noise music projected through massive, complex sound systems of his own design. Mass Hysterism is perhaps the most powerful link in this part of Takayanagi's history -- a perfect realization and farewell to one of his greatest forms en route to territories even further afield and radical. Pressed to high quality vinyl at RTI. Housed in a heavy tip-on gatefold jacket with Pantone spot colors, spot ink pigment foil on gloss film laminate finish as well as printed inner sleeves. Featuring photographs by Tatsuo Minami and newly translated notes by Takayanagi scholar Yoshiyuki Kitazato. Deluxe double LP gatefold.
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LP
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BE 014LP
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Masayuki Takayanagi was one of the truly iconoclastic musicians to emerge from Japan, or anywhere else, in the 20th Century. Though he won acclaim in the 1950s and '60s as a master of the electric guitar and jazz improvisation, Takayanagi was a restless spirit, deeply engaged with the era's new movements in contemporary art, music, literature, and philosophy. His work, beginning in the late 1960s placed him on the leading edge of these developments; he began expanding on the most radical elements of American and European free jazz, infusing them with the raw feedback and dissonance of electronic and avant-garde music. With his various New Direction groups, Takayanagi broke free of traditional structures and developed a new theory of music that embraced an aggressive and unrelenting style of playing that has remained almost completely unparalleled in its ferocity. Of all the albums to be released during Takayanagi's lifetime, 1975's Eclipse was perhaps the most enigmatic and sought after. Released in an edition of only 100, it almost immediately disappeared and became a holy grail for Japanese connoisseurs of adventurous music, and rightly so. It's first side contained a two-part realization of Takayanagi's "Gradually Projection" modality -- a searching interplay between instruments -- slowly emerging from a sparse open field and building with the tension of a looming thunder storm. The second side contains an epic performance of a "Mass Projection", a high energy, densely layered barrage of sound that in its 25 minutes, never once slackens its intensity. It would be another 31 years before this key album in Takayangi's oeuvre would finally have a (slightly) wider audience through a CD release by Japan's P.S.F. Records.
Black Editions present a deluxe vinyl edition of this masterwork, revealingly remastered from the original tapes by Elysian Masters. The album is packaged in a heavy double tip-on gatefold jacket that pays tribute to the original handmade packaging and features a previously unseen studio photograph of Takayanagi by Tatsuo Minami. Recorded in Tokyo, March 14, 1975. Engineer: Mikio Aoki. Cover, photographs and design by Kazuharu Fujitani. Gatefold photograph by Tatsuo Minami. Insert Notes by Yasunori Saito. Produced by Satoru Obara, Yoshiaki Kamei, Nihon Gendai Jazz Ongaku Kenkyukai. Originally released in an edition of 100 by ISKRA Records, Japan in 1975. Remastered from the original master tapes by Dave Cooley, Elysian Masters, and produced by Peter Kolovos. Deluxe heavy tip-on gatefold LP with matte black paper, second tipped-on metallic gold wrap and insert.
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