A-MUSIK — E Ku Iroju (review)

A-MUSIK — E Ku Iroju album cover Album · 1984 · Jazz Related Improv/Composition Buy this album from MMA partners
2.5/5 ·
DamoXt7942
Very tough for me to evaluate this album, a splendid Japanese RIO production though.

A Japanese short-lived obscurity A-MUSIK were temporarily formed as an experimental music ensemble featuring Taisho-Goto played by Ken'ichi TAKEDA, the project leader of this combo. "E Ku Iroju" (1984) was their one and only album, in collaboration with Ryuichi SAKAMOTO (piano, ex-YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA), Tori KUDO (keyboards, synthesizers), Masami SHINODA (saxophone, ex-PUNGO) and so on, released via a Japanese experimental music label Zeitgen'ssische Musik Disk. Sadly another creation of A-MUSIK "Ikiteru Uchu Ni Mirarenakatta Yume Wo" has not been released, whilst they had disappeared from our sight.

For me sounds like a cynicism and an antithesis against the Japanese policy of aggression upon the World War II, especially as for the first track upon Side B "Anti-Jap Rap (Han-Nichi Rap)" or the second one upon Side A "Vorwatz Suite" really, but mysteriously no review written about this issue has been seen around me.

Their album diagram can be thought exactly as Japanese RIO, that reminds us something like another Japanese RIO album named Taco, released two years before. Their cynical pop tunes merged with quirky saxophone snake snipes and weird Taisho-goto flows like the beginning of "La Gu'pe" by Bernard Vitet are well-matured and spooky-flavoured. Amazing for every RIO / Avant fan all around the world I guess actually ... we can hear another attraction in "On Suicide (Jisatsu Ni Tsuite)", featuring sensual female voices and saxophone explosions respectively, or a confusion with sticky swing-jazzy creampie and unpolished avantgarde jazz cramp in "There Will Never Be Another". With the danceable but not comfortable one "I Dance" we cannot dance.

Sadly for every Taco freak their aggressively-shouted saxophone-based extreme avantgarde jazz attitude is a bit monotonous and not so enough freshness can be heard as Taco. By the way, it's said A-MUSIK were founded as a short-lived temporary unit so that I'm afraid this "E Ku Iroju" might be a compilation, without any united whole. Every musician joining this combo should be a renowned, skilled one indeed, but it's a tough call in this commune not harmonization but serious music quarrels can be heard. I can appreciate this album much if it's simply a compilation, not a music theatre creation.

And let me say in conclusion, the first track "El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido" is pretty fascinating, featuring Ken'ichi's beautiful Taisho-goto weirdness, his sixth sense!
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