YOSUKE YAMASHITA TRIO – Chiasma (MPS Records / BASF - LP-1976)

Label: MPS Records / BASF – 68.115 / 20 22678-6

Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: W. Germany / Released: 1976

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded live June 6, 1975 at the Heidelberger Jazztage.

Cover Design By – Horst Weber

Photography By [Reverse Side] – Ralph Quinke

Recorded By [Engineer] – Carlos Albrecht

Mixed on Tonstudio Bauer

Produced By – Horst Weber

Sleeve Notes [Translation] – Thomas Fitterling

Matrix / Runout (Side A runout, stamped): A 1(lying) 0022 678 S 1 3 20

Matrix / Runout (Side B runout, stamped): A 1(lying) 0022 678 S 2 3 20

Exactly like release 20 22678-6 but with a sticker MPS - 68.115 on the back side cover (upper right corner), red label MPS/BASF release.

A1 - Double Helix ................................................................................................. 4:24

A2 - Nita ............................................................................................................... 4:51

A3 - Chiasma ....................................................................................................... 7:14

B1 - Horse Trip .................................................................................................... 3:44

B2 - Introhach ...................................................................................................... 4:05

B3 - Hachi .......................................................................................................... 12:50

Yosuke Yamashita – piano

Akira Sakata – alto saxophone – Akira Sakata

Takeo Moriyama – drums, percussion

Leader & founded by pianist Yosuke Yamashita, most references encountered refer to him as “The Japanese Cecil Taylor”! Taylor has clearly been a tremendous inspiration for Yosuke who has frequently eulogized him & lavished his idol with the highest of adulation as well as sharing at least one performance together. But Yosuke & indeed his trio are no epigone or second-rate plagiarists. Paired with long time affiliate saxophonist Akira Sakata, an absolute madman of screaming, implacable excoriation, manic instability & one of the most truly ferocious, precise & demolishingly devastating drummers of all time Takeo Moriyama, they unleash an unimaginably ascetic sustained avalanche of bellicosity & divine-wrath of mythical man-beast mensuration. like martial-deities, they foment an allo-secular degree of extremes, urgency, threat & sybaritic smouldering impetuosity & emotion-lead rampageous incandescence.

YYT-Akira Sakata One of the things so exciting & precious about these guys is their commitment to doing battle in the outer-limits, as in do-or-die, foot through the floor fulgurous-ferocity. There’s just no fucking around, they ALWAYS deliver, & their over-spilling magnanimity & direct & staunchly substantial application renders that charred, direct-hit satisfaction. More than anything actually, the most consecutive, tremulous & assaulting component is Takeo, who only seems to be interested in “going for guts” & enforcing his speed-fixated, mesomorphic fanaticism & budo enhanced (surely?) power, consistently collapsing the foundries & throwing their severed pieces in a million directions. His power, stamina & fury are legendary phenomenology, but also his punctilious & tight playing, with clean & vicious rolls galore shredding adversaries & obstacles. The guy even looks the part, like notorious 1960’s psycho lone gangster actor Bunko Sugiwara, aviators, Buddhist crop, flaccid fag lolling out his chops á-la tepodama-hoodlum & attire to match (perhaps a tanto in the waist-line?!). Takeo is the only member that never seems to contrite or enact remission, he’s just always killing it & enmeshes intensity even on the very rare slower/para sections. As for Sakata, this guy makes the sax screel like a banshee, constantly bursting the nerve with those high pitched strained screamers & super-fast prismic- paracemes. YYT-Takeo Moriyama He endows some of the most emotive & non-rational imprecation to edge-up the instability. & of course we have Yosuke himself, definitely the most dynamic member who sometimes rides the current & plays a series of variables (rather than solely erratic & fast) & fractal techniques. When not careening all over the keys with his cohorts rankled & rash explosives, he mangles many forms of vaguely traditional & melodic motives with the drastic & dissolute free-form of aggressive improvisation & Avant-Garde. Together at full reciprocity velocity, these philippic conflagrating aiguilles of remorseless jocund excess, tearing through like some kind of biblical storm, bursting & inspissating with over-abundance & splendorous savagery just chop the blocks like nobody’s business. Amazing! & one of the best & most intense Off-Road Free Jazz experiences available...

Note:

Versions of “Chiasma” also occur on three of LP records (Clay, Frozen Days & the Up-To Date) as well as two alternative takes of “Double Helix”.

If you find it, buy this album!