J. A. Seazer

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 flute, shahuhachi flirtations, esoterically floating beneath-the-surface female Orff-like choruses and ethereal shamanistic sense of poetry that create memory flashes towards a forceful nostalgia of a past not directly experienced. The whole is endowed with beauty and an austere intimacy spiced up with occasional echoes of circus side show callers that seem to recall aspirational surges out of a concealed depth of former delinquent activities. A deceptively intense, casual in feel, yet meticulous in its musical detail and lyrical transmigrative eclectic beauty. A true astonishingly beautiful and ear-filling piece of consummate art that is so hard to come to terms with. Housed in eye-popping hard cover mini-LP styled gatefold sleeve art, complete with reproduction of the original inserts.