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- The Analog Vault // Essential Listening -

Japanese jazz musician Minoru Muraoka’s ability to amalgamate Japanese folk with Western jazz would surely earn a fascinating place in the wide genre spectrum of jazz fusion - and nowhere is this more evident than his beloved 1970 album, Bamboo. Wielding a bamboo flute known as the shakuhachi, alongside bandmates on other traditional instruments such as the koto (zither-like strings), biwa (wooden lute), and tsutsumi (hand drum) - Muraoka crafted a wide-ranging repertoire of hypnotic melodies, breakbeat grooves and tripped-out folk-jazz.

From rearranged renditions of jazz standards like Dave Brubeck Quartet’s “Take Five”, to subversive covers of 1960s rock like The Beatles’ “And I Love Her”, much of Bamboo consists of incredibly novel recontextualizations. But the album’s greatest strengths lie in Muraoka’s original compositions, such as the psychedelic folk-soul of “Soul Bamboo”, and the 10-minute sprawl of “The Positive and the Negative”. Hallowed by the likes of DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist and co, this (previous) mega-rarity received a fantastic reissue by the good folks at Mr. Bongo in 2019. - The Analog Vault