Rough Trade
  • Cart
  • New This Week
  • Pre-Orders
  • Exclusives
  • Books
  • Events
  • Browse
    • Genres
    • Labels
    • Dance Wall
  • Browse
    • Genres
    • Labels
    • Dance Wall
  • Account
  • Radio
  • Stores
  • Club
  • UK / US
  • UK / US
  • Club
  • Stores
Rough Trade Rough Trade
  • New This Week
  • Pre-Orders
  • Exclusives
  • Books
  • Events
  • Browse
    • Genres
    • Labels
    • Dance Wall
  • Browse
    • Genres
    • Labels
    • Dance Wall
  • ALGIERS |
  • Live + Signing
  • Taka
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest

April Is The Cruellest Month

Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit

LP $34.99
Add to cart

Masayuki "Jojo" Takayanagi (1932 - 1991) was a maverick Japanese guitarist, a revolutionary spirit whose oeuvre embodied the radical political movements of late '60s Japan. Having cut his teeth as an accomplished Lennie Tristano disciple playing cool jazz in the late '50s, Takayanagi had his mind blown by the Chicago Transit Authority's "free form guitar" in 1969 and promptly turned his back on the jazz scene by which he was beloved. Takayanagi had found a new direction, an annihilation of jazz and its associated idolatry of hegemonic American culture. Aiming his virtuoso chops towards the stratosphere, Takayanagi dedicated himself to the art of the freakout, laying waste to tradition left and right, most notably via the all-out assault of his aptly-named New Direction For The Arts (later, New Direction Unit) and collaborations with like-minded outsider saxophonist Kaoru Abe. His innovations on the instrument parallel those of Sonny Sharrock and Derek Bailey and paved the way for the Japanese necromancy of Keiji Haino and Otomo Yoshihide, but even at its most limitless hurdling Takayanagi's playing is propelled by the dexterous grasp of his foundations, to which he paid tribute with elegant takes on flamenco and Ornette Coleman's "Lonely Woman." Culled from 1975 sessions by the New Direction Unit, April Is The Cruellest Month was originally slated for release on ESP-Disk before the label's untimely demise that year. Part of the period of Takayanagi's career which he termed "non-section music," one can only imagine how its unholy racket might have altered an international understanding of Japanese noise. On "We Have Existed" and "What Have We Given?", the classic lineup of Takayanagi with Kenji Mori (alto sax, flute, bass clarinet), Nobuyoshi Ino (bass, cello), and Hiroshi Yamazaki(percussion) prove that free improvisation was thriving well beyond western Europe with a set of dilapidated, spacious clanging, Takayanagi's squalling feedback and Mori's Eric Dolphy moves undulating atop the joyous clamor. The cataclysmic "My Friend, Blood Shaking My Heart" is another story altogether. Infernal sheets of contorted sound find the berserk instrumentalists hopelessly entangled as they urge the explosion deeper and deeper into ecstatic oblivion. Rivaled in intensity only by John Coltrane's The Olatunji Concert (1967), Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun (1968), and Dave Burrell's Echo (1969), April Is The Cruellest Month deservedly sees the light of day on the vinyl format for which it was originally conceived, marking the first issue of Takayanagi's music outside of Japan.

Label
Blank Forms
Genre
Jazz
Artist
Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit
Released
06/21/19
Catalogue Number
BF 008LP
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
LP $34.99
Add to cart
Label
Blank Forms
Genre
Jazz
Artist
Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit
Released
06/21/19
Catalogue Number
BF 008LP

Our recommendations

Calls for Action, title

Harish Raghavan , artist

Patchouli Blue, title

Bohren Und Der Club Of Gore , artist

Cookin With The Miles Davis Quintet, title

Miles Davis Quintet , artist

Eric B. and Rakim’s Follow the Leader re-imagined as Jazz by Jonathan Hay, Benny Reid and Mike Smith, title

Various Artists , artist

Groovin' At Smalls Paradise, title

Jimmy Smith , artist

Fuck Yo Feelings, title

Robert Glasper , artist

We’re New Again – A Re-imagining by Makaya McCraven, title

Gil Scott-Heron and Makaya McCraven , artist

Alone Together, title

Lee Konitz , artist

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Soundcloud
  • Spotify

Independent purveyors of great music, since 1976

  • United States
  • United Kingdom
  • Stores
  • Help
  • Shipping
  • Returns
  • Club
  • Events
  • Careers
  • Radio
  • Gift Cards

© 2019 Rough Trade. All rights reserved.

  • Privacy
  • Terms
Cart

Your cart is empty

Checkout

Shipping and final taxes will be calculated at checkout