Browse by Artist: TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS

Artist:	TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Title:	Live Stockholm July, 1971
Label:	DRONE SYNDICATE (SWEDEN)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	DS 001/2CD

New 2008 repress. "Led by infamous Fluxus member Takehisa Kosugi, Tokyo's Taj Mahal Travellers were one of the prime examples of a band more heard-of than actually heard. Their vinyl legacy (the 1972 LP July 15, 1972 released on CBS/Sony Japan; the 1974 2LP August 1974 released on Columbia Japan and recently reissued by P-Vine as a 2CD; one side of the mythical Oz Days Live 2LP compilation released on Oz in 1973 and recently bootlegged as a single LP) could dig a hole in your wallet deeper than the Grand Canyon. However, the recent reissues have spread the gospel and so here is the chance to hear the young Taj Mahal Travellers live in Stockholm during their 'tour' through Europe in 1971. It's one 2-hour long improvised track. Enough free-floating higher key bliss to keep every grown-up space cadet happy for a lot longer.." From Julian Cope's Japrocksampler: "This album is a discorporated, cerebral dance whose rhythm sounds like six weather Gods emulating the cover of Deep Purple's Fireball by zooming around Silverstone circuit just inches above the track, each urging himself on by making engine noises: 'Eee-oww-urghh-ow!!!!!!!' Opening with Ryo Koike's horizontally played bowed double bass, it's my fave of Taj Mahal Travellers' three releases, better even than the obstinate medication of the first official LP JULY 15, 1972, because there's twice as much of it. Meditatively, it's extremely useful too: at the entrance portals of this live record, Ryo Koike uses his bass to invoke phlegm phantoms and cranny demons from the butt walls of Cronosian caverns; conjuring a sound as Biblical as Conrad Schnitzler's bizarre bowed cello on T. Dream's Electronic Meditation. Gradually, hesitatingly, almost imperceptibly, a violin theme installs itself, establishing over the next quarter of an hour clop-clopping hooves of hollow rhythm that conjure up the image of frustrated pastoralists driving their reluctant donkeys around the highest and most precipitous cliff edges, as their valuable cargoes sway and shudder and threaten to come untied at any moment. Recorded a full year before their first official LP, I think this in concert album is a far better and more confident shamanic statement, for this Stockholm recording melded together all six group members in such a way that no single musician rises from the primal soup long enough to establish his singular muse. The vocal effects are truly stunning, evoking everything from comb-and-paper voices playing Zeus in the sixty-metre deep Dhikhtean Antron to braying cartoon coyotes laughing to their deaths."

Artist:	TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Title:	August 1974
Label:	P-VINE RECORDS (JAPAN)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$38.00
Catalog #:	PCD 1463/4

Repressed! Double CD reissue of the 2nd Taj Mahal Travellers album, originally issued by Japanese Columbia in 1974 as a 2LP set. Along with their debut album July 15th, 1972 (released by Japanese CBS in '72), these are some of the most hallowed and whispered about documents of the avant-garde artifact-era (a set of these on original LP would set you back $1000+ even 10-15 years ago & have very rarely been offered anywhere). Legendary higher-key improv-drone extravaganzas that more than live up to their reputation, this reissue is going to make a certain sector of underground society very happy. The group was led by the infamous Fluxus member Takehisa Kosugi (electric violin, harmonica, voice, etc.), with: Kyo Koike (electric double bass), suntool, voice, etc.), Yukio Tsuchiya (bass-tuba, percussion), Beiji Nagai (trumpet, synthesizer Mini-Korg, timpani), Tokio Hasegaw (voice, percussion), Kinji Hayashi (electronic technique), Hirokeszu Sato (percussion, voice). Recorded live at Nippon Columbia Studio #1, Tokyo, August 19, 1974. Four side-long improvisations."Places and times of the trip: coffee houses, small galleries of Tokyo. They perform also on lonely beaches at dawn or on deserted hills in the afternoon. Also in Sweden, India, Iran, and England. Wherever a power supply is available. 'This music is not rehearsed, it happens. Without written notes or oral instructions; without an ensemble leader, each one having his own discourse immediately integrated into a slow, irregular throbbing of complex sound waves. Sound waves surfing.' Verfremdung: instruments are amplified with delay through echo machines. Previously produced sounds delivered by distant loudspeakers have already become something beyond reach when heard. This feedback -- actually a time-space lag -- is the basis of their music. The instrument arsenal: a violin played with glissandi in the same manner as the Indian sitar, string bass, guitar, drums, harmonica, small synthesizers, santurs (Iranian dulcimer played with two spoon-shaped mallets), a shahnal (Indian oboe), voices (Japanese Buddhist chanting, harmonic singing such as LaMonte Young does or as heard in Stockhausen's 'Stimmung'). Amplifiers: a heterodyne (voltage controlled filters connected to infrasonic wave sources) which changes tone colors back and forth very slowly. Also, other rather primitive hand-made electronic devices. All these contribute to the everchanging diversity of the ensemble. Close your eyes, relax and musically receive passing clouds, breezes, surging waves. This music is slow as a Japanese tea ceremony and as peacefully full of cheer as ancient scroll paintings." --Yuji Takahashi.

Artist:	TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Title:	July 15, 1972
Label:	SHOWBOAT/SKY STATION (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$28.00
Catalog #:	SWAX 501CD

Official CD reissue of the first Taj Mahal Travellers album, licensed from Sony Japan. Originally issued by CBS in Japan in 1972, this has been incredibly in-demand for quite some time (this Showboat edition was first issued in 2001 or thereabouts and is now more widely available again). The precursor to the 2nd and final Taj-Mahal Travellers album, August 1974 (reissued on P-vine in the late '90s and still available), this represents Fluxus-inspired drone and improvisation at its peak. The line up for this album is: Takehisa Kosugi (electronic violin, radio oscillators & voice), Ryo Loike (electronic contrabass, suntool, harmonia & sheet iron), Yukio Tsuchiya (vibraphon, suntool), Michihiro Kimura (electronic guitar & percussion), Seiji Nagai (electronic trumpet, harmonica & castanet), Tokio Hasegawa (vocal), Kinji Hayashi (electronic engineer), Go Hamada (producer). Recorded live at Sohgetsu Hall, Tokyo on 7/15/72.

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