J.A. Caesar - Kokkyou Junreika LPTokyo playwright, director and artist J A Caesar sprang to prominence in the early '70s largely through his work with Shuji Terayama's Tenjo Sajiki Theatre, specializing in vaguely sinister music. The Kokkyou Junreika release, often considered Caesar's finest work, was culled from the five hours of music written for the original play distilled down to an album's worth of ageless chants, Buddhist mantras, heavenly invocations and fuzztone guitar vamps

Includes the funk number "Funky Little Queenie

Hurricane Dorothy

but still far from the new wave sounds the band started experimenting with on their following records

Released six months after Bitches Brew

its naked urgency like slamming on the brakes while inertia thrusts you forward in space but decidedly not in time

"Oetu to kanki no Namoriuta (Given Song of Sob and Joy)" is an aquatic arbor

echoing bird calls

This LP has a laid back

It’s often like she’s singing straight through a megaphone as she cuts loose and shreds like a demon

written and arranged by Katsuo Ohno—who’s worked with legends like The Spiders

It includes songs such as "Before the Diamond Dust Disappears

"Chameleon")