Posts tagged Kitaro

(Review from hippy.com, gnosis2000.net, progarchives.com)

Generally considered as the high point of the band, “Parallel World” focuses on their instrumental cosmic sound with the two keyboard players are featured most prominently

The album starts off with the short “Metempsychosis”, which is basically drummer Shizuo Takasaki’s time to shine, with a bunch of electronic effects in the background. The next piece is “Entering/Times”. It starts off with lots of electronic effects that sound like something Schulze would do, before the rest of the band kicks in, with Fumio Miyashita (who also plays guitar), Akira Ito, and Kitaro giving us some great spacy synthesizers. The occasional wordless voice pops up as well. The next piece is “Kokoro”, which is a Pink Floyd-like ballad, sung in Japanese that’s more typical of their other albums.

The album’s real shining glory is the 30 minute title cut. Here the band goes on a lengthy jam, with the Akira Fukakusa’s bass dominating with tons of killer synths, lots of great spacy string synths and moog. After about halfway through this piece, the bass and drums gives away to straigh-up synth experiments. Somewhere you hear some chanting and references to Zen Buddhism. There are some truly mindblowing use of mellotron that pop up on occasions.

Line-up:
- Fumio Miyashita / guitar, keyboards, vocals
- Hirohito Fukushima / guitar
- Masanori Takahashi (Kitaro) / keyboards
- Akira Ito / keyboards
- Akira Fukakusa / bass
- Shizuo Takasaki / drums

Track List:
01. Metempsychosis – 4:47
02. Entering – Times – 15:54
03. Kokoro – 9:11
04. Parallel World – 30:08

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(Review from progarchives.com)

Far East Family Band’s debut album could easily be considered Far Out’s second album as the group had recorded one of the earliest prog album under that name. The sextet, two guitarists and two keyboardists (among which future new age superstars Kitaro, Akira Ito and Myiashita), develop a very interesting and often exciting space rock, which has the intelligence of not over-indulging itself.

The album is a concept album as “The Cave” is arriving onto our planet, and the group is generally celebrating the beauties of nature. Obviously heavily influenced by Floyd (From Atom Heart Mother to Dark Side Of The Moon era), the group lays down some very credible ambiances that even Pink Floyd could’ve pulled off. Of course, the similarities are no accident, because the guitars often sound like Gilmour’s, while some keyboards layers could easily have been from Wright. The album glides smoothly, but not unnoticed, because they are enough delightful moments to make you forgive them for their too-obvious influences. And as if to prove me wrong the closing track, the 11-min Transmigration shows more Moody Blues vocal harmonies over a pedestrian Floyd soundscape, the whole thing underlined by a Mellotron and ending on newborn’s crying before picking up again only to have a siren warn us that the album is over.

This album will draw Klaus Schulze’s attention and he will collaborate with Far East Family Band on their next album (a rehash of the first two albums‘ highlights for the European market) Nipponjin and again on “Parallel World”. In the meantime this album often gets overlooked, but it fully deserves the proghead’s attention, as much as their Far Out release.

Line-up:
- Akira Fukakusa / bass
- Akira Ito / keyboards
- Fumio Miyashita / guitar, keyboards
- Hirohito Fukushima / vocals, guitar
- Masanori Takahashi (Kitaro) / keyboards, percussion
- Shizuo Takasaki / drums

Track List:
01. Undiscovered Northern Land – 2:53
02. Birds Flying To The Cave down to the earth – 4:33
03. The God Of Water – 1:53
04. Saying To The Land – 8:21
05. The God Of Wind – 2:21
06. Moving, Looking, Trying, Jumping in a Maze – 1:40
07. Wa, Wa – 0:48
08. Mystery Of Northern Space – 5:56
09. The Cave Down To the Earth – 8:18
10. Four Minds – 5:54
11. Transmigration – 11:02

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