Browse by Label: UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)

Artist:	COLTRANE, ALICE
Title:	Translinear Light
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$32.00
Catalog #:	UCCI 1010CD

Japanese version, regular jewel box packaging (please note, this is also out in the US on Impulse!). Japanese version features one exclusive track not found on the US version: "Part 1: Acknowledgement" (as written by John Coltrane, for the first section of Love Supreme). With Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette and Ravi Coltrane. "Translinear Light is Alice Coltrane's first recording in 26 years, since she withdrew from active performing and recording in the late '70s to open an ashram and devote herself primarily to spiritual pursuits. The astonishing fact of Translinear Light is that Alice Coltrane's artistry is as fresh, complete, and compelling as in any of her celebrated works of thirty years ago or more. Her rigorously inventive approach to the music overflows with richly harmonized, exquisitely embellished ideas. Playing acoustic piano on tracks like her own 'Translinear Light' and John Coltrane's 'Crescent' she shows all the dexterous and imaginative powers at her command, from shimmering arpeggios to powerful thrusting chords. She authoritatively exploits all of the instrument's tonal and harmonic possibilities from the rumbling bass to the tinkling top wind chime notes. Though she doesn't play the harp on this recording, she often makes the piano sound like a harp. In her idiosyncratic voicings on the Wurlitzer organ, the profound influence of Indian and Eastern music can be heard, with bent notes and a raga-like approach to improvisation, as on her arrangement of the traditional Hindu hymn 'Sita Ram' which opens the album. For Alice Coltrane, it is clear that all music is devotional music. Translinear Light is a logical extension of the spiritual and musical path that John and Alice Coltrane began together. It is radiant, cosmic, psycho-active music, which, despite its depth and complexity, has a timeless and universal appeal. This is one for the history books."

Artist:	COLTRANE, ALICE
Title:	A Monastic Trio
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$30.00
Catalog #:	UCCI 9104CD

Japanese 24-bit/96kHz remastered CD, in mini-LP packaging (regular CD version is available on Impulse/Verve in the US). The first Alice Coltrane album, originally issued by Impulse! Studio recordings from 1967/68. Alice Coltrane (harp, piano); Pharoah Sanders : (bass clarinet, flute, tenor saxophone); Ben Riley (drums); Rashied Ali (drums); Jimmy Garrison (bass; John Coltrane (voice). "It is called a monastic trio, because John's body has left here. And all the music she has made 'more separated' from John than the initial 'Ohnedaruth' is monastic (Where she has lived separated, herself, from public drain). Monastic and spun solitarily in a string cosmos/universe inhabited by memory, of event and emotional circumstance. But they are all loneliness mentioned, sung about." -- As Salaam Alaikum, Ameer Baraka (LeRoi Jones), from liner notes to A Monastic Trio.

Artist:	COLTRANE, ALICE
Title:	Journey In Satchidananda
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$30.00
Catalog #:	UCCI 9107CD

Japanese 24-bit/96kHz remastered CD, in mini-LP packaging (regular CD version is available on Impulse/Verve in the US). Originally issued by Impulse! in 1971. Recorded at the Coltrane home studio, Dix Hills, New York on November 8, 1970. Alice Coltrane (harp, piano); Pharoah Sanders (soprano saxophone, perc); Charlie Haden (bass); Rashied Ali (drums); Cecil McBee (bass); Vishnu Wood (oud); Tulsi (tamboura); Majid Shabazz (bells, tambourine). "Swamiji is the first example I have seen in recent years of Universal Love or God in action. He expresses an impersonal love, which encompasses thousands of people. Anyone listening to this selection should try to envision himself floating on an ocean of Satchidanandaji's love, which is literally carrying countless devotees across the vicissitudes and stormy blasts of life to the other shore. 'Satchidananda' means knowledge, existence, bliss." --Alice Coltrane

Artist:	COLTRANE, ALICE
Title:	Universal Consiousness
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$30.00
Catalog #:	UCCI 9108CD

Japanese 24-bit/96kHz remastered CD, in mini-LP packaging (regular CD version is available on Impulse/Verve in the US). Originally issued by Impulse! in 1971. Recorded in NY, 1971. Alice Coltrane (harp, organ); Jimmy Garrison (bass); Jack DeJohnette (drums); Clifford Jarvis (drums, percussion); Rashied Ali (drums, wind chimes); Tulsi (tamboura); John Blair, Julius Brand, Leroy Jenkins and Joan Kalisch (violin). "Regardless of one's own musical standpoints or of the particular cosmology of one's beliefs, this is Devotional music of the highest level, as it must be- majestic, serene, sublime, a richly-woven tapestry in sound; music of unsurpassable breadth and beauty to be heard as long as men with souls live."

