condition (record/cover): NM / EX

Gatefold sleeve with glued-in insert. Obi included.

Takeshi Inomata was Japan's drummer, the man who ran the country's most influential percussion school, backed George Kawaguchi's Big Four and led Sound Limited, whose Sounds of Sound L.T.D. is a permanent fixture on rare-groove want lists. Pop's in Rhythm on the tiny My Pack label is a drummer's record in a different sense: pop tunes of the day taken as rhythmic material, with Inomata's kit up front in the mix and the arrangements built outward from the groove.

Whether it was designed as a demonstration or instructional record, as the label and catalogue number suggest, or simply as a showcase, the result is a rare thing in the mood genre: a record where the drums are the melody instrument. Scarce Japanese pressing.