Lily - Dulcimer (Japan, 1973)

Another Lily bargain. At $5 this record wasn't quite as cheap as 'Onion', but how many people would turn their nose up at $5 records?

After a bit of a search for information, and really not coming up with much, I stumbled upon this blog that has copied out a list of Ongaku no tomo sha's 'Japanese Rock/Folk 1968-1978 Complete Album Guide' top 100 albums and 'Dulcimer' appears at 95 - although you'll have to read it to understand the ordering as it is alphabetically ordered in Japanese.

Lily - Dulcimer





My preference falls slightly towards 'Onion' but if you liked that record I can't imagine you'll dislike this. Not all the songs are fantastic - 'My dear Mr Romance' and 'As I can't sleep' don't do much for me - but a good standard for the most part with a similar mix of folk and hard/psych-rock.
Apparently, again, the electric guitar is the work of Kimio Mizutani (Out Cast, Love Live Life) and Takasuke Kida (Jacks) is on the drums. It's all in Japanese so I can't give as much information as before but I'd suggest the line-up hasn't changed much (if you can read Japanese, the 5th picture has the info).

Be warned: there is a quiet intro (lasts about 55 seconds) until an electric guitar kicks in loudly.

A1. Good By of Stranger
A2. I Left My Blues
A3. My Dear Mr. Romance
A4. Jun
A5. Pipe Love
A6. Nothing By Mouth

B1. Spring Has Come
B2. Day Break
B3. Don't Eat the Apple
B4. As I Can't Sleep (II)
B5. Why

I've been incredibly stupid with the ending of this rip. Twice I have recorded the b-side to my laptop and twice I pressed stop before the end. There are little solo intro / outro pieces on the LP and the outro section has been ripped as a separate track because of my errors.
Three tracks - A / B / outro - for two sides, each at 320kbps mp3.

Download
------------------------
Updates either later this afternoon or on the weekend.
Ideally I'd like to change the layout so I can have updates on one side and uploads on the other but I'm not sure if that's possible.

Lily - Onion (Japan, 1971)

Don't know much about this one but it has taken quite some time tracking down a copy at a good price. From what I've managed to find on the internet about it the first pressing was in 1971 and quickly followed up with another pressing on May 5th 1972.
Some of the musicians involved: Kimio Mizutani (Out Cast, Love Live Life), Hiro Tsunoda (Jacks, Strawberry Path, Flied Egg), Takasuke Kida (Jacks).


Great disc by at that time 20 years old female vocalist Lily. It was her first disc and right from the start the tone is set as Lily sings away in her husky styled voice that is reminiscent to a post-Carmen Maki folk and blues era style. The overall tone is folk-like with some psychedelic undertones, which get infused by some of her excellent backing musicians such as Foodbrain / Out Cast / Path Through Haze / People guitarist Kimio Mizutani and Jacks / Asakawa Maki drummer Tsunoda Hiro. Some tracks are embedded in a bluesy atmosphere, where her voice gets some effects that resemble singing through a telephone. Stunningly beautiful. Great acid folk-like bluesy and psychedelic album of 1972.
The whole album is a folk/pop/psychedelic rock fusion sung in Japanese with enough variety to sound like they're mixing it up, but not too much to sound like a real mish-mash of an album. There is one blues track sung in English, 'woke up blues', which is probably one of the weaker songs.
Considering this cost $2 I think its a gem - and a bargain having looked at the popsike.com prices - with only a couple of faltering tracks, but it would be interesting to see other opinions.

A1. Alone Am I
2. I Had A Dream
3. Train Window (Reminds Me Of Your Smile)
4. Woke Up Blues
5. Twelve Midnight
6. As I Can't Sleep

B1. How Have You Been
2. My Movie
3. Calender With Just August
4. Life Is Repeating
5. Close Your Eyes
6. So Far Away

*Sorry for the skipping in the last 30 seconds (B-side), my computer decided it wanted to hibernate*

Download

Keyboard: Jun Fukamachi
Drums & Percussion: Hiro Tsunoda
Side Guitar: Masatsugu Matsumoto
Acoustic Guitar: Takahiko Ishikawa
Electric Guitar: Kimio Mizutani
Bass: Jun Suzuki
Harmonica: Hiromi Yasuda (A-4)
Acoustic Guitar: Nobuyoshi Hagiwara (A-4)

----------------------------
New Expo 70 3" limited to 100.

Personal favourites Sloow Tapes are back with two more cassettes from Im Jahrtal and DRMWPN.

Gift Tapes: Brother Raven - A sound like wailing winter winds is heard
Jeremiah Walker - Early to rise
Million Mists - Spaceship

Release The Bats have released the new Ducktails ('Backyard').

Blackest Rainbow have the new Starving Weirdos, Darryl Norsen, Robert Horton & Sindre Bjerga releases available.

Rampart Tapes have a new Orphan Fairytale, a release from Coptic Nausea and a new compilation.