Masayuki Takayanagi - Station '70: Call in Question / Live Independence (April 18, 2022 Black Editions)

In August 1969, Masayuki Takayanagi formed his first New Direction group and embarked on an unparalleled musical journey that over the final 22 years of his life would define him as an uncompromising artist who would forge a visionary new musical language. Comprised of himself on acoustic and electric guitar and joined by Motoharu Yoshizawa on bass and Yoshisaburo 'Sabu' Toyozumi on drums, Takayanagi's group created a new unconstrained form of music; It expanded on the most radical, fiery elements of American and European Free Jazz, while refracting them through an avant garde prism. Harmonic and melodic development were rejected in favor of feedback and complete spontaneity. With New Direction, Takayanagi had achieved a "decisive break" from the past and created his own revolutionary music - a ferocious, often violent sound that paradoxically took both musical movement and stillness to their extremes.

Takayanagi's New Direction soon recorded one of the landmark albums of free jazz and the avant garde, Independence: Tread on Sure Ground (1970). It was Takayanagi's first album as a group leader and nothing short of groundbreaking. However, it would be 25 years before a wider audience would finally able to hear Takayanagi's vision with the group in its most explosive and unmitigated realization; Japan's P.S.F. records released two CD's, Call in Question (1994) and Live Independence (1995) which featured unearthed, previously unheard 1970 recordings made by the group at the legendary Shibuya Tokyo venue, Station '70. The recordings were revelatory; They presented nascent, jarring versions of Takayanagi's "Gradually Projection" and "Mass Projection" modalities in uncut, unvarnished long form. Joined on some tracks by renowned saxophonist Mototeru Takagi, the performances are intensely physical and visceral - each player creating a vivid self contained sound that at the same time merges with the overall group imperative to create something entirely new and beautiful.  Yoshizawa, Toyozumi as well as Takagi would, in their own right, go on to join Takayanagi as iconic players in the world of Japanese free jazz and avant garde. It is these performances, in a crucial moment of societal and cultural upheaval, that would help lay the groundwork for the rich world of free improvisation, free jazz and, to a large degree, underground music in Japan for decades to come.

Later Takayanagi would write "It is improvisation alone that transcends genre and academicism to become music as raw, independent existence, the most unique living organism within a yet-to-be unknown". It is in these recordings that that "yet-to-be unknown" can begin to be heard.

Black Editions is proud to present the entirety of the recordings presented on both P.S.F. albums as well as a previously unreleased side-long Mass Projection in a deluxe, remastered 3LP box set. The set features the stark photography of the late Yuji Itsumi and presents the original liner notes by key Japanese music critics and historians Yoshiyuki Kitazato and Toshihiko Shimizu newly translated into English as well as in the original Japanese. 

1. Extraction

2. Excavation

3. Mass Projection, March 1970

4. Intermittent

5. Herdsman's Pipe of Spain

6. Mass Projection, February 1970 (previously unreleased)

Masayuki Takayanagi - Guitar

Motoharu Yoshizawa - Bass

Sabu Toyozumi - Drums

Mototeru Takagi - Saxophone (D2)

Recorded at Station ’70, Tokyo

A1-E1 recorded by Jin Ishitani, March 11 and 12, 1970

F1 recorded February 19, 1970

Mastering by JJ Golden, Golden Mastering 2020

All photos by Yūji Itsumi except back cover photo of Masayuki Takayanagi, 1968, photographer unknown.

Graphic design by Rob Carmichael, SEEN, with typographic assistance from Takuya Kitamura

Notes by Yoshiyuki Kitazato and Toshihiko Shimizu

Timeline by Yasunori Saito

English Translation by Yuko Zama and Alan Cummings

Black Edition supervised and produced by Peter Kolovos

Released under license from Jinya Disc, Japan

A1-E1 originally released on CD by P.S.F. Japan as"Call in Question"

(PSFD-41, 1994) and "Live Independence" (PSFD-57, 1995)

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Masayuki Takayanagi - ECLIPSE (April 18, 2022 Black Editions)

Masayuki Takayanagi was one of the truly iconoclastic musicians to emerge from Japan, or anywhere else, in the 20th Century. Though he won acclaim in the 1950’s and 60’s as a master of the electric guitar and jazz improvisation, Takayanagi was a restless spirit, deeply engaged with the era's new movements in contemporary art, music, literature and philosophy. His work, beginning in the late 1960’s placed him on the leading edge of these developments; he began expanding on the most radical elements of American and European free jazz, infusing them with the raw feedback and dissonance of electronic and avant-garde music. With his various “New Direction” groups, Takayanagi broke free of traditional structures and developed a new theory of music that embraced an aggressive and unrelenting style of playing that has remained almost completely unparalleled in its ferocity.

Of all the albums to be released during Takayanagi's lifetime, 1975’s Eclipse was perhaps the most enigmatic and sought after. Released in an edition of only 100, it almost immediately disappeared and became a Holy Grail for Japanese connoisseurs of adventurous music, and rightly so. It’s first side contained a two part realization of Takayanagi’s “Gradually Projection” modality – a searching interplay between instruments- slowly emerging from a sparse open field and building with the tension of a looming thunder storm. The second side contains an epic performance of a “Mass Projection”, a high energy, densely layered barrage of sound that in its 25 minutes, never once slackens in intensity. It would be another 31 years before this key album in Takayangi’s oeuvre would finally have a (slightly) wider audience through a CD release by Japan's P.S.F. Records.

Black Editions is proud to present a deluxe vinyl edition of this masterwork, revealingly remastered from the original tapes by Elysian Masters. The album is packaged in a heavy double tip-on gatefold jacket that pays tribute to the original handmade packaging and features a previously unseen studio photograph of Takayanagi by Tatsuo Minami. 

1. First Session 1 (Gradually Projection)

2. First Session 2 (Gradually Projection)

3. Second Session (Mass Projection)

Masayuki Takayanagi: Electric Guitar

Kenji Mori: Alto Saxophone, Flute, Recorder

Nobuyoshi Ino: Electric Bass

Hiroshi Yamazaki: Drums, Percussion

Recorded in Tokyo, March 14, 1975

Engineer: Mikio Aoki

Cover Photographs and Design by Kazuharu Fujitani

Gatefold Photograph by Tatsuo Minami

Insert Notes by Yasunori Saito

Produced by Satoru Obara, Yoshiaki Kamei, Nihon Gendai Jazz Ongaku Kenkyukai

Originally released in an edition of 100 by ISKRA Records, Japan in 1975.

Black Edition remastered from the original master tapes by Dave Cooley, Elysian Masters and produced by Peter Kolovos.

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