Necessary CD reissue of a particularly inspired side from Tenjo Sajiki, the Japanese avant guerrilla theatre company founded by legendary poet/film maker/counter-cultural provocateur Shuji Terayama that existed contemporaneously to first wave avantists like Flower Travellin' Band, Keiji Haino's Lost Aaraaff and Les Rallizes Denudes and that featured dusted acid/rock/folk/avant moves composed and executed by the young wunderkind JA Caesar. Alan Cummings rates this particular one as a real early peak for Caesar's music. Written for a series of foreign performances in 1971 - Nancy, Rotterdam, Belgrade, Zagreb and other areas of the Balkans - Caesar is rumoured to have composed and recorded all of the music for Jashumon/Heresy in the space of a few hours the night before the troupe left. This particular recording is drawn from the only Japanese performance of the play, January 1972 in Tokyo. Released at the time on a now very rare side by Victor, the music is fairly astounding throughout and for the most part defies any attempt at pithy generic description but the piece include flashes of huge, organ-led marches supported by clouds of choral song and throat-shredding death/folk vocals, brief episodes of forlorn traditional breath lost in a thin soup of electronics and gongs, massed acid chants ala Ya Ho Wha 13 and bursts of modal guitar psych. As featured in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler. Numbered edition of 1000 copies. Highly recommended.

Beautiful vinyl edition of what many regard as the ultimate document of the cracked musical vision of Japanese underground wunderkind JA Caesar. This is a reissue of the 1973 Victor LP which due to record company pressure consisted of excerpts from the original five hour theatrical performance and as such it makes for the ultimate Caesar primer, cutting to the heart of his cracked rock/ritual vision. The first half consists of supremely swaggered low-slung psych rock with plenty of wail while the second half ventures deep into the devotional void of planetary –scale holy music lit up by funereal organs, distant pulse beats and mile high guitars to create a contemporary form of surrender that feels simultaneously ancient and futuristic. Julian Cope rates this at number five in his Japrocksampler, comparing it to Ash Ra Temple, Agitation Free, Cosmic Jokers and Atem-era Tangerine Dream; it’s no mere hyperbole. 180g virgin vinyl. Recommended.