Masahiko Satoh

OK, if obscure and hard to track down Japanese avant-garde and free jazz is your thing then look no further. This disc, released in 1969 is a hard nut to come by since due to extremely poor sales only a handful of copies and some promo copies are known to have hit the streets, making it now one of the hardest free jazz documents to track down. This one comes on bloody red wax. But all this idle talk aside, it's the music that really counts. And it burns hard…hardcore trio line-up consisting out of Sato Masahiko on piano, Arakawa Yasuo on bass and Togashi Masahiko on drums. Together they are responsible for unleashing a jaw-droppingly great amalgam-sounding explosion of disruptive energy. They trash out an entirely new Japanese free jazz methodology by incorporating enka and minyo tapes into the performance, rendering it into an otherworldly, if not almost eerie listening experience. Loud percussive crashes collide with rattling piano rolls that get underscored by blood-thumbing bass riffage. When all interaction gets mineralized into a minimalist excursion the minyo tape insertions dwarf into the foreground, making it all sound like rural traditions going bananas through a intravenous fix of avant-garde that gets nuked right into the bloodstream of the national subconscious. Chilling, lysergic, stupefyi

Masahiko Sato Trio
Masahiko Sato: piano
Yasuo Arakawa: bass
Masahiko Togashi: drums

Includes liner notes in Japanese by Jun Numata