Far Out
Far Out

A white children's glove hanging on a line to dry, pale cyan blue background...

Open the album and you'll discover that the tracklist consists of just two very long tracks: "Too Many People" and "Nihonjin".

Start listening... chimes similar to clock hands breaking off and bouncing on the ground make way for an atomic wind that slowly disperses... at this point, a mournful acoustic guitar phrasing emerges, and you might begin to wonder who these musicians are and what's the story behind this album that unexpectedly reached your Third Millennium ears...

The Far Out was an ever-expanding commune of Japanese musicians gathered by Fumio Miyashita, a keyboardist from the Nagano prefecture, one of the most natural and green areas of the Japanese archipelago... seeking like-minded musicians, he had combed the best available in the alternative Japan of those years to establish the "Far Out" operations headquarters in his parents' agricultural estate.

From that rustic idyll, after endless and convoluted improvisations, the two tracks that make up this album were released in 1973.

In "Too Many People", after the long atmospheric introduction, the guitar introduces a sad and solitary theme, upon which the meditative and dramatic voice is superimposed, and for the first time, the listener notices the singer's curious tendency to stretch out vowel sounds at the end of a line, breaking them apart. Almost without realizing it, the guitar, from a timid background, takes center stage and produces oriental and distorted sounds, dipped in diluent and wah-wah.

Eiichi Sayu effortlessly transitions from a martial gait to sharp flutters not unlike those of the other Japanese guitar hero, Hideki Ishima. Concluding this long and sharp guitar interlude in the vein of Ash Ra Tempel, in which the guitar sometimes adopts a sitar-like sound, the initial sequence for voice and guitar returns, and the entire sound mass gradually glides toward the conclusion, ending the track with a vehement outburst emphasized by screams and sparkling cymbals.

"Nipponjin", on the second side, is one of the most significant tracks of the Japanese scene, so much so that it has also been reinterpreted by the second incarnation of Miyashita’s group, the Far East Family Band. After an initial percussive crash, a bouncing and distorted guitar introduces the vocal part after some discreet drumming.

The mood of the singing is similar to that of the first track, but the vocals (in English) are more evocative and anguished. At a certain point, out of nowhere, that sly guy Sayu pulls an electrifying yet nostalgic-sounding guitar break from his pocket, with Gilmour in mind.

From the seventh minute, the guitar and the sitar launch with the drums into the middle part of the song, which accelerates around a whirling solo, then slows down, giving way to even more oriental and meditative sounds, upon which choral voices intervene, repeating words in Japanese, creating a curious effect of an electric mantra that intensifies before the grand finale with the percussion shining, before it all fades away leaving only a celestial organ drone.

Soon after, many members of the group would change and Miyashita would reform the Far East Family Band on the same model...

but that's another story...

about the Far Out album... GET IT!