Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Stomu Yamashta-Red Buddha,LP,1972,Japan


Stomu Yamashta has had a varied career, beginning with his electronic excursions such as Red Buddha, recording with the supergroup Go, and, most recently, a few releases that are very much in the "space music" category. Sea and Sky, released in 1983, falls into this new category, and is a blend of very ethereal synth music and grandiose, symphonic passages, akin, perhaps, to the sound of artists such as Deuter, Kitaro, and the like, but with sections that sound almost orchestral, comparable to Constance Demby, etc. Stomu Yamashta put together Go in the mid-seventies, and recorded the Go, and the well-received Go Live From Paris. Go Too was their third and final release. For those unfamiliar with the band, it included Al DiMeola, Klaus Schulze, and Michael Shrieve, among others, the result of which was an effective mixture of rock, electronics, fusion and soul! Of the three, this is probably their weakest work, influenced as it was by the disco and soul movement. However, the underlying instrumentation gives evidence of a strong guitar/rhythm section, with Mr. Schulze announcing his presence with an occasional, well-placed "whoosh." Seriously, if you are at all curious to check out this star line-up, this might be worth your while. And, if you do enjoy the jazz/soul-inflected fusion genre, you could do much worse than this.


A percussive tour de force, RED BUDDHA is as unlikely a record to be found on Vanguard (traditionally renowned as a jazz label) as possible. Stomu Yamash'ta was still toying with the synthesizers heard on SEA AND SKY. Here, he's a one-man rhythm machine, using delicate electronic processing and the vocabularies of multi-tracking and musique concrFte to construct two large-scale percussive blow-fests. "Red Buddha" is an astounding feast of hand-swept drums, iron plates, studio-enhanced will-o-the-wisps, arcane noisemakers, and various other devices. This dense tribal stew conjures up the heartbeats of Far Eastern gods. "As Expanding As" begins as a mini-symphony of steel drums arising out of ether and joined by mingling chop blocks that begin to excite the atoms in the surrounding soundfield. The listener is eventually caught up in a maelstrom of objects struck, bent, attacked, hissed, and left adrift in the prickly underbrush of sound. At least ten years ahead of its time on release, RED BUDDHA deserves ...
as requested

***************NEW LINK POSTED SEPTEMBER 2012***************

Get it here  

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks very much for this file
Appreciate your effort.

Unknown said...

A million thanks!the most rare album in my wanted list and who knows in the whole net!

My best regards from greece!

Anonymous said...

THank you thank you.

I loved this album, especially my favourite track 'As Expanding As', since 1975.

But I lost it in 1979 and never seen it since. Yes, rarest album as others said.

Wonderful.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately,
I find there are 2 rips of first track 'Red Buddha' in this zip, and no 'as expanding as'. The second track is misnamed.

Compare the two tracks at 3 minutes and 10 minutes and so on. They are identical, even if slightly varying in length of the rip.

As I recall, 'as expanding as' features repetitive melodic steel-pan playing, a very haunting and powerful effect. Sadly it is missing from this package. Oh well. Looks like the net's rarest album just got rarer.

thanks anyway.

Anonymous said...

Please would you consider reposting this with the track confusion fixed? Also, do you have "Freedom Is Frightening"? I have the LP, if you're interested. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Please would you consider reposting the whole album, with the track problem fixed? Thank you.

Caitlyn Martin said...

Great album. I'd like to see a re-up with the tracks fixed too.

I'm also looking for the "Iroha" series (3 LPs, Japanese release only) which have never been reissued on CD.

Thanks.

attax said...

Check http://paintedonsilence.blogspot.com/

for two of the Iroha Lps.

doc kwan said...

aaah, this release is NOT that difficult to get, I found the CD on amazon for $13. I know the LP can get pricey though. Those Iroha LPs on the other hand...

now, if only someone could direct me to "UZU: the World of Stomu Yamash'ta, Vol. 2" Japan only LP...

Matthew Shaw said...

I'm also looking for the Iroha albums, Ive checked out the Painted on Silence site but it only has the images, I had these LP's once, but had them stolen! I would love to have them again