**This version also includes the bonus disc JDR-0011 Endless Final featuring the last recording of Takayanagi** Jinya Disc presents a live concert by New Direction. The album includes the last performance of Action Direct and the last performance of Takayanagi's life. In other words, it is Masayuki Takayanagi's "remaining work". An astounding force set free upon the world, heaving with life and fire, bound to stop even the most seasoned listener dead in their tracks
It’s hard to offer a better description than that offered by Japanese free jazz critic Teruto Soejima who wrote "New Direction Unit performances always emit the smell of blood. Fresh blood, never blood that is old or crusted. This is not the desiccated shell of music, it’s sound through which pumps the blood of living human beings…. For these four musicians, playing together means feasting on each other’s blood. It is also a summon- ing to a secret blood oath, to the creation of solidarity with the audience. In the moment, truly, the situation and beauty are instanta- neously unified. To borrow the title of a movie by Kōji Wakamatsu: blood is redder than the sun."
Masayuki 'Jojo' Takayanagi was a Japanese jazz / free improvisational musician. He was active in the Japanese jazz scene from the late 1950s. Was one of the earliest noise guitar improvisers, and the first (with Keith Rowe) to use the table-top guitar. Was a leading member of every avant-garde movement in Japanese jazz from the fifties onwards. Towards the end of his life Takayanagi moved into complex 'Action Direct' works for tabletop guitar, tapes and electronics that verge on pure noise in their intent. Died June 23, 1991.