FORGOTTEN BUT FANTASTIC: Stomu Yamashta

When we were talking about writing something about Stomu Yamashta,the percussionist and composer who formed the mid-Seventies supergroup Go with Steve Winwood, conversation turned to other Japanese people in rock. Miki Berenyi from Lush is half-Japanese. Sakamoto Kiu did that ‘Sukiyaki’ song that was top of the charts in the USA in the Sixties.

Taka Hirose plays bass for Feeder. Testsu played bass for the Faces.

But to be honest, we couldn’t think of many more. Japanese rock stars: where are you? Stomu Yamashta might be one of a rare breed, but he was pretty awesome.

Stomu was born in 1947 in Kyoto, where he went University before training at the Julliard and Berklee College of Music in Boston. A percussionist and keyboardist, he toured with the Chicago Chamber Orchestra. Some early classical and experimental works in the 1970s – including his percussion-only Red Buddha – saw him achieve some recognition and he began working on film soundtracks with John Williams, including on Robert Altman’s 1972 chiller Images.

In 1974, Stomu and his then-band East Wind, which featured Soft Machine bassist Hugh Hopper, released Freedom Is Frightening, a very enjoyable jazz / progressive album. In 1975 he made Raindog. For some reason the musician credits just crack us up.

Stomu Yamashta – percussion
Daito Fujita – bass
Hozumi Tanaka – drum kit
Tsuneo Matsumoto – guitar
Hisako Yamashta – violin
Brian Gascoigne – piano , clavinet , synthesizer

Go on Brian lad. Incidentally, Hisako is Stomu’s wife.

The following year, he formed Go with Steve Winwood, who had been kicking back since his Traffic days. They added Al Di Meola, the Latin-flavoured jazz guitarist who had also been at Berklee. Former Tangerine Dream man Klaus Schulze played synthesiser. Michael Shrieve, the former Santana drummer who had wowed crowds at Woodstock with a legendary solo during ‘Soul Sacrifice’ was on drums. Hisako played violin, while Rosko Gee – who had played bass for Traffic and Germany’s Can – also appeared. Junior Marvin, who was an Island Records labelmate, contributed some guitar.

It was a hugely diverse group of musicians and the array of influences could have been a right mess. Indeed, it was a triumph of man-management on top of everything else, to keep the disparate personalities and egos in check. Stomu threw a party for the musicians, showed them films from NASA and explained his vision.

He described, and they the made, a self-titled concept album about time travel that explores the concepts of change and permanence. Stomu, who wrote almost all of the songs with Michael Quartermain doing the lyrics, and his band created an absolutely belting prog album that’s basically two long suites, ‘Solitude’ and ‘Space Requiem’, comprising shorter songs. A particular highlight is ‘Crossing The Line’ on side one: check out the solo by Di Meola. Blinding space rock that would not have shamed Pink Floyd at their best. Other stand-outs are Steve’s vocal on the r and b ‘Time Is Here’ and the impassioned ‘Ghost Machine’. Winwood’s vocals givingthe proceedings a bluesy soul which counterpointed well with the cool, ambient jazz rock.

A live record, 1976’s Go Live From Paris showed the ambitious and eclectic project in magnificent effect, largely performing the same songs, but this is epic stuff. A second studio LP Go Too, followed in 1977, but without Winwood – and this is a less out-there effort, a sort of soul flavour really, with Linda Lewis on vocals.

With the various members of Go heading their separate ways, Stomu began a series of albums that were kid of water-themed soundscapes. He retreated to a Buddhist temple in 1980 for a bit. He began to dabble more in electronica: check out the sort of electro-Vangelis of 1983’s Sea And Sky.

Stomu has also done film scores for David Bowie’s The Man Who Fell To Earth and Ken Russell’s nuns-gone-wild belter The Devils starring Ollie Reed; and one of his tracks is the theme for the BBC Radio version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

So yes: that’s Stomu, a pioneer, a brilliant director of diverse talent and the purveyor of some of the most sophisticated, imaginative progressive rock of the 1970s.