Artist:	FLOWER TRAVELLIN' BAND
Title:	Anywhere
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	UPCY 6343CD

Part of a new Universal Japan 70s rock reissue series, called Naked Line. Legit issues, from masters, midline pricing. Second CD reissue of the debut Flower Travellin' Band album (previously issued by Hagakure), originally issued in 1970 by Warner Bros. Japan (predating their defintive opus, Satori). Includes' loosely formed "covers" of "Black Sabbath", "House of the Rising Sun" & "Twenty-First Century Schizoid-Man". Famous naked biker cover tops off the ridiculousness factor by a very long & wide yard.

Artist:	CHEN, SHINKI
Title:	Shinki Chen
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	UPCY 6344CD

Part of a new Universal Japan 70s rock reissue series, called Naked Line. Legit issues, from masters, midline pricing. First authorized CD of this in a decade+ (also previously reissued on LP by Shadoks). Originally issued in 1971, this post-Food Brain/pre-Speed Glue & Shinki album features wasted fuzz and extreme underground vibes, one of the freakiest Japanese '70s releases. "One of my favorite mind-bending axe-jammers next to Eduardo Bort, Pappo, Sterling Morrison, Bo Anders Persson, Koray... this amplified mushroom-hair-cloud dude-in-orbit wails in serious volume...loads of fuzz, attitude, and dope-damaged tunes--with Shinki's critically wastered vocals musing off explicitly in boorish-male, Paleolithic fashion. Red blooded stoned 'n' zoned psych rock at its finest." -- Mahssa Taghinia/Other Music.

Artist:	CURTIS & SAMURAI, MIKI
Title:	Kappa
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	UPCY 6345CD

Part of a new Universal Japan 70s rock reissue series, called Naked Line. Legit issues, from masters, midline pricing. Reissues of the 2 albums by Miki Curtis and Samurai. They were an early 70s underground blues-derived psychedelic rock band led by Miki Curtis (vocals and flute), with Joe Dunnel (guitar) and Tetsu Yamauchi (bass; he later played with Shoji Hano in the Poly Breath Percussion Band, with Br�tzmann on Dare Devil, and Werner L�di; we won't mention the fact that inbetween he had joined bands like Free or the Faces!). Kappa was recorded in Tokyo and released by Philips Japan in 1971. It is the heavier of the 2 albums, featuring 4 long tracks, lyrics sung in English, including the side-two long "King Riff And Snow Flakes" (which has a free-form breakdown and drum solo even!).

Artist:	CURTIS & SAMURAI, MIKI
Title:	Samurai
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	UPCY 6346CD

Part of a new Universal Japan 70s rock reissue series, called Naked Line. Legit issues, from masters, midline pricing. Reissue of the 2nd and final Mickey Curtis album, also released by Philips Japan in 1971. This was recorded in the UK upon the band's move to Europe and again features songs written/sung in English, this time with 7 shorter tracks. "The band played a varied kind of psychedelic progressive rock, occasionally a bit hard-rocking, with jazzy and exotic Asian touches. They've been compared by Vernon Joynson to Andwella's Dream and early Traffic." -- Chris
McLean.

Artist:	MIZUTANI, KIMIO
Title:	A Path Through Haze
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	UPCY 6348CD

Part of a new Universal Japan 70s rock reissue series, called Naked Line. Legit issues, from masters, midline pricing. Classic Japanese underground rock album, previously reissued on P-Vine (and more recently, Walhalla). Kimio Mizutani (not the Rallizes dude) was the guitarist in the excellent Japanese freak out group Love Live Life +1 and this is a reissue of his first solo album from 1971, originally issued by Japanese Polydor. Mizutani plays electric and 'folk' guitar, leading a largish rock ensemble (bass, drums, organ, Moog, vocals, etc.) through the paces of what is widely regarded as the true psychedelic masterpieces of the early '70s Japanese scene. Sensitive interludes (with accompaniment by the Toyama String Quartet and Etoh Wood Quartet), tasteful nods to progressive/fusionist extension and lovely psych guitar hoverings by Mizutani dominate the proceedings. A nice merger of hard rock conceptualization and the complexities that would evolve from it.

