snobb Japan found out about jazz fusion soon after fusion took over the scenes in America and Europe. Early Japanese fusion bands were strongly influenced by Western artists and were quite experimental and rough the same way.

In the late 70s, when Western fusion lost its bite and identity mixed with upcoming disco and smooth jazz, Japan experienced the Second wave of Japanese fusion. Generally oriented the same way as in the Western world, the second wave of Japanese fusion found its special sound and gave birth to a J-fusion phenomenon. Some of the genre's bands started their career in the late 70s, and are active and even popular till now, almost a half-century long. Casiopea is one of them.

Founded in 1976, the Japanese guitar-led quartet released their debut in 1979 only. For marketing reasons, there are three renowned Western fusion stars, participating in this album - sax players David Sanborn and Michael Brecker plus trumpeter Randy Brecker. Still, their participation influences the album's music only in a small part, "Casiopea" sounds very much like one of many albums, released by the band themselves, without guests.

From almost half a century distance it's much more easy to evaluate, why this album has so many fans and experienced all series of re-releases (last re-issue comes in 2024). Typically for the leading band of J-fusion's second wave, Casiopea plays a mix of some popular genres of the time - from Mahavishnu Orchestra-like high-energy guitar fusion to well-arranged pop-jazz, to early smooth jazz and funk-jazz. Their sound is generally well-polished and characteristic of the late 70s. It has millions of haters nowadays and not without reason, still Casiopea's debut has almost cult status till now.

The main secret is that the band plays tuneful music with the highest level of precision (usual for many Japanese artists of the time), but the music itself is warm and emotionally colored. The sound mix is crisp and dry, but again - it successfully balanced on the red line, distinguishing it from muzak. In all, this album represents a concentrated late 70s jazz fusion values almost neutralizing the well-known genre's limitations.

The album's opener "Time Limit" is a guitar-lead high-energy piece in a key of John McLaughlin's works with an excellent drummer and dancing bass line. The guest brass section is active here as well, it still doesn't add a lot of blood to the piece. "Tears Of The Star" is a lyrical ballad with soloing sax, Latin-like guitar intros besides of electric guitar soloing, and quite tasteful arrangements. "Space Road" is a funky instrumental, recalling the soundtrack of early computer games. "Midnight Rendezvous" has a catchy melody and sounds pretty much like a Japanese pop song of the time.

Side B is not as strong, as Side A. "Far Away" opens with groovy bass and switches towards a key-lead popular tune, still perfectly arranged. "Swallow" still has great bass and drum lines, but tends to be a smooth jazz hit. "Dream Hill" is probably the most controversial album's song, a sweet pop-ballad with Japanese vocals. The closer "Black Jake" saves the situation a bit offering a faster and more energetic guitar-lead piece.

In all, Casiopea's debut is significant evidence of the time and a great starting point for understanding what the Japanese fusion phenomenon is about. This album gave a lot of inspiration (and citation) to early computer games creators and is popular with every young generation again and again (in most current times its music is tagged as "City pop" genre).

dreadpirateroberts Casiopea do fairly slick fusion that can get spacey but is mostly funk-influenced. Their first album includes a horn section on several songs, and even strings at times, but the chief focus is on the guitar of leader Issei Noro and the keys of Minoru Mukaiya, both which spend as much time establishing texture, working on riffs and melody as they do soloing or digging into anything tangled. But that’s not a weakness, the accessibility and melody are nice features, and it’s also not to say there are no solos at all. ‘Swallow’ for instance has some great solos from both players, and in fact, I’m reminded of Al Di Meola at times.

I do feel like this is a good album rather than an essential release. It’s got a nice amount of punch from the bursts of lockstep playing or up-tempo numbers like ‘Black Joke’ or ‘Space Road’ and contrasts this with cruising moments, even including a nice ballad of sorts, in ‘Tears of the Stars’ where Noro brings out the acoustic guitar. Opener ‘Time Limit’ is great, but my favourite piece is probably the fantastic ‘Midnight Rendezvous.’ Not every song is as distinctive as some of those mentioned, and at times the album seems ‘safe’ and I found myself wondering what Casiopea would sound like if they approached some of the pieces in a less composed manner. (I ought to check out some live tracks and do a bit of a comparison.)

At a production level, the ultra crisp and reasonably trebly bass sound does date the album a little, it has a bit of an 1980s feel that doesn’t sit all that well with me, but this is nitpicking to some extent. Because it doesn’t truly detract from the better compositions, and probably my chief concern is with the overall slickness of the songs, both in terms of sound and composition, which is clear from first listen.

Casiopea were one of the most durable fusion bands from Japan, releasing over thirty albums in their career, and this is certainly an impressive debut, even if I don’t think it’s essential. It’s still a good album and would probably work as a fitting (and logical) introduction to the band, so slowly, I'm going to dig into the rest of their discography.