Stomu Yamashta - Floating Music & The Man From The East (1972,73) (2008) 2CD

Stomu Yamashta's first two Island albums are combined on this two-disc 2008 reissue. From 1972, Floating Music -- actually credited to Stomu Yamashta & Come to the Edge -- was an unusually long (51-minute) LP for the era. Side one consisted of two long studio compositions; side two had two similarly lengthy instrumental tracks, recorded on January 10, 1972, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Recording with non-Japanese musicians, percussionist Yamashta with this album established himself as an accomplished purveyor of complex, versatile, and quite cerebral fusion music, though of the sort too challenging to get an audience that wide even by fusion standards. Including some world music-flavored interludes, the music nonetheless remained pretty electronic-based, and pretty serious in mood. Those qualities made it good fodder for late-night FM radio programs looking to establish a somber, intellectual ambience, though the absence of guitars also meant its appeal to rock audiences would be limited, with percussion often carrying much of the melodic weight. Recorded live in October and November of 1972, its follow-up album, The Man from the East (credited to Stomu Yamashta's Red Buddha Theatre), was a much different and more boisterous endeavor, as its music was composed to accompany a theatrical production. Perhaps it's inevitable with the loss of the visuals, but it's uneven and not wholly successful as an audio recording, the mood ranging from the quite upbeat fusion of "Scoop" and "Ana Orori" to the tribal percussion and grunts of "What a Way to Live in Modern Times." There are also quieter, pastoral passages that both echo traditional Japanese music and anticipate haunting new age sounds, with some fairly anguished Japanese-language vocals also getting heard from time to time. Though admirably diverse, it's too exasperating a sprawl to sustain uninterrupted interest, ending with a quite lovely, wistful short piece of cinematic beauty that would seem more at home on the soundtrack of a classy Italian film than within this particular group of compositions. The Raven CD reissue also adds a couple of bonus tracks, "Freedom Is Frightening" and "Rolling Nuns," from Stomu Yamashta's East Wind's 1973 album Freedom Is Frightening. ~ Richie Unterberger