Round House – Jin-zo-Ni-N-Gen (人造人間) (1978, CD, Japan)

Tracklist:
1 Jin·Zo-Ni·N·Gen 3:49
2 Tour Of The Deep Ocean 15:38
3 A Last Judgement 3:41
4 Out Of 3-Dimension 7:11
5 Shisha-Goya No Asa 15:13

Musicians:
Bass – Yoshiaki Uemura
Drums – Hiroshi Natori
Guitar – Masayuki Kato, Yoshinobu Fujii
Keyboards – Kiyoharu Someta

There was a time in the late 1970s that Japan's progressive rock scene was completely underground, with little to no formal product output to show for it. This was before the "Our 80's" as Marquee Magazine labeled it a decade later. When I started collecting Japanese progressive rock in the 1980s heyday (for Japan that is), the two premier names in the business were Kenso and Bi Kyo Ran. Round House is clearly cut from the same cloth, where both fusion and King Crimson influences are apparent. A complex instrumental fusion, that never loses focus on melodic composition. The group is a quintet made up with dual guitar leads, and plenty of electric piano.

If there's a complaint, it's that the sound quality wasn't quite ready for prime time. That's not to say it's audience bootleg quality either - but some of the dynamics are clearly lost. I'd say it's at 85% - and heck I know plenty of pure studio albums even today that sound worse than that. There were very few archival releases in 1991, so Made in Japan is to be much lauded for the effort here. (ashratom)