It was an era of deception, of wars disguised as peace missions, and politicians with cardboard halos above their heads. The era of truths that were silenced, replaced, and carefully hidden by useless aestheticism, hypnotic programs, invasive advertisements, and worldly vain glory. The era of the suppression of the spirit through forms of entertainment contaminated and deformed by an insatiable thirst for power, from new literature aimed at lobotomizing increasingly younger and more impressionable personalities to music, butchered and reconstructed to fit the new, criminal emblems of such an art form, now at its heart-wrenching twilight. In those dark years, within the chaos generated by society intent on digesting itself, stood one man. Not a hero with a shining cape, to be sure, but a warrior with an indomitable spirit and astonishing technique; a musician risen in the Land of the Rising Sun who, armed with a violin, became one of the generals of that resistance constantly intent on defending the souls of men from the corruption of minds, the warmth of feelings blossomed in the heart from the frost of ephemeral gains and selfish intrigue.
Akihisa Tsuboy, that was the name of our commander, spent eight years training rigorously with his three comrades-in-arms until, in 2000, he decided to step into the front line, under the name of KBB, to fight against a senselessness and oblivion so extensive and widespread as to threaten the most intimate expressions of that pure and genuine human nature, unfortunately reduced to the brink of exhaustion after an endless number of traumas and abuses. "Lost and Found" was his weapon against such oppressive phenomena: a complex and imposing work, bearing the effigies of powerful lineages, from King Crimson to UK, from the beginnings of Jean-Luc Ponty to the Mahavishnu Orchestra, a conglomerate of genres and styles, where neoclassical hints, progressive rides, fusion pyrotechnics, and a thousand other facets find their place; these latter multiplied and intertwined with possibly superior mastery in the subsequent "Four Corner's Sky," a vast manifesto of a genius and sensitivity impossible to crush or eclipse, despite the treachery and baseness of the means employed for such vile purpose.
The year was 2003 and the quartet battled with every means at their disposal. Akihisa's sharp violin was always in the lead, ready to launch incisive and targeted attacks at any moment, whether during epic incursions alongside the keyboards ("Discontinuous Spiras"), or in the midst of chaotic and engaging situations, side by side with the guitar ("Kraken's Brain Is Blasting"). If desperation and melancholy prevailed, Toshimitsu Takahashi protected his companions by enveloping them in the tender sound emanating from his piano ("Horobi no Kawa"), while Dani launched a counterattack with violent bass flurries ("Backside Edge"), closely followed by the leader, handling the second guitar in particularly delicate and changeable episodes, illuminated by numerous keyboard escapes ("Slave Nature"). Despite its charm and undeniable elegance, the violin, when necessary, could transform into a ruthless weapon, dark and menacing, as well as a scrupulous observer of the ancient precepts of the mysterious man of the court David Cross ("I Am Not Here"), while Shirou Sugano's drums showed no hint of fatigue, continuing to brilliantly lead the band through treacherous tempos, finally conquered by the guitar, the piano, and the cello ("Shironiji").
The light of a jewel like this, although capable of warming spirits and giving courage to individuals intent on not succumbing to the terrible advance of nothingness and its black, endless depths, seems to have been even overshadowed by the disarming grace and unrivaled brilliance generated by its successor "Proof of Concept," the third feat of the legendary Akihisa, and the most deadly, intense with an almost painful beauty; so true and heartrending that it guaranteed its creator, hypothetically if he had decided to leave these mortal realms, an honored place in the glowing halls located at the four corners of the sky, inhabited by the greatest and bravest warriors ever to walk the Earth, nourishing it with their dreams, hopes, strength, and pure will.
Just like you Malaika.
Goodbye, have a good journey.
Jonah,
Chronicles of a Lost World.
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