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osamu kitajima - benzaiten - psychedelic sounds international - vinyl

New Copy

Genre: Wave / Pop / Rock - Psych

1. Benzaiten (God Of Music & Water)
2. Taiyo (The Sun)
3. Tengu (A Long-Nosed Goblin)
4. Benzaiten (reprise)
5. Whoma (Immortality)

Originally released in 1974, 'Benzaiten', created by psych-obsessed Japanese auteur Kitajima, is a piece with prodigiously enduring appeal - mixing traditional Japanese folk with something akin to krautrock - atmospheric, celestial and still sounding fresh even thirty-two years on. Naturally, mixing traditional music and rock can frequently walk a perilous tightrope between breathless inspiration and gauche folly, but its testimony to Kitajima's talents that 'Benzaiten' - bereft of the new age influences of his later work - can take its place alongside 'Parallel World' by Far East Family Band and Takehisha Kosugi's 'Catch Wave' as an essential Japanese experimental record of the '70s.