Artist:	FOOD BRAIN
Title:	Social Gathering
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	UPCY 6349CD

Part of a new Universal Japan 70s rock reissue series, called Naked Line. Legit issues, from masters, midline pricing. Legendary Japanese underground rock item, first released by Polydor Japan in 1970. Has been reissued a couple times before, including on P-vine. Social Gathering is the lone album by the quartet of Shinki Chen (pre-Speed, Glue & Shinki), Luis Kabe (ex-Golden Cups), Hiro Yanagida (ex-April Fool, pre-Love Live Life +1) & Hiro Tsunoda (ex-Jacks, pre-Strawberry Path). Musically they were an instrumental quartet led by the guitar histrionics of Shinki Chen and the organ swoosh of Hiro Yanagida, gusting forth with a sub-bass low-ball thunder. Progressive-psych jamming with a similar enthusiasm for the attributes of "heavy" as their contemporaries, Guru Guru. There also some free-form excursions and unexpected insanity at the end. People's expectations are always a bit out of whack on this kind of stuff, but this is a very nice period piece and a powerful document. "The drugs must have been pumping fast and furious. This is a heavy over the top psychedelic extravaganza." --Ken Golden, The Laser's Edge.

Artist:	STRAWBERRY PATH
Title:	When the Raven Has Come to the Earth
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	UPCY 6350CD

Part of a new Universal Japan 70s rock reissue series, called Naked Line. Legit issues, from masters, midline pricing. 1971 Japanese hard rock album, originally issued by Philips (later reissued by P-vine, and more recently, Radioactive) -- the one & only album by the duo of Shigeru Narumo and Hiro Tsunoda. Similar in style the group these two would form immediately thereafter: Flied Egg (also related in one way or another to: Jacks, Foodbrain, Sadistic Mika Band and Captain Hiro & Space Band). Narumo played guitars and organ, Tsunoda sang and played drums. The sound is a thunderous post-Purple mess of tubs, riffs and blues-approximation. The lyrics are sung in almost-English and most concern the illustrious concerns of "woman" (at least they don't seem to use the word "lady"). "I Gotta See My Gypsy Woman" is the first track, "Woman Called Yellow 'Z'" is the second, by the time you get to "Mary Jane On My Mind" you'll probably need to empty the tear-bucket.

Artist:	FLIED EGG
Title:	Dr. Siegel's Fried Egg Shooting Machine
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	UPCY 6351CD

Part of a new Universal Japan 70s rock reissue series, called Naked Line. Legit issues, from masters, midline pricing. Reissue of the first Flied Egg album, originally issued by Japanese Vertigo in 1972. An offshoot of the short-lived Strawberry Path, Flied Egg were a trio of Shigeru Narumo (guitar, keyboards), Hiro Tsunoda (drums, vocals) and Masayoshi Takanaka (bass). They played a hogwash of progressive hard rock with pop-like flourishes all featuring English vocals. Semi namby at times, but the album have a very nice psuedo Dali-cover painting. And what band to ever appear on the Vertigo roster had a better name than Flied Egg?

Artist:	FLIED EGG
Title:	Good Bye
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	UPCY 6352CD

Part of a new Universal Japan 70s rock reissue series, called Naked Line. Legit issues, from masters, midline pricing. The 2nd and last album from Flied Egg, also originally released in 1972 on Japanese Vertigo. It's a theoretical live album, with a miraculously heavier "rockin" sound than Dr. Siegel's Fried Egg Shooting Machine. Number of tracks with the word "woman" in the title? A mere one. But don't let that lessen the sensational experience of your your brain cells slowly killing themselves off one by one as this stoner-magnet spins in your player.

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Artist:	HOLLAND & BARRE PHILLIPS, DAVID
Title:	Music From Two Basses
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$26.00
Catalog #:	UCCU 9017CD

Artist:	CURTIS, MICKEY
Title:	Mimi
Label:	UNIVERSAL (JAPAN)
Format:	CD
Price:	$20.00
Catalog #:	UPCY 6347CD