J. A. Seazer
Jashumon
* Gatefold with obi, great classic, originally released in 1972 * This mighty soundtrack for Shuji Terayama's nihilistic movie of the same name contains all the elements necessary to reach J.A. Caesar's intended pleasure-centers. Here, turmoil, mind-numbing repetition, abject misery and grisly partriarchs abound, and all orchestrated by Caesar's damaged proto-metal and choral-led psychedelic sound. Mind-infesting in the truest sense, this soundtrack played in the dark is as certified a Gateway t…
Shintokumaru
Fourth J.A. Seazer album, originally issued on Victor in 1978. Shuji Terayama and J.A.Seazer’s phantasmagoric folk-psych-symph-prog-rock opera. Historical Tenjo Sajiki performance from 1978. J.A. Caesar (also spelled J.A. Seazer and J.A. Ceaser) is the pseudonym for a Tokyo music composer who has been involved with creating music for various theater and film projects since the very early '70s. His music is a radical mixture of progressive rock, traditional Japanese theater music, and Magma-inspi…
Kokkyou Junreika
Gatefold LP version. Tokyo playwright, director and artist J.A. Caesar sprang to prominence in the early '70s largely through his work with Shuji Terayama's Tenjo Sajiki Theatre, specializing in vaguely sinister music reminiscent of a Hammer House Of Horrors soundtrack. 1973's Kokkyou Junreika release, often considered Caesar's finest work, was culled from the 5 hours of music written for the original play, distilled down to an album's worth of ageless chants, Buddhist mantras, heavenly invoca…
Jashumon
This mighty soundtrack for Shuji Terayama's nihilistic movie of the same name contains all the elements necessary to reach J.A. Caesar's intended pleasure-centers. Here, turmoil, mind-numbing repetition, abject misery and grisly partriarchs abound, and all orchestrated by Caesar's damaged proto-metal and choral-led psychedelic sound. Mind-infesting in the truest sense, this soundtrack played in the dark is as certified a Gateway to the Underworld as any acknowledged classic by Faust, Magma…
BaraMon
The Tenjo Sajiki Company was an avant garde theater troupe formed by Terayama Shuji & was an audience participation street theatre designed to shock along the lines of the Living Theatre. Popular music was always incorporated in their projects, and so lots of rocker runaway teens were quickly attracted. By the early 70s, J.A. Ceazer and Kuni Kawauchi (of the GS group Happenings Four) had joined, and the music got really fucking weird along with the performances. Instead of just staging a version…
Saraba Hakobune
Another rarity is this original soundtrack album to Terayama Shuji's last movie with music by JA Seazer (Tenjo Sajiki, JA Caesar). Released in 1984, it was Terayama's last completed movie and Seazer's last contribution to his visionary and reactionary world. Saraba Habobune's soundtrack is just stunningly beautiful, far removed from Seazer's trademark bombastic scores. Instead it ventures into more pastoral and almost meditative psychedelic realms filled with traditional string plucking, eerie f…
Den'en Ni Shisu
Deluxe first reissue of this 1974 J.A. Ceasar-performed theatrical underground classic. A nice example of the recent flood of late 1960's-early 1970's psych reissues from Japan that are in the more fluxus/theatrical vein. The period saw political upheaval and protesting amidst much of the country's students and youth; and while the underground movements weren't as widespread as say those in the USA, the pockets of artistic institutions that responded to political causes (like the decimation of n…