Kazumi Watanabe
Kylyn Live

The album of the definitive consecration of a Monster (no, don't be offended, Watanabe San, you really are one).

The album that placed Kazumi "Kylyn" among the greatest electric guitarists in history (and "Mobo" and the masterpieces of the '80s, those with the cream of Western musicians, were yet to come). 

The album where Technique is put at the service of Imagination, of the visionary talent of the individual: speed, touch, precision, incisiveness. This is how you play, this is how you "live" (because sometimes playing is not enough) the electric guitar. The thought-execution relationship (the eternal Mystery surrounding the likes of Hendrix, Clapton, Blackmore) reaches indescribable, simply INhuman levels here. One thing has mainly been said about Him, by admirers and critics alike: "he's a machine." But if he's a machine, I say, he's a complex machine, a machine that no one has invented yet. A machine alien to schematism and sequentiality. Or perhaps simply "alien." Because I don't find much terrestrial about this record, to be honest...

The album of a Musician who no longer knows limits, if he ever did. "Limits"...?

The album of the ideal fusion between Fusion (in its most recent, pre-1980 incarnation) and electronics, the tough kind, very tough indeed (above all, the neurotic and technological reinterpretation of "Milestones," the Davisian classic, a distant relative of the original); the Jazz-Rock of a past yet recent, yet still there (around the corner), meets the New Wave that spreads, rages, converts to its Creed. Two different languages, certainly; that they weren't contradictory, though, had yet to be intuited (and especially: confirmed on record).

The album of a total expressive formula: Jazz, Rock, Blues, Hard, Samba, "galactic" impressions, environmental meditations for nocturnal scenes. Soul and R'n'B, perhaps: after all, there is a brass section just for that...

The album that, in the year of "Solid State Survivor," reveals to the world the Genius of a young electro-obsessed session man named Ryuichi Sakamoto; and, in a secondary analysis, the talent of Yasuaki Shimizu, THE Japanese saxophonist of the '80s.

The album that demonstrates that Akiko Yano, in those years, had little to envy of Kate Bush, in terms of "instrumental use" of the voice; two sung pieces, yes, but they are enough to realize the immense depth of an often forgotten artist, in our parts (when it comes to talking about Great Voices). And she plays, the - today ex - Mrs. Sakamoto: piano, Fender Rhodes, synth, various effects. 

The album of a national awakening: "Yes, we can too, like them!" With the release of this album, Fusion (and take note, not the "old" Jazz-Rock) is no longer something just for Westerners. All the instrumentalists involved are Japanese. Yes, it was 1979: not a mere detail.

The album to start from and to inevitably return to, for anyone wanting to understand what (!!!) Tokyo was like in the transition between two decades. 

A HISTORIC album, to be clear. But you should have already sensed that...

Recordings: Roppongi Pit Inn, Tokyo, June 15-16-17, 1979.