Altered States and Otomo Yoshihide (MP3s)

Altered States are a Japanese power trio formed in 1989, consisting of Kazuhisa Uchihashi on guitar, Mitsuru Natsuno on bass, and Yasuhiro Yoshigaki on drums. Starting as a jazz trio, they soon left the conventions of the genre behind and ventured out into avant-rock territory. In 1993 they played some gigs with turntablist Otomo Yoshihide in Lithuania and Estonia, resulting in the album Lithuania and Estonia Live, released on Trigram in 1994. All Altered States albums from the 90s went out of print, and this one even seems to be absent from the blogosphere. It is great music, though, so here it is in MP3:

Motif B | Chain Reaction | Improvisation #1 | Improvisation #2 | Motif B - Improvisation #3 | Improvisation #4 | Ground Zero | Arashigaoka | Lithuania Mix

I'll throw in some bonus tracks from two great Altered States studio albums. They are a little less improvised and slightly more polished and accessible, in a way...

From Mosaic (God Mountain 1995), featuring tons of guest musicians: Issai-Kai-Ku (with Koichi Makigami on vocals) | Motif A (with Junji Hirose on tenor sax)

From Plays Standards (Station Kids 1999), revisiting their Jazz roots: Blue Moon | A Night In Tunisia

From 1994 on, the three members of Altered States were permanent members of Otomo Yoshihide's project Ground Zero. Ground Zero also recorded an album called Plays Standards, from which you can hear a Victor Jara cover as part of a highly controversial earlier post of mine.

YouTube doesn't disappoint either: Altered States live, crappy sound and video quality, but still worth watching: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3. I don't know Japanese, but I assume this is a relatively recent performance.

Comments

[dfmoss]

yoshihide otomo is the fuckin man! thanks for this stuff!