頭士奈生樹 Naoki Zushi - III

Name: 頭士奈生樹 Naoki Zushi - III
Brand: Sad Disco
SKU: SADI36
Price: 495.0 HKD
Availability: InStock

Genre: JAPANESE PSYCHEDELIC / PROGRESSIVE ROCK

Format: Japanese 2LP Limited Edition

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Japanese 2LP Limited Edition
Release Date: 23/7/2025
Label: Sad Disco

Japanese CD Edition
Release Date: 23/7/2025
Label: Sad Disco

NAOKI ZUHI's “III”, originally released on ORG RECORDS in 2005, is officially reissued on analog double-LP and CD!

This album, “III,” is one of the cult favorites of Zushi's career, and its official reissue has been eagerly awaited by fans and collectors alike.

Zushi produced “III” alone, with vocals, guitar, and other instruments, and Shinji Shibayama on bass and Masako Takeda (Nagisa ni te) on drums, and it was recorded at Studio Nemu from 1998 to 2005.

World Of Echo announces the reissue of two remastered albums by Japanese guitarist and songwriter Naoki Zushi, 1988’s Paradise, and 2005’s III. Two classics of Japanese psychedelia, both Paradise and III were originally released on Org Records, the imprint of Shinji Shibayama of acid-folk group Nagisa Ni Te, with whom Zushi has guested on second guitar for decades. Both intimate and expansive, rich with revelatory songwriting and blasted, sky-scouring guitar, these reissues return these albums to print for the first time since the 2000s. It’s the first time III has been officially released on vinyl, with an extra, previously unreleased track, “Under The June Moonlight.”

Recorded in Kyoto’s Townhouse Studios in mid 1987 and released in limited-to-500 vinyl pressing in 1988, Paradise emerged from a scene in Kansai, Japan that was embracing the idiosyncracies of 1970s singer-songwriters, the soaring solos of early seventies psychedelia, and the DIY impulse of 1980s post-punk. While Zushi’s musical history stretched back to the early eighties – he was a founding member of Jojo Hiroshige’s noise outfit Hijokaidan – he found his feet with groups like Hallelujahs, whose dream-pop collection Niku O Kuraite Chikai Wo Tateyo was recently reissued by Black Editions, and Idiot O’Clock.

Paradise appeared two years after that Hallelujahs album and share much the same membership – Zushi’s backing band on several of the songs includes Shibayama on drums and Ken-Ichi Takayama (aka Idiot) on electric guitar, though just as often, Zushi plays all the instruments himself. The coordinates here are wide-reaching – you can hear the volume and intensity of Neil Young & Crazy Horse (on “Hallelujah: Left Side” and “Paradise: Midday”), the slow-motion magic of Galaxie 500, the idiosyncratic spirit of The Only Ones, all mixed up with tender guitar miniatures and stumbling garage-psych-pop moves.

Seven years later, after the transitional album Phenomenal Luciferin, Zushi released III. Perhaps his masterpiece, it’s already been bootlegged on vinyl, but this reissue is the real deal. The album was recorded at Studio Nemu over seven years, and sees Zushi backed by Shibayama (bass) and Masako Takeda (drums), his erstwhile bandmates in Nagisa Ni Te. By this stage, Zushi had started to really stretch out, and many of the songs on III swoon languorously, taking their sweet time to say what they need to say. It’s rich with lovely, melancholy songs, in a similar realm to bandmates Nagisa Ni Te, of course, but you can also hear traces of everything from Syd Barrett’s The Madcap Laughs, through seventies private press loner folk, to the slow-burn meanderings of the likes of early Low or Damon & Naomi.

When interviewed by Shibayama in the mid-nineties, Zushi said of Paradise, “it was a sort of collection of songs that had meant something to me up to that point… it was my paradise. I wanted to create paradise.” That’s something Zushi achieves on both of these albums – visionary Japanese psychedelia, en route to paradise. - Jon Dale

Japanese 2LP Limited Edition Japanese CD Edition

A1 最後に = At Last
B1 花の憧れ = Yearning Of Flowers
B2 窓 = Premonition On A Rainy Day
B3 光の粒 = Drops Of Light
C1 もう一度会えたなら = If I Could See You Again
C2 髪の中の精霊 = Spirit In My Hair
D1 六月の月夜にて = Under The June Moonlight

1. 最後に = At Last 13:02
2. 花の憧れ = Yearning Of Flowers 05:45
3. 窓 = Premonition On A Rainy Day 06:37
4. 光の粒 = Drops Of Light 04:50
5. もう一度会えたなら = If I Could See You Again 18:09
6. Spirit In My Hair 03:23
7. Under the June Moonlight 13:21