A counterculture movement united by an expansive, experimental and deeply soulful sensibility, Japan’s rebel protest music challenged the status quo and changed the country’s music industry in the process. The birth of Japan’s nascent acid folk scene was rooted in the messy and invigorating political climate of the late 1960s. It is a story of Dadaists, communists, pharmacists and cult leaders, led by a young generation of upstart students, artists and dreamers hellbent on turning their world upside down. At the forefront of this movement was Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Haroumi Hosono, a polymath innovator whose band Happy End released the first Japanese language rock album, and whose influence would go on to be felt across Japanese music for decades. Alongside, and informed by the Kansai scene’s Takashi Nishioka and Happy End collaborator Ken Narita, they experimented with cadences and accents of the Japanese language to open the door for others to experiment with their own forms of psychedelic folk too.
- A1 Kawa (River)
- A2 Kaze Wo Atsumete (Gather The Wind)
- A3 Man In No Ki (The Crowded Tree)
- A4 Gingatetsudo No Noru (Night On The Galactic Railroad)
- B1 Beautiful Song
- B2 Hitoribaotchi (On My Own)
- B3 Anmari Fukasugite (Far Too Deep)
- B4 Hotaru (Firefly)
