Tipographica - Floating Opera (1997)

This brilliant bunch of creative music is really true masterpiece!!! Extra class musicianship, top-notch studio work, very adventurous and intelligent compositions plus perfect and juicy spectrum of sounds! I got this CD two weeks ago and cannot stop wondering about all those highest qualities of Real Cultural Shock! But - could anybody say where to get two first recordings of Tipographica (this kind of task seems to me impossible - I have heard only God Says I Can't Dance before Floating Opera and - both are essential)? Well, Japanese weird RIO-ish experimental all-instrumental jazz-rock combo having Italian-language name Tipographica was active during nineties of XX century. They released altogether four albums, first two of them are unfortunately out-of-print and impossible to get... In addition to guitar-bass-keyboards-drums they enriched their soundspectrum with saxophone and trombone, also with mokkin (xylophone of Japanese Kabuki theatre) and other percussion instruments. The music has relationship with Frank Zappa's jazz compositions, Henry Cow's instrumentals, Picchio Dal Pozzo's Abbiamo-Tutti-I-Suoi-Problemi-era, Santana's Caravanserai-Welcome-era, Mahavishnu Orchestra...and many more...and sometimes hints to Japanese folklore... Surely my all- time-favourite band among Japanese rock-releated music ever! Fave tunes? All the record is one big fave tune... But the really burning saxophone solo in Highway At Samurai Play comes into my mind. Unfortunately I have the greatest pleasure to give five stars in these progarchives- page (and everywhere in general) quite seldom. But today is probably the last this-kind- of-celebration-day in this year. Five stars really to Tipographica!!!