The Mystery Kindaichi Band: The Adventures of Kindaichi Kosuke Vinyl LP The Mystery Kindaichi Band

Finally reissued! The Mystery Kindaichi Band’s “imaginary” soundtrack for The Adventures Of Kindaichi Kosuke gets its first ever official release outside of Japan, courtesy of Wewantsounds. The 1977 album remains relatively unknown in the West, but maintains a cult following in digger circles for its top notch disco funk instrumentation (and unmistakeable cover art). Original copies fetch a premium when they pop up (which is next to never), so we are extremely stoked to see this get a proper repress. From Wewantsounds – The “imaginary” soundtrack to the cult detective book series by writer Seishi Yokomizo is on many DJ want-lists. Arranged by soundtrack master Kentaro Haneda and featuring a mysterious group of the best ’70s Japanese Funk musicians, the album is pure undiluted disco funk. For the album, he assembled a supergroup of some of the best Tokyo funk and city pop musicians. The long list includes jazz pianist Hideo Ichikawa who played on the 1971 Joe Henderson In Japan album, drummer Jun Moriya, who is on Joe Hisaishi‘s cult Wonder City Orchestra album (1982), percussionist Tadaomi Anai who played with disco singer Eri Ohno, trumpeter Koji Hadori who’s featured on Haruomi Hosono‘s Pacific album (1978). Also present on the album are saxophonist Takeru Muraoka who plays on many Tatsuro Yamashita cult albums including For You (1982) and Spacy (1977), Kimiko Yamauchi (koto) who’s on Akiko Yano‘s landmark 1976 album Japanese Girl, and last but not least, French hornist Koji Yamaguchi who plays on Yazuaki Shimizu‘s Kakashi (1982). Together they lay the funk on ten instrumentals filled with pure disco and funk breakbeats, making the album one of the highly-coveted Japanese LPs on international cratedigger scene. Remastered from the original tapes. Faithfully reproduced original artwork by renowned illustrator Ichibun Sugimoto and new introduction by Anton Spice. Recommended.

• 1st official release outside Japan
• 1977 “imaginary” soundtrack to the cult detective book series by writer Seishi Yokomizo
• arranged by soundtrack master Kentaro Haneda and featuring a mysterious group of the best ’70s Japanese Funk musicians
• remastered from the original tapes
• includes obi strip and a four-page insert
• faithfully reproduced original artwork by renowned illustrator Ichibun Sugimoto
• music label: Wewantsounds 2020

reviewed by Detective Konan 02/2020