Browse by Artist: TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS

Artist:	TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Title:	Live In Tokyo, 19th August 1974, Part One
Label:	B13 (ITALY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$27.00
Catalog #:	B 142LP

"Avant-garde composer and sound installation artist Takehisa Kosugi (musical director of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company) has led the Japanese avant-garde music scene since the early 1960s. In 1969 he formed the Taj Mahal Travellers, a musical collective that travelled the world in a VW minibus creating Fluxus-influenced improvised multimedia sound events. This double album (divided into two LPs), recorded live at the Nippon Columbia Studio in Tokyo in 1974, was the group's final effort before disbanding. Here Kosugi and the Travellers blend Eastern and Western instrumentation, vocal chants and electronics to create free-form psych-laden drones. This historic album is an essential and influential piece of Japanese avant rock." Part one, on clear vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with black lettering. Limited edition 500 copies.

Artist:	TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Title:	Live At Sohgetsu Hall In Tokyo, 15th July 1972
Label:	B13 (ITALY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$27.00
Catalog #:	B 147LP

"After returning from a year-long tour of Europe and Asia, the group returned home to Tokyo for this concert. Originally released on CBS Japan in 1972, the concert remained out of print for decades and has never before been reissued on vinyl. The line up features Takehisa Kosugi on electronic violin, vocals and radio oscillators, Ryo Koike on electronic contrabass, suntool, sheet iron, and harmonica, Yukio Tsuchiya on vibraphone, Michihiro Kimura on electronic guitar & percussion, Seiji Nagai on electronic trumpet, harmonica, castanets, and Tokio Hasegawa on vocals." Orange vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with black lettering. Limited edition of 500 copies.

Artist:	TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Title:	Live
Label:	B13 (ITALY)
Format:	LP
Price:	$27.00
Catalog #:	B 151LP

"1972 was a busy year for Japan's favorite experimental rock band. After several months spent touring Europe, group leader Takehisa Kosugi (currently music director for the Merce Cunningham dance company in the USA) decided to make good on the band's name and embark on a monumental voyage across Europe and Asia, driving a VW bus from Rotterdam all the way to the Taj Mahal in India. Amazingly, the band got as far as Pakistan before having to fly the rest of the way to the Taj Mahal due to border restrictions. By July of 1972, the band was back home in Japan, and still playing nonstop. The three tracks on side A were recorded live during this historic tour, while side B was recorded a year later at the famous Oz Club in Tokyo, during a five day music festival celebrating the venue's final days." Clear blue vinyl in clear plastic sleeve with black lettering (limited edition 500 copies)."

Artist:	TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Title:	Live Stockholm July, 1971
Label:	DRONE SYNDICATE (SWEDEN)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$11.00
Catalog #:	DRONE 001/2CD

New lower pricing; 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:	July 15, 1972
Label:	KLIMT (FRANCE)
Format:	LP
Price:	$21.00
Catalog #:	MJJ 327LP

"Now available on Klimt on 140 gram black vinyl with original Japanese printed sleeve. After returning from a year-long tour of Europe and Asia, the group returned home to Tokyo for this concert. Originally released on CBS Japan in 1972, the concert remained out of print for decades and has never before been reissued on vinyl! The line up features Takehisa Kosugi on electronic violin, vocals and radio oscillators, Ryo Koike on electronic contrabass, suntool, sheet iron, and harmonica, Yukio Tsuchiya on vibraphone, Michihiro Kimura on electronic guitar & percussion, Seiji Nagai on electronic trumpet, harmonica, castanets, and Tokio Hasegawa on vocals."

Artist:	TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Title:	Live At The Moderna Museet In Stockholm, 1st & 9th July 1971
Label:	KLIMT (FRANCE)
Format:	2LP
Price:	$32.00
Catalog #:	MJJ 328LP

"Recorded on July 1 and 9, 1971 in the geodesic dome at the Utopia & Visions 1871-1981 exhibition at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Takehisa Kosugi's Taj Mahal Travellers were the premiere Japanese experimental rock band of the 1970s. The band, heavily influenced by Fluxus, used electronic effects and a host of unusual instruments to create a series of improvised drones. Kosugi went on to become the music director for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company."

Artist:	TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Title:	August 1974
Label:	PHOENIX RECORDS (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$23.00
Catalog #:	ASH 3049CD

Originally issued as a double LP with each of the 4 tracks being roughly the same length as the side of a record, August 1974 presents the Taj Mahal Travellers at their most sophisticated. Although their stunning cosmic music was always improvised, the band, formed in 1969 by "six meta-music creators and one electronic engineer" played regularly throughout Japan and eventually found their way to Europe where they met up with avant-garde musicians such as Don Cherry. 1974 would be the band's last official release as they went their separate ways the following year with all but Takehisa Kosugi, leaving music behind them. Each track is distinct from the others, with several beginning with clearly-defined structure before departing into the realms of the abstract, with violin, harmonica, bass, tuba, trumpet and mandolin dueting in a subliminal and obscure manner. "Voices" both subhuman and supernatural, resonate with a universal inner voice. Digitally remastered, numbered limited edition. Includes LP insert.

Artist:	TAJ MAHAL TRAVELLERS
Title:	August 1974
Label:	PHOENIX RECORDS (UK)
Format:	2LP
Price:	$31.00
Catalog #:	ASH 3049LP

2012 repress. Gatefold 2LP version. Originally issued as a double LP with each of the 4 tracks being roughly the same length as the side of a record, August 1974 presents the Taj Mahal Travellers at their most sophisticated. Although their stunning cosmic music was always improvised, the band, formed in 1969 by "six meta-music creators and one electronic engineer" played regularly throughout Japan and eventually found their way to Europe where they met up with avant-garde musicians such as Don Cherry. 1974 would be the band's last official release as they went their separate ways the following year with all but Takehisa Kosugi, leaving music behind them. Each track is distinct from the others, with several beginning with clearly-defined structure before departing into the realms of the abstract, with violin, harmonica, bass, tuba, trumpet and mandolin dueting in a subliminal and obscure manner. "Voices" both subhuman and supernatural, resonate with a universal inner voice. Includes original insert. Hand-numbered limited edition of 1000; on 180 gram vinyl.

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