HAJIME TACHIBANA-HM, LP, 1983, JAPAN

Following my post of his debut LP "H" way back in June of last year, here's this idiosyncratic alto saxophonist's charmingly askew if slightly more fey follow-up that was issued by Ralph Records. "Hm" teases out some fruitful dimensions of Tachibana's muse evident on "H", particularly his penchant for Glass/Rouse/late Urban Sax systemic sax/synth latticeworks, the arrangements of which he's prone to take toward both swooningly immersive and brittle ends in ways that evoke both the whimsical R.I.O. big band-isms of Six Cylindres En V and and the more dryly austere interlacings of The Rova Saxophone Quartet. Barring everything else though, Tachibana's inclusion of a track aptly titled "Liquid" seals this with a kiss that'll linger long in your memory: a devastating bit of retrofuturist sonic architecture that resides in some dream logic dimension between Tuxedomoon, Haniwa All-Stars and Cab Calloway's Orchestra.

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