The Universe. It’s not often one turns on an instrument and gets presented with such a thing. Yet, the [Universe] was the sound patch introducing you to the world of Korg’s M1, the first of its kind, a music workstation that gave you what seemed like a universe of sounds in one keyboard. Korg’s M1 was this pioneering instrument loaded with a solid state memory of universal sounds (a mix of sampled and digitally-created) not tailor-made for a specific country or region — a dramatic first. Korg’s founders and designer wanted you to mix and match worldly and otherworldly tones. They envisioned their users making music without borders. It’s in this “universe” of sounds that mar-pa’s Finale luxuriates in, perfectly matching those ideas to theirs of a pan-global, new form of Japanese “New Age” music.
Mar-pa can be argued is actually the brainchild of one musician, Yasunobu Matsuo. It was in Osaka, after graduating from their University of Arts, that Yasunobu left behind a lucrative career in the business side of music to pursue a career in the then burgeoning healing music sphere. A gifted composer and pianist, Yasunobu’s solo work dabbling in jazz and fusion began in the early ‘80s, taking inspiration from the Buddhist scholar Marpa Lotsawa, christening his own work as “mar-pa”, lilting his music in a more spiritual vein (for the time and place).
Initially, early iterations of mar-pa featured a revolving/evolving crew of percussionists and jazz musos. As mar-pa’s earliest leanings felt of the influence of spiritual jazz and European modal styles, so too did the music sound fragmented and uninviting. By 1982, Yasunobu reintegrated himself in “traditional” East Asian music, envisioning a different form of mar-pa — one with a foot in “Jazz” and the other in forward-moving fusions with influences from home, Africa, South America, and elsewhere. What was a small jazz group spiraled into a huge, over 10-piece, band that included folk percussionists, guitarists, brass and everything else you can imagine. Mar-pa, as a unit, as Yasunobu Matsuo envisioned it was quickly branching out of the scene it came from to one that was more mercurial.
From 1984 through 1986 or ‘87, this Fela Kuti-like version of mar-pa started to shift into tonal, hypnotic music that reminded of the work of Geinoh Yamashirogumi. The sheer volume of this version of mar-pa meant that it played in huge halls and outdoor venues that were more used to hosting loud rock groups. And while early recordings showed the immensity of sound Yasunobu was dipping his fingers into, they also revealed a lightness, a certain ambiance (similar in vibe to American groups fronted by Pat Metheny, or Don Cherry, or in the vein of “classic” Windham Hill new electronic artists) that seemed like a playground for Yasunobu to integrate sample-based technique and more personal music.
By 1987, mar-pa had started to coalesce into the crew we hear in Finale. Songs like “Chris-Chan” and “Finale” — at least embryonic versions of them — were being thoroughly workshopped live by a smaller five person crew made up of Yasunobu and percussionists Gaku Nakamura, Tadasu Yoshida (who’d contribute some glorious compositions himself), Toshiaki Kaji, and fretless bassist Takashi Oka. Flowering under the possibilities given by their wider use of electronic drum triggers, drum machines, and sample technology, as mar-pa grew smaller, somehow, their songs grew more refined and immediate. Song lengths drew down and mar-pa began their ascent to notoriety. Aimless jams now were honed to genuinely intriguing, concise musical statements.
So what did this version of mar-pa sound like? This whole blog wouldn’t be what it is if it didn’t have visionaries like these that imagined connecting lines joining different worldly traditions with contemporary ingenuity. In the liner notes to this record two god-like producers, Naoki Tachikawa and Seigen Ono (who’d produce this and their sophomore album), describe the joy of finding that such a group could exist in Japan. By thinking on a global scale mar-pa invited one to ignore genre and simply concentrate on music, one which was increasingly upbeat, moving and moving, and unabashedly multi-layered dance music. In mar-pa they saw a potential — even if that wasn’t going to be fully met by others until far in the future.
So, one must ask what does this have to do with the McGuffin at the beginning of this review? You see, in the past, Yasunobu always appeared lost in the mix. The introduction of the Korg M1 revealed that a faithful instrument is only as good as the ideas it tries to emit immediately. No longer lost in the weeds, it’s mostly unplaceable sounds made it a perfect foil for the simply jaw-dropping poly-imetered, multi-prong, multi-everything, master percussion-driven ideas of this crew.
Songs like the stunning “ROMA” impress with floating tropical vibrations. Opener “So-So” and closer “Cris-Chan”, flip sides of the same coin, serve as vehicles for startling perculations bridging their East Asian studies with far-gone, forgone rhythms. On “A Song Of The Land” the pangs of the M1’s [Lore] and [Angel] choir, the heartbeat of humanity (or at least its communal beat) points to newfound grooves that techno and other intelligent dance music would soon take off with.
Videos were floated around for their proto-acid house “finale” but outside of dance clubs, it appeared that their label, Pony Canyon, knew not yet how to market them. Were they an “ethnic dance group” as the cover to their following album RIMLAND would dictate? Or were they the meditative, ruminative ambient group hinted at on 1992’s 未発表曲集?
As “Millennium” hinted at here, it appears they understood that their music wasn’t for this decade anymore. Elsewhere, in America, hip-hop, samplers, drum machines, and the dance underground brought a different kind of revolution to the airwaves. In Japan, all they had was this statement pointing to a new direction we’ve only just begun to head towards. However, as you’ll experience, a white elephant (once seen and/or heard) is never truly forgotten. The universe of music can only expand outwards.