BENZAITEN by OSAMU KITAJIMA

Originally released in 1974, 'Benzaiten', created by psych-obsessed Japanese auteur Kitajima, is a piece with prodigiously enduring appeal - mixing traditional Japanese folk with something akin to krautrock - atmospheric, celestial and still sounding fresh even thirty-two years on. Naturally, mixing traditional music and rock can frequently walk a perilous tightrope between breathless inspiration and gauche folly, but its testimony to Kitajima's talents that 'Benzaiten' - bereft of the new age influences of his later work - can take its place alongside 'Parallel World' by Far East Family Band and Takehisha Kosugi's 'Catch Wave' as an essential Japanese experimental record of the '70s.