Rock On! Wednesday, 13 Novembre 2024 – Far East Family Band, Flower Travellin’ Band, Shinki Chen, Far Out & Shingetsu

Psychedelic, heavy, prog and more innovating sounds spanning the late 60s and the early 70s – Wednesday April 17th. Dan’s pick of the week: Far East Family Band (Parallel World), Flower Travellin’ Band (Satori), Shinki Chen (Shinki Chen & His Friends), Far Out (Nihonjin) & Shingetsu (Shingetsu Live 1979).

Far East Family Band kwam voort uit Fumio Miyashita’s project Far Out, dat in 1973 een titelloos album had uitgebracht. Het debuutalbum van de Far East Family Band werd uitgebracht in 1975 en bevatte psychedelische progressieve rock met toetsen en invloeden van Pink Floyd. The Cave Down to Earth bezorgde de band de reputatie de eerste Japanse vertegenwoordiger van progressieve rock te zijn.

Prog Archives review: “This is without a doubt the best album Far East Family Band has ever done. Unlike other albums where the band focused mainly on ballads influenced by Pink Floyd, on “Parallel World” they decided to merge the prog rock style of the time with electronic music in the vein of Klaus Schulze. And just like their previous album, “Nipponjin”, this album was also produced by Schulze, and you could swear he actually played on the album (he didn’t). All the synth duties here are Fumio Miyashita (who also played guitar and sang), Akira Ito, and Masanori Takasaki (who we all know as the future New Age star of the ’80s and ’90s, that is Kitaro). (…)

And then you get the 30 minute title track that is just so amazing that it totally justifies the five star rating I give this album! 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, and this one synth solo I am pretty sure none other than KITARO is responsible for. I can’t believe this album, it’s hard to believe that a guy whose later music is often dismissed as New Age fluff (Kitaro, that is) is on this album. Truly a wonderful album and if the description of this album sounds good to you, find a copy.”

Wednesday, 13 Novembre 2024 12:00 noon CET Brussels – 11 a.m. GMT London. Repeated: 16:00 & 20:00 hrs CET Brussels, 3 p.m. & 7 p.m. GMT London
Ends: 12 midnight CET Brussels, 11 p.m. GMT London.