Museum Musica

Japan, 1970, Japanese folk

須磨の嵐 (Suma No Arashi) & Teiji Ito – Suma No Arashi: Three of these four tracks were composed by Sakurai Hideakira, one of the koto players and a member of 須磨の嵐. (I assume Suma refers to the coastal area of Kobe facing Osaka Bay.) Not very stormy, though, this album. Beautiful minimalist traditional koto and shakuhachi music, with Itou Teiji playing the delicate, striking percussion. The vocals on track three are actually quite psychedelic, an unexpected turn.