Pizzicato Five – The Fifth Release From Matador. 2000. D: 10. Godfathers of the Shibuya-kei sound (named after the fashionable Tokyo district), P Five have made a career of combining 1960s soft pop ala Burt Bacharach, Serge Gainsbourg, The Free Design, Dionne Warwick and Herb Alpert with a 1990s energy and production values. This release, which is literal but not their 5th release overall, starts awkwardly, find its groove in the middle (they do best with lalalalalala vocals) and sort of crawls to the finish. They’re branching from the original formula with mixed results. There’s more techno here than on the other one I have by them “Playboy and Playgirl” and that plays to their advantage. Some of the artier noise bits ruin the charm. This was their burnout release and have disappeared from the scene since (at least in America). Good for working out, cocktail parties or driving the countryside.

Aktuala – La Terra. 1974. D: 9. Claiming a debut here, but I did hear this about 10 years ago. Aktuala are one of the original world music hybrids from Italy. First track mixes an Indian groove with harmonica, which is… weird. Next track has some free blow sax within a general Eastern acoustic setting. Violin dominates the 3rd piece. Last track is the best of the lot and, not surprisingly sticks to an Indian raga trance. Would’ve liked to have heard more fusion on the album overall, but still nice.

Samurai – Kappa. 1971. D:10. This Samurai is the Japanese collective, not the post Web bunch. Opens as an instrumental killer with driving fuzz bass and loads of organ solos, before going off into deep psychedelic space, with some great guitar. Runs out of steam and we get a boring bass guitar bit, and you know it’s coming, the drum solo – with no purpose whatsoever other than to fill the side. Eventually pulls itself together again, but it’s too late to save. The flip side is more compact, mixing hard rock with an interesting Japanese folk piece. Closes with two pretty strong hard guitar/organ rockers in the UK style, last one over 10 minutes. Not bad at all.