Apryl Fool

The Apryl Fool’s self-titled album Apryl Fool (1969) is a singular psychedelic rock record born from the collaboration between Japanese musicians Hiro Yanagida and Takashi Matsumoto and American producer Gary Walker. The album fuses West Coast psychedelia with baroque pop, orchestral arrangements, and subtle Eastern melodic sensibilities, creating a richly textured and cosmopolitan sound that stood apart from both mainstream American psych and contemporary Japanese rock. Though commercially over…

The story of Japanese psychedelic band Apryl Fool and their eponymous debut album is simply extraordinary. It was the vehicle by which bassist Haroumi Hosono first came to prominence, years before he became known as the “Godfather of Japanese electronica” as the founding member and leader of Yellow Magic Orchestra, though this musical titan had work released prior to the group’s 1968 founding, such as the song The Sea of Summer Day, recorded with Yuko Okuyama and released by King Records the yea…