taj mahal travellers: july 15, 1972

Takehisa Kosugi was a hippie who become an avant-garde composer. Born in Tokyo in 1938, he graduated in 1962 at the Tokyo University of Arts, and then founded the Japanese equivalent of the Fluxus movement, called Group Ongaku, a group devoted to improvisation and multi-media performances. In 1969 he formed the Taj Mahal Travellers, a psychedelic rock group that played lengthy improvised jams that can be summarized in three principles: a far Eastern approach to music as a living organism, an intense electronic processing of instruments and voices, and a semi-mathematical overlapping of frequencies. Basically: La Monte Young on acid. Kosugi mainly played violin. He was on the road with this group between 1971 and 1972, traveling in a Volkswagen minibus from Holland to the Taj Mahal itself. Two albums were made out of that experience: one of them this release, July 15, 1972. Unavailable on CD for a considerable time, this important album now enjoys a timely reissue on Bamboo. Includes an English translation of the original Japanese LP insert. Digitally remastered.