Crosswind - 1978 - Crosswind

Crosswind 

1978 

Crosswind

01. Ari No Daiido

02. Neko To Kororin No Fushigina Tabi

03. Ryuhyo

04. Dancer

05. Nagai Rail

06. Dandanbatake De Onigokko

07. Yuyake

08. Crosswind

Bonus Tracks

09. Ari No Daiido (Live)

10. Ryuhyo (Live)

Ginji Ogawa - Guitar

Megumi Maruo - Keyboards

Keizo Endo - Bass

Kiyoshi Sugimoto - Drums

Formed by guitarist Ginji Ogawa in 1976. They played progressive rock and made at least three albums - Crosswind (1978), II (1979) and Sosite Yumu No Kuni E (1982). Ogawa also performed in Carmen Maki's band. After Crosswind broke up in 1984, Ogawa formed several other bands and began a solo career. In 2001 he re-emerged with the Ginji Ogawa Band, playing prog apparently comparable to Camel, Yes, Focus, Rush and Jethro Tull.

Here's Crosswind's first album from 1978. This is another compact disc reissue in the mini-LP format from the Altavoz label, and includes 2 live bonus tracks. Once again, the track titles are all in Japanese, and the only source for the English character listings were to be found on Proggnosis, and are therefore to be taken with a grain of salt.

The music is similar in style to that of Ain Soph, another great mid-period Camel-influenced band from

that country. Both groups also incorporate the essence of Canterbury and early fusion, notably National Health, RTF and Billy Cobham ("Crosswind" quite possibly being a reference to the latter's song by the same name). The main difference however, is that while Ain Soph is key-centric, care of Kikuo Fujikawa on most of their releases, Crosswind is very much guitarist Ginji Ogawa's band. And he brings an amazing assortment of chops to the proceedings, including not-so-discreet references to Gilmour and Hendrix.