KEHELL — Galileo (review)

Album · 1999 · Fusion

3.5/5 · 2011-10-06
DamoXt7942

Oyaji (aka Shigekazu KAMAKI, the guitarist of KEHELL) might play guitar with feeling relaxed I guess. :)

KEHELL were a Japanese jazz rock / fusion trio founded as one of Shigekazu KAMAKI’s projects in autumn 1985. Three founders - Shigekazu (guitars), Toru HAMADA (drums), and Ryotaro ONISHI (bass) - brought their ideas together and recorded demo tapes before appearance on stage. Provided their songs for some compilations or got inspired in collaboration with Toshiaki OTSUBO (keyboards), they released a demo tape titled “Arrow Of Time” in 1993. After three-year hibernation, Shigekazu and Toru recruited Yasuyuki HIROSE (bass) and released “Galileo” via Musea Records in 1999. Sadly in the same year they were disbanded owing to Yasuyuki’s cessation.

Quite different from the style of Orpheus, another Shugekazu’s project before KEHELL. Suppose their soundscape of “Classic fusion” might be basically built by their rhythm section, namely Yasuyuki HIROSE (bass) and Toru HAMADA (drums), but wait, should Shigekazu do fusion guitar play intentionally? He also played guitar-synthesizer and pedal-synthesizer, both of which can sound like pretty smart fusion. Furthermore, listened to Orpheus’ album and Kehell’s “Galileo” both and felt Shigekazu could play more flexibly and more lively in KEHELL than in Orpheus - don’t know whether it be true or not (but actually he’s mentioned more about KEHELL in his website so that it may be true I think).

Yes all songs were written by Shigekazu, who played a “crying, barking” guitar solo in each track, with pure-fusion-based rhythm launchers (except the last track “Las Campanas” … see the next paragraph). A lightly touched but terrifically complex drum and bass sounds go forward along with a sharp-edged clear-cut guitar solo at speed of sound, in the beginning of this album. In the eponymous track, all of them relax themselves with playing under hearty atmosphere indeed, but they give us no opportunity to breathe there. That is, they shoot utterly strict play in every song. How wonderful Yasuyuki’s slap bass play is, and Toru’s strict rhythm beating is. And “Replica” is exactly Shigekazu’s one-man stage of Guitar-Oyaji, with exactly crying, weeping, laughing guitar plays like chatters. Absolutely mysterious we can enjoy listening to such a unearthly serious play with relaxed feeling.

On the contrary, the last track “Las Campanas” sounds like fusion-based Neo-symphonic one, as if they had played with Orpheus’ soundscape. Beautiful symphonic synthesizer streams and heavy guitar riffs face each other, where the heavy steady deep rhythm section holds them tightly. This song could make a generalization of their interest and purpose for music, and sadly this album might have got to be their last album, let me say. Recommended for Neo-Prog freaks, not only for progressive fusion / jazz rock fans.