Year Of Metal #040: Flower Travellin’ Band - Satori
Now we’re having some serious fun. Hurtling back in time to 1971, this is the second album by the Japanese then-four piece. It’s boundlessly energetic, freewheeling heavy metal comprising five mad, improvisational jams that still sound sensationally otherworldly in 2024.
Flower Travellin' Band was originally formed by producer Yuya Uchida, a pal of John Lennon’s who wanted to bring rock ‘n’ roll out east by way of a female-fronted cover band. Evidently plans changed along the way, and the end result was this wild, relentless album. Each of the songs is a title track, numbered from I-V. The opener has the band concentrate every jot of their energy into a handful of riffs that descend and then climb. The bass and guitar get on it; frontman Joe Yamanaka, who eschews lyrics for much of the album, joins the party too, wailing in tandem with the sidemen.
The star of the show is guitarist Hideki Ishima. He has free reign over this record and is never less than inspired. “III” is a highlight, a slow, creeping number that’s made not so much from the notes Ishima plays but from the deeply sinister tone he conjures. As the song picks up energy he double tracks himself, switching to classic rock mode for not one but two solos played concurrently. “II” experiments with some quasi-Eastern voicings. Ishima would go on to invent a half-guitar, half-sitar hybrid (the Sitarla); while you’d be hard pushed to say it’s no surprise he’d do such a thing, from listening to Satori, if anyone was going to create such an instrument, it’d be him.
This album featured on a Guardian list of the 100 weirdest albums on Spotify (or words to that effect). I think that’s a bit much - i.e. if you find this record truly weird, you mustn’t have heard a lot of stuff - but it’s idiosyncratic to say the least. The high point on that front comes in the middle of “IV”. An otherwise fairly standard bluesy shuffle is interrupted by a honking, wheezing harmonica, playing the same atonal pattern over and over for what feels like an eternity. It sounds fantastic; it also sounds like some hayseed has snuck into the studio with his mouth organ and no one knows how to get rid of him. There are also some more experimental moments, like a portion of “II” in which everything drops out but for some polyrhythmic drums and jingling bells, before the guitars return in full Norman Greenbaum tone. They aren’t songs that evolve, but rather shift on a dime.
I’m reminded in parts of their compatriots Boris, who would emerge onto the scene around two decades later and can at times jam out in a similar fashion. There’s a bit of krautrock in there, too, and in general a wild sense of freedom and play. It’s quite mind boggling that this is essentially a manufactured act, put together by a well known producer. It’s not the least bit structured, and certainly doesn’t scream “commercial potential”. Either this was a particularly laid back money man, or he was tearing his hair out in his office, and either way, I’m there for it.
