Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Three Blind Mice in the Air


if you're into Miles Davis' early electric atmospheres, Air's eponym lp will probably make your day. recorded at Epicurius Studio, Tokyo on april 12 & 20, 1977 - yeah, that's exactly 30 years ago - by a bunch of laid-back xperimental jazz cats, namely Yasuo Shimura on saxes, flute, shô, ARP, voice, percusssion and radio - Reinkichi Hayasahi on Fender stratocaster, blue box, crybaby and super gas - Nobuyoshi Ino on electric & acoustic bass, turkish guitar, perc, tape recorder - Hiroshi Muramaki on Yamaha drums, cowbell and perc - Yuji Imamura on conga drums, tabla, the album sounds as fresh and exciting as it probably was, in deep and introspective ways.
strangely, very little online data is available on this gem or its protagonists but always a reliable source on such UFO's , the Kozmigroove connection provided this brief but accurate resume and description:
"Not to be confused with the Henry Threadgill project, nor the Googie Coppola joint (who dropped exactly one album on Herbie Mann's Embryo subsidiary before disappearing), nor the more recent sleazy-listening duo from France. This Japanese quintet of Yasuo Shimura, Renkichi Hayashi, Nobuyoshi Ino, Hiroshi Murakami, and Yuji Imamura continued to preach the gospel of Get Up With It, years after even Miles himself lost the faith. Yessir, this is elevated music, pure in spirit and intention and absolutely mindblowing in effect. Air's sole (eponymous) album is two sidelong cuts of psychedelic electric jazz, testified by five heads who mix Eastern and Western instrumentation into a thick brew of prime Kozmigroov: ringmodulated guitar lines, windchime swirls, ARP dissonance, deep bass echoes, wood flute invocations, processed saxophone, tape effects, subtly assertive grooves, omnipresent layers of percussion... mercy! The brazen shuffle which seizes the last quarter of the record actually reaches the same jazz/rock peak intensity of Jack Johnson's "Right Off." Three Blind Mice are an audiophile label who've reissued an armful of their back-catalog titles on compact disc. Although this album still awaits aluminum rebirth as of May 1999, Takeshi "Tee" Fujii (TBM prez) has promised an XRCD version."

ripped at 320 kbps, hope you'll enjoy and testify
part one
part two

10 comments:

Mr B said...

looks good.. makes me realize that the French band Air copied the font of this 70's band..

thanks

mrB

Soundsofthe70s.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this!

You don't happen to be The Beathunters from France who used to hang around GYBO ya?

Cheers!

KiDG

Anonymous said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rvirkTyJ8k

mighty casey video

Mr B said...

hi buddy

i find this AIR story amazing ! Air copied it all !

with your permission i'll post your post on SOUNDS OF THE 70'S to advertise that forgery !!

cheers

mrB

Anonymous said...

god bless and thank you for the propers on the mix cousin.when you gonna put something up on the beathunter's page?

Anonymous said...

thanks so very much for having the air album up. you turned me on to this treasure here that i never knew existed. with the band and album name "air" this was going to be impossible to find via googel.

many blessings to you.

-freedomglider

evolutionpaint.com

Anonymous said...

stunning..just wonderful.. thanks for putting this up

Vanzetti said...

many huge thanks for this. I'd read about the album and have been searching for years for a copy - big love!

vanzetti of Edinburgh

TLT said...

Great post of psych/funk/voodoo jazz. Keep it up!

Reza said...

havnt visited for a while then saw this !!!
fanbloodytastic thanks :)