Kehell - Galileo (1999)

Artista: Kehell

Álbum: Galileo
Año: 1999
Género: Jazz Rock / Fusion
Duración: 43:32
Nacionalidad: Japón

Lista de Temas:
1. Prologue/Behind The Earth (2:54)
2. Galileo (4:57)
3. Colony #2 (4:56)
4. Replica (4:33)
5. Presepe (6:38)
6. Paranoido (6:00)
7. Kaiper Belt (7:42)
8. Las Campanas (5:52)

Alineación:
- Shigekazu Kamaki / guitar, guitar-synth, pedal-synth
- Yasuyuki Hirose / bass
- Touru Hamada / drums

En el chat cabezón a alguien se le ocurrió pedir un disco de una banda japonesa inconseguible, y qué fue lo que sucedió??? Alberto el Mago que todo lo tiene, lo consigue o lo inventa lo trae, siguiendo con nuestra honorable tradición de presentar buen progresivo japonés. Aquí tienen el último aporte de esta semana llena de música, como todas las semanas desde que está en marcha esta locomotora cabezona para difundir la buena música que no se conoce... como la de los Kehell.

Este es otro disco de jazz-rock-fusión-progresivo con notables músicos que se sacan chispas. Que yo sepa, y ojo que no sé mucho, éste es el único disco de la banda. Sin un estilo totalmente definido, el disco se pasea por muchos lugares sin aterrizar en ninguno, pero crean un lindo disco, sin ser brillante ni mucho menos...
Aquí, algunos comentarios pertinentes (perdón, no encontré en castellano), un video donde pueden escuchar si esto les gusta y vamos al disco...

Kehell is Shigekazu Kamaki on guitars, guitar-synth, and pedal-synth with Yasuyuki Hirose on bass and Toru Hamada on drums. This is Japanese prog fusion with smooth jazz fuzak and guitar rock yearnings. What do I mean? Well, Kamaki seems to want to be a jazz rock fusion composer/musician but many times he breaks out into Beck/Montrose/Satriani rock riffs and flurries of guitar-hero effects in the midst of moments that one might expect . . . ah, more fusion and less flash. Kamaki’s compositions and stylings flirt with fusion but exhibit genre-shizophrenia. Songs will flow Satriani rockin’ out then late 90’s fusionesque then Yellowjackets smooth jazzish and then back to Ronnie Montrose or Rick Derringer bombastic glitter. (That was just tracks 1 and 2.)
Things get more interesting on “Colony #2” where some swiftly executed Holdsworthian* chordal passages intro the song but . . . you guessed Kamaki is back in the straight up rock riffs, only to outro in a mirror of the intro. “Replica” is a tad Bill Connors in guitar voicings up front but quickly descends into pentatonic and do, re, mi . . . rock. I am sorry but the bland fuzak backgrounds for Kamaki’s rock riffs grate, oh so frequently. Yeah, there’s a strong melodic leaning but this has been done before by so many rock bands trying to be fusion groups. Kamaki’s Kehell is almost fusion, not really prog, sorta smooth jazz, flirts with rock and never lands squarely in any genre.
If you’re a guitar-head like myself you’ll find Kamaki a solid musician that is confident and poised for attack but I dunno, his style seems “automatic”, pristine, mechanical, precise, perfect but sterile and soul-less. The whole band is similarly tight and faultless in each song’s needs. I just found little happening in Galileo to make this reviewer say, “Wow, this is very cool”. On “Kaiper Belt” Kamaki does experiment with a variety of time signature mutations. Kamaki needs to decide whether he wants to play soul-fired jazz rock fusion or keep on pulling out predictable rock riffage buried in a sandwich of near-fusion. Musicianship is great but there’s an identity crisis in Kehell.
*Footnote: I was inspired to seek out Kehell due to some amateur reviewer’s comments posted many moons ago at www.Prog.net about them doing Holdsworthian jazz better than the awesome Scott McGill’s Hand Farm. NOT! McGill still reigns supreme in this regard. Kehell doesn’t even come close.

John W. Patterson

KEHELL were a Japanese jazz rock / fusion trio founded as one of Shigekazu KAMAKI’s projects in autumn 1985. Three founders - Shigekazu (guitars), Toru HAMADA (drums), and Ryotaro ONISHI (bass) - brought their ideas together and recorded demo tapes before appearance on stage. Provided their songs for some compilations or got inspired in collaboration with Toshiaki OTSUBO (keyboards), they released a demo tape titled “Arrow Of Time” in 1993. After three-year hibernation, Shigekazu and Toru recruited Yasuyuki HIROSE (bass) and released “Galileo” via Musea Records in 1999. Sadly in the same year they were disbanded owing to Yasuyuki’s cessation.
Quite different from the style of Orpheus, another Shugekazu’s project before KEHELL. Suppose their soundscape of “Classic fusion” might be basically built by their rhythm section, namely Yasuyuki HIROSE (bass) and Toru HAMADA (drums), but wait, should Shigekazu do fusion guitar play intentionally? He also played guitar-synthesizer and pedal-synthesizer, both of which can sound like pretty smart fusion. Furthermore, listened to Orpheus’ album and Kehell’s “Galileo” both and felt Shigekazu could play more flexibly and more lively in KEHELL than in Orpheus - don’t know whether it be true or not (but actually he’s mentioned more about KEHELL in his website so that it may be true I think).
Yes all songs were written by Shigekazu, who played a “crying, barking” guitar solo in each track, with pure-fusion-based rhythm launchers (except the last track “Las Campanas” … see the next paragraph). A lightly touched but terrifically complex drum and bass sounds go forward along with a sharp-edged clear-cut guitar solo at speed of sound, in the beginning of this album. In the eponymous track, all of them relax themselves with playing under hearty atmosphere indeed, but they give us no opportunity to breathe there. That is, they shoot utterly strict play in every song. How wonderful Yasuyuki’s slap bass play is, and Toru’s strict rhythm beating is. And “Replica” is exactly Shigekazu’s one-man stage of Guitar-Oyaji, with exactly crying, weeping, laughing guitar plays like chatters. Absolutely mysterious we can enjoy listening to such a unearthly serious play with relaxed feeling.
On the contrary, the last track “Las Campanas” sounds like fusion-based Neo-symphonic one, as if they had played with Orpheus’ soundscape. Beautiful symphonic synthesizer streams and heavy guitar riffs face each other, where the heavy steady deep rhythm section holds them tightly. This song could make a generalization of their interest and purpose for music, and sadly this album might have got to be their last album, let me say. Recommended for Neo-Prog freaks, not only for progressive fusion / jazz rock fans.

Keishiro Maki

¿Y vieron que Alberto los quiere mucho?... Y su escuelita de rock sigue con el libro abierto en el capítulo "Japón".
Feliz fin de semana bien cabezón!