GEORGE HIROTA-SAHASURARA, LP, 1976, JAPAN

Following up on my January post of this monster Japanese fusion drummer's second album The Wheel Of Fortune (under the name Joji Hirota), here's his obscure first outing from five years earlier, and it's a total stunner. Wholly unlike its follow-up, Sahasurara starts off with absurdly over the top psych/prog histrionics akin to the Kali Bahlu-related Lite Storm album that Jim upped long ago and follows it with a round of becalmed but luscious vibraphone jazz in the mode of Bobby Hutcherson's Montara, which is surely one way of getting my undivided attention. This sorta inspired trade off between the ripping and rippling is key to this album's particular wiles. When this does finally launch into shredding fusion territory on the flip side, it does so in a sublime Terje Rypdal-like atmospheric ethno mystery mode, and it's a vibe that just keeps escalating, as the distinctly odd "The Law Of Causality' slowly wheels into view like some dungeon dwelling inversion of Popol Vuh, with hand percussion and flute trills tracing an occultic route into incipient hysteria. I'll leave the final delicious rug-pull from this headfuck of an album for you to discover for yourselves...

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