Rock Communication Yagibushi

Norio Maeda's Rock Communication Yagibushi, originally released in Japan in 1970, now comes reissued on Wewantsounds. Rock Communication Yagibushi has since become a Japanese jazz-funk cornerstone, owing to its incredible, complex mutative movement of 14 traditional Japanese folk songs into jaw-dropping jazz-funk versions. Maeda's killer arrangements fit perfectly somewhere on the stylistic intersection of David Axelrod and Lalo Schifrin; the album likewise is increasingly experimental as it progresses, with the big band bombast of the likes of 'Saran Bushi' mixing seamlessly yet also contrastingly with the vibraphonic improv shakedown 'Edo Nihonbashi'.