| Made in Japan | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | February 10, 1972 | |||
| Studio | Thunder Sound Studio (Toronto) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 34:59 | |||
| Label | Atlantic | |||
| Producer | Yuya Uchida, Ikuzo Orita, Paul Hoffert | |||
| Flower Travellin' Band chronology | ||||
| ||||
Made in Japan is the third album by Japanese rock band Flower Travellin' Band, released in 1972. [1]
After meeting Lighthouse at the Expo '70 festival in Osaka, Flower Travellin' Band were invited to visit Canada. While there, the group recorded Made in Japan with Lighthouse keyboardist Paul Hoffert helping produce. Vocalist Joe Yamanaka later stated that the process was very easy, with everything flowing well. [2]
Due to George Wada becoming ill with tuberculosis, Canadian drummer Paul DeLong plays on some tracks on this album. The lyrics were written by Yoko Nomura, the wife of the band's manager, who translated conversations she had with the group and their ideas into English. "Heaven and Hell" was written by Yamanaka in Japanese and she translated it. [2] The song "Hiroshima" is a re-imagining of "Satori Part III" from their previous album Satori . [3] The introductory first track is an advertisement for a concert at Stanley Park Stadium in Toronto by Flower Travellin' Band, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Bob Seger and Teegarden & Van Winkle, with a clip of "Lucky Man" playing in the background.
"Hiroshima", "Heaven and Hell" and "Aw Give Me Air" were covered by Cult of Personality, 9, and punk band Pulling Teeth respectively, for the 2000 Flower Travellin' Band Tribute album. [4]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |    [3] |
Both Mason Jones of Dusted magazine and Eduardo Rivadavia of Allmusic claimed that following Satori was a difficult task and that Made in Japan was "doomed to fall short of expectations," respectively. Both reviewers also cited the same three songs, "Kamikaze", "Hiroshima" and "Spasms", as the highlights and being on par with the band's best work. [5] Although he felt it inconsistent, Rivadavia called the album "pretty darn good!" and gave it a 3.5 star rating out of 5. [3]
All tracks are written by Hideki Ishima and Yoko Nomuro, except track 7, by Ishima, Nomuro and Joe Yamanaka
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Introduction" (advertisement for a concert) | 0:27 |
| 2. | "Unaware" | 5:51 |
| 3. | "Aw Give Me Air" | 3:20 |
| 4. | "Kamikaze" | 4:16 |
| 5. | "Hiroshima" | 5:13 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 6. | "Spasms" | 5:23 |
| 7. | "Heaven and Hell" | 3:50 |
| 8. | "That's All" | 6:39 |
Flower Travellin' Band
Additional musicians
Production and design
Lighthouse is a Canadian rock band formed in 1969 in Toronto, Ontario, whose repertoire included elements of rock music, jazz, classical music, and swing and featured horns, string instruments, and vibraphone. They won Juno Awards for Best Canadian Group of the Year in 1972, 1973, and 1974.
Flower Travellin' Band was a Japanese rock band that was formed in 1967. They were connected to Japan's counterculture movement and noted for their mixture of early heavy metal with psychedelic and progressive rock. They received wide acclaim from critics but failed to achieve commercial success and separated in 1973 to pursue individual careers. The band reunited in late 2007, but permanently disbanded after the 2011 death of vocalist Joe Yamanaka.
"Heaven Is" is a song by English hard rock band Def Leppard from their 1992 album, Adrenalize. The single was released in January 1993 and reached number 13 in the United Kingdom.
Japanese reggae is reggae music originating from Japan. The first reggae band to perform in Japan was The Pioneers who toured in 1975. However it was not until 1979, when Jamaican singer Bob Marley visited Japan on holiday that reggae would gain momentum. Marley wanted to attend a concert by the Flower Travellin Band and when looking for information, he met famed Japanese percussionist "Pecker" who informed him that the group had already disbanded. The two became good friends, and Pecker suggested to Marley a collaboration between acclaimed Japanese and Jamaican artists. This suggestion resulted in the albums Pecker Power, and Instant Rasta being recorded in Jamaica at "Channel One" and "Tuff Gong Studio" in 1980. The albums featured Japanese artists Minako Yoshida (吉田美奈子), Ryuuichi Sakamoto (坂本龍一), Naoya Matsuoka (松岡直也), Shigeharu Mukai (向井滋春), and Akira Sakata (坂田明), alongside Jamaican artists Augustus Pablo, Sly & Robbie, The Wailers, Rico Rodriguez, Carlton Barrett and Marcia Griffiths. These two albums influenced both Japanese and Jamaican artists, and are regarded as spreading reggae to Japan.
Deadly Outlaw: Rekka, also known as Violent Fire, is a 2002 Japanese yakuza film directed by Takashi Miike starring Riki Takeuchi and Sonny Chiba. Known in Japan as Jitsuroku: Andō Noboru Kyōdō-den - Rekka, it is loosely based on actor Noboru Ando's former life as a yakuza.
