Kitaro - Astral Voyage CD [US IMPORT]

US IMPORT

Well, I have heard my share of Kitaro, his late '70s and early '80s material and I have to admit they're not the most exciting albums I've heard, but they do have some good stuff on it, I prefer the stuff he's done with Far East Family Band, when he was still going by his real name, Masanori Takahashi.

Anyway, Astral Voyage was a 1985 reissue of Ten-Kai, this version being released on Geffen just as he was starting to break through the American market. Ten-Kai, released in 1978, was the very first solo album Kitaro released after leaving Far East Family Band (Far East Family Band did release one more album without him, called Tenkujin in 1977 before they called it a day). This is quite a fascinating album, a bit more experimental than his following albums, with strong ethnic influences (especially Asian, which is no surprise given he's Japanese, lots of Japanese influences, even some Chinese). He combines his synthesizers (like Minimoog, the Korg and Solina String Ensemble) with various ethnic instruments. It seems to be a bit less new-agey than the stuff that was to follow. This album really gets criminally ignored. Compilation albums tend to ignore this one, he doesn't appear to perform any of this stuff live (I have his 1980 album In Person and nothing from Ten-Kai aka Astral Voyage got performed on that album, but anything else he did up to that point, that is Oasis and the Silk Road stuff did). I really think this is perhaps his finest album and a great one. - Rate Your Music review

EAN: 075992408226

Geffen, 1985

Country: US

Good condition

C03