Sinsuke Fujieda Group recorded Fukushima at Groove Studio Matsudo in May 2023. When Superfly Records put it out on vinyl in the spring of 2025 the thousand copies vanished within days, two further pressings followed, and copies on the second-hand market are now asking three figures. This CD is the record the LP could not hold: the five compositions restored to their full unedited length, three flute pieces that had only ever appeared digitally, and Jiva, a previously unheard piece for bamboo clarinet. Nine tracks, sixty-eight minutes, in a six-panel digipak with obi and a twenty-page booklet, limited to 1,000 copies.
Fujieda, a Tokyo-based saxophonist and flutist, leads a first-rate sextet through music that channels the deep, atmospheric sound of 1970s modal and spiritual jazz while weaving in classical writing, world traditions and East Asian sensibilities. If you did not know the recording date, you would swear this was an unearthed treasure from the golden era of Japanese acoustic jazz.
The lineup is extraordinary: Fumiko Takeshita on violin, Shinichi Tsukamoto on piano, Shigeru Kato on bass, Kensaku Osumi on drums and Daisuke Arakari on percussion. The interplay between Fujieda's tenor and soprano saxophone and Takeshita's violin is something special. She occupies the space where a second horn might be, gliding with a spiritual quality that recalls Michael White's work on Impulse. The piano drives with flowing, luminous phrases, and the rhythm section locks into grooves both tight and supple.
The title track opens with saxophone and violin intertwining over folk-tinged melodies, building toward long-spun solos and moments of thrumming concordance. Float in Oriental Spring evokes an Eastern beauty with a sensual glow. Silent Night pulses with bass-driven groove and percussive snap. Nobody Knows blends elegant strings with soprano saxophone in gorgeous, bal-musette-inflected counterpoint. Perspective closes the original album sequence with sharp-edged spiritual jazz propelled by vivid percussion, playful and pulsating, pulling a cherished past into a diffuse present. What follows on this edition, the flute pieces and Jiva, works as a quieter coda rather than an appendix of outtakes.
Fujieda came up through the Tokyo club scene, working with broken beat and downtempo producers Why Sheep?, i-dep and Calm, later joining the Japanese cumbia collective Mumbia Y Sus Candelosos. The group released two 7-inch singles, in 2022 and 2024, before this debut full-length. On release Fukushima hit number one on the Juno Records and Discogs sales charts, and reached the top of jazz streaming charts in Thailand, number two in Finland, four in the UK, five in Belgium and seven in the United States.
For anyone who follows John Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders and the classic Japanese spiritual jazz of the early seventies, Terumasa Hino, Masabumi Kikuchi, Ryo Kawasaki, this is essential listening. Overwhelmingly beautiful. The real deal.