The music of the Kingdom Hearts video game series was composed by Yoko Shimomura with orchestral music arranged by Kaoru Wada. The original soundtracks of the games have been released on three albums and a fourth compilation album. The soundtracks to the Kingdom Hearts games feature several musical pieces from both Square Enix and Disney works, including such pieces as "Mickey Mouse Club March" by Jimmie Dodd, "This Is Halloween" by Danny Elfman, and "One-Winged Angel" by Nobuo Uematsu. They also feature several vocal songs, the most notable being the four main theme songs: "Hikari", "Passion", "Chikai", and "Face My Fears." The two themes were written and performed by Japanese American pop star Hikaru Utada; in addition to Japanese, English versions of the first three songs were produced, titled "Simple and Clean", "Sanctuary", and "Don't Think Twice", respectively.
Acid Mothers Temple & the Melting Paraiso U.F.O is an album by the artists of the same name, released in 1997 by P.S.F. Records.
Satori is the second album by Japanese rock band Flower Travellin' Band, and their first of original material. It was released in Japan by Atlantic Records in 1971 and in the US and Canada by GRT Records.
We Are Here is the fifth and final album by Japanese rock band Flower Travellin' Band, released in September 2008 by Pony Canyon Records. It is their only album after reuniting in November 2007 and the only one to feature keyboardist Nobuhiko Shinohara as a full member. We Are Here peaked at number 299 on the Oricon chart.
Kirikyogen is a 1970 album by Japanese musician Kuni Kawachi, credited to "Kuni Kawachi & His Friends", though it is usually credited to "Kuni Kawachi & Flower Travellin' Band" on bootlegs. The album showcases Kuni Kawachi's progressive rock influences, as well as the growing heavy metal sound that the Flower Travellin' Band were honing.
Challenge! is the debut studio album by Japanese rock band Flower Travellin' Band, then called Yuya Uchida & The Flowers, released in 1969. It features mainly cover songs, and was a means for Yuya Uchida to explore the emerging psychedelic rock movement outside his own career, and to introduce the work of upcoming Western bands such as Cream, Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Jefferson Airplane to a Japanese audience. It was named number 34 on Bounce's 2009 list of 54 Standard Japanese Rock Albums.
Anywhere is a 1970 album by Japanese rock band Flower Travellin' Band. It was their first release under the Flower Travellin' Band name and the first to feature the classic line-up of Joe Yamanaka, Hideki Ishima, Jun Kozuki and Joji Wada. AllMusic rated the album 3 out of 5 stars, describing the music as a "unique mixture of progressive daring, psychedelic eccentricity, and muscular, heavy rock austerity".
Make Up is the fourth album by Japanese rock band Flower Travellin' Band, released in 1973. It is a double album, featuring both live and studio recordings.
Akira Yamanaka, better known as Joe Yamanaka (ジョー山中), was a Japanese singer and actor. He is known for both his work with Flower Travellin' Band and as a solo musician; singing at a vocal range of three octaves. As an actor, he appeared in many television shows and movies, such as Blackmail Is My Life (1968), Zatoichi (1989) and Deadly Outlaw: Rekka (2002).
Hideki Ishima is a Japanese musician, known primarily for his work with Flower Travellin' Band and for creating the sitarla instrument. A guitarist and sitar player for nearly forty years, he now exclusively plays the sitarla, an instrument he invented in 2000 that combines aspects of a sitar with an electric guitar. Guitarists Akira Takasaki, Rolly, and Mikael Åkerfeldt have cited him as an influence.
Satori is an album released by Flower Travellin' Band in Canada. It featured tracks from the original Japanese release of Satori, Made In Japan, and an additional track only available on the Canadian single release of Satori. The songs featured from Satori were remixed and edited considerably. The album was produced by Paul Hoffert of Lighthouse.
Japanese metal is heavy metal music from Japan. The country's first metal bands formed in the mid-to-late 1970s. The number of acts increased significantly in the next decade, but only a few saw their material released internationally, including Europe and North America with their pre-established metal bases. Domestic metal saw its commercial peak in Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with the top acts selling millions of records. Many metal bands from the visual kei scene toured and gained recognition in the West in the 2000s. The 2010s saw a boom of all-female metal bands form and gain mainstream attention.
Lime And Limpid Green is a 2017 EP of covers released by the Claypool Lennon Delirium. The album comprises four covers of songs originally by Pink Floyd, the Who, King Crimson and Flower Travellin’ Band. Lennon, whose mother Yoko Ono introduced him to the Flower Travellin’ Band’s work and who knew its members, chose their song as a nod to his fellow Japanese, who he said had been suffering since the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. It was originally released for Record Store Day in 2017, but it was eventually made available streaming.
