POST NO. 26: ASIAN BEAT

Today's post finds us in Asia for a look at the Asian volume of the Love, Peace and Poetry series. (See yesterday's post for more background.) The Asian volume is probably my favorite simply because the range of sounds is spectacular: from the "Turkish Jimi Hendrix" (Erkin Koray) to the swinging sounds of sixties Cambodia to Japan's The Mops (easily as bad ass as anything the States had to offer in '68). There's plenty of great stuff to sample here, so I'm going with two songs whose sounds are so far apart that you could park Keith Moon's drum set in-between them.

We start with Justin