Inomata, Takesi & Sound Limited: Innocent Canon LP

Innocent Canon is one of the hopelessly obscure Japanese underground albums that few people know about. It is a kind of unreleased delirious groovadelic soundtrack played by an acid-soaked Japanese big band with powerful drumming, heavy jazz fumes, and delirious organ/guitar lines and luminary narration. Takesi Inomata was a well-known jazz musician at the time, but like many of his contemporaries, he went off the deep end with psychedelic music between 1970-1972. Upon the release of the record in 1970 there was a great debate among Japanese journalists who tried to catalog a genre to the record. The attempt was in vain. They couldn't figure out what it was. Rock? Jazz? They had to accept that you couldn't always label everything. Takesi Inomata & Sound Limited produce music that has nothing to do with stereotypical genres; they play to bring to life an expression of modern sensibility. The title of the album, Innocent Canon, is particularly intriguing to analyze in relation to this concept of the fluidity of music. The same can be said of Kano Tenmei, a talented photographer and DJ, who participated in the sessions with the role of a narrator who improvises aloud, and it doesn't matter if you don't understand everything he says; what matters is being able to fit into this complex emotional quest. Sound Limited consists of ten members, but this number varies often; Inomata always leaves the door open to anyone who wants to join the band founded on a very loose philosophy. The recording process took only 24 hours. Inomata eventually declared, "we managed to create something exciting and interesting (in such a short time)." The album opens with an acidic "Introduction," played with organ, guitar, bass and drums. It is followed by "Funeral," a flute-dominated track over an organ carpet; it is dedicated to Janis Joplin. In a triumph of brass riffs, guitar, sax and drums solos, Kano Tenmei screams "No, No..." in "Rebellion"; a psychedelic funk shake over seven minutes long. "Toy" is reminiscent of samba, with prominent horns and an electric piano solo. "Melancholy" follows a sick guitar riff over a cha-cha rhythm, with piccolo, sax, and organ solos. This is followed by the long "Lonesome" introduced by sitar. The beginning and end of the song are breathtaking, as is the schizophrenic middle section. Closing is the short "Return," a folk ballad with acoustic guitar, whistles, piano and recorders. It is fair to say that this improvisational session produced outstanding results.