NOA - Tri-logic from Japan, 1987

Quite a stunning rescue from oblivion here, with a Crimsonesque fusion outing from 1987.  Compositions are by the percussionist, one Ichiro Takesako.  First of all note that as you wade through the numerous bands of the same name (including the well-known French progressive band) on rateyourmusic the great Mauro Moroni (of mellow records fame) has given this LP a rating of 4/5, to me, spot-on, and you can't argue with a master listener like him.  Mostly similar to the fusionary explorations of the British band "Red" for those that know them, or Germans Moira in their Reise period (1984), you get those dissonances, the percussive attack, the endless electric guitar noodling odd and angular riffs, the bizarre spoken passages, experimental percussion passages, the floating 'spaceship synths' as I called them before, in short, everything the prog fan could ask for in a quasi-instrumental record.

But so unknown!  For those who don't know this, let me tell you, there are hundreds such unknown Japanese progressive records out there the rest of the world is not even aware of...  Uhhh-- wait a sec, when you're talking progressive music, that refers to just about every record, not just the Japanese ones... sorry about that chief...

The track called Dr MacCoy I have to presume is a misspelling of the Star Trek character, based on the overall space theme of side two...

I sampled the wonderfully titled "Jupiter and Lucifer" song:





Notice how starting from a relatively unpromising beginning sounding almost Bacharachesque in G, the electric guitar's phrase, on hitting the bass note Eflat, suddenly deconstructs the melody into a kind of whole tone reference, just brilliantly insane, before mounting back up to a kind of Eflat key sound, then going off to repeat the previous G tune.  Gotta love the originality in that song.  I don't expect to hear it soon on geriatric radio.