Dada - 1994 - Castle Wall

Dada

1994

Castle Wall

01. Civilization 4:15
02. Theme Of The Earth (Part 1) 3:28
03. Pilgrim 4:24
04. Earlie-Scilie 8:06
05. Theme Of The Earth (Part 2) 5:09
06. Prelude 2:22
07. Le Soleil D'Arles 3:54
08. Flying Ship (Part 1) 8:21
09. Flying Ship (Part 2) 5:29
10. Castle Wall 23:45

Guitar, Synthesizer – Mutsuhiko Izumi
Synthesizer – Kenji Konishi

Material recorded in '79-'80

After they had presented their album debut " Jyo " in 1978 in a small edition , Mutsuhiko Izumi and Kenji Konishi probably set about recording material for a follow-up album. But this one (see " Dada ") was not published until 1981. Sometime after that, Izumi Kennedy formed , and the Dada story was over. Or not quite. In 1994 Belle Antique in Japan released "Castle Wall", a CD with further Dada material.

There is not too much to be found on the worldwide web for the disc (at least in a language that the reviewer can read), and the leaflet, which is also written in Japanese, is of no great help. It should be about material recorded in the years 1979-80, demos, or maybe the first recordings for a planned second album. The sound is consistently very good, but has a somewhat unfinished rehearsal room charm.

Incidentally, on the CD you can find the imprint "Special Issue Vol. 1", which either indicates that a second archival album by Dada was planned (which has not yet been released), or that this is the first part of a series by Archival records from various bands. The next album in the Belle Antique catalog was the Serenade / Shingetsu archive CD " Kagaku No Yoru " (which bears the addition "Special Collection", but without a number). Maybe that was part 2?

The first 9 tracks, including two parts of the number "Flying ship" known from Kennedy's repertoire (see " Twinkling NASA " - the third part can be found on " Dada "), offer symphonic-progressive electronics that are comparable to German ones Productions from the late 70s are reminiscent of Cluster, Harmonia or Liliental, for example, but provided with a typical Japanese element (these hymnic key lines), spacy, expansive guitar inlays, occasional rhythmic patterns from the can, complex guitar tinkering, sacral-proggy key surfaces and folky - scrappy acoustic guitar excursions (in "Earlie-Scilie" for example, that on Gulââbs " ride through Hades"Wouldn't have attracted negative attention). A colorful, exotic electro prog is that, which also has a certain primitive, herbaceous charm attached. Nice!

The long "Castle Wall" then strides along rather slowly, again quite hymnically and heavily on keys, a bit lengthy, however, barely rhythmic (no percussion), determined by symphonic key surfaces and underlaid with all sorts of electronic hissing and wobbling. Every now and then, quite wild, screeching-howling e-guitar interludes are included, but these can hardly prevent the reviewer from glancing boredly at the display on the CD player from time to time.

The shorter tracks of "Castle Wall" are quite fun and should appeal to every fan of herbaceous electronics. The title track, on the other hand, is rather mixed and also turned out to be clearly too long. Nevertheless, the album is a nice addition to the collection for Japan-Prog completeists and proggers who appreciate imaginative DIY electronics from the 70s.