Kazuhiro Miyatake Part 1: Pageant

Keyboardist / Composer Kazuhiro Miyatake is the mastermind or leader of my overall favourite Japanese band, Mr. Sirius (apart from Bi Kyo Ran that is).  He was also in Mugen which followed after.  I love Mr. Sirius to death: it's the classic-prog old-school inimitable Genesis Symphonic style with a highly impressive and agreeable mix of classical music and rock sounds perfectly intertwined.  

I didn't realize that late in the 1980s he created another band called Pageant who then went on to put out a handful of CDs, last one in 1994 it seems.  Unfortunately the subsequent band, very much in the Mugen symphonic style, has less of the crazy creativity one finds in the original Mr. Sirius from 1987 and Barren Dream, I'm not sure why, since it's still just Miyatake as composer, as the time period in question is roughly the same.

From the 1987 album of the same name, the lovely female vocals of Kamen no Egao:

Lapis Lazuli from 1989's Pay for Dreamer's Sin:

Kehell's Galileo [FLAC limited time]

 

A one-off from this band, released in 1999-- so long ago already.  Not much in the database here.  But you can see this is the creation of the guitarist from Mr. Sirius, called Shigekazu Kamaki who was also in the 1983 symphonic one-off opus Orpheus.

It's quite consistently good from beginning to the end, the style being the same instrumental symphonic prog we have heard so much of lately.  From the track called Prologue - Behind the Earth you can get a sense of how interesting the music is, featuring varied instrumentation, modulations, odd rhythms, all the usual accoutrements of classic prog:

Same remarks can surely apply to a track called Paranoid:

At times the music feels derivative and monotonous, failings of so much of the latter-day prog I hate to say.  Still I would argue it's above average for this genre from this decade.

Gypsy Blood, 1972 Japan, by request [FLAC limited time only]

 

Gypsy Blood, a one-off LP from 1972:

Gypsy Blood Japanese country rock band.

In the Western world they are known as 'Gypsy Blood'.

Members:

Eiichi Tsukasa, Hiroaki Nakamura (4), Kiyoshi Hayami, Mitsuo Nagai, Shinichi Fujii

The music is squarely in the country rock genre, with accessible songwriting in a a typical Southern US sound, simple chord changes, twangy chords on acoustic guitar mostly, sometimes electric, slide guitar in most places, nice harmony vocals, sometimes the scratchy down-home fiddling and banjo that makes everyone 'of a certain age' think of the Burt Reynolds classic Deliverance.

Track 8, called Staring At The Passing Days (I think) = 過ぎし日を見つめて:

Guitarist Kunio Suma from Bi Kyo Ran: Solosolo (2007), Paradox Paradise Solo 3 (2024)

 

From discogs:

Japanese guitarist, vocalist and composer.

Of course he's famous because of the legendary King Crimson-like band, Bi Kyo Ran. I once posted their Anthology back here-- boy was that one brilliant!  Also good was their latest release, just posted.

He only made 3 solo albums, as you can see quite spaced far apart from 2007, 2019's Boundary of the Forest, and then just recently.  Amazingly the recent album is the superior one from the 2 that I have (again, missing the middle one).  The music is quite mixed in terms of Bi Kyo Ran-like and more acoustic guitar-oriented.

From Solo 3, The Night Shore:

New Bi Kyo Ran, Bloodliners 2025, limited time only

 

In the words of Discogs:

Japanese progressive rock band. Their sound is often compared with King Crimson (they started as a King Crimson tribute band) which is understandable given guitarist Kunio Suma's emulation of Fripp's renowned style and some similarity in song titles ("Vision Of The City", "21st Century Africa").

Their first album from 1982, the one with the Kabuki makeup guy, is still one of my all time favourite prog albums as a result.  In my opinion it actually goes beyond KC in terms of its high dynamic and overall sustained quality, which never lets up from beginning to end, with no weaker spots (eg the folky acoustic songs that KC were prone to).  I last posted these guys back here with their 2002 "Anthology" (not really that I take it) which I thought and still think is absolutely stunning too.  So it was surprising to hear they put an album out so recently.

The amazing thing about a track called Crustal Movement is that on top of the ultra-dissonant Frippian riffing, the singer manages to create a coherent albeit equally wild-eyed dissonant melody:

Note too the appearance of the (fake?) mellotron halfway through.  In general it follows along the same lines as the remainder of their releases, and it's overall quite good and worth hearing.  What a surprise, so many years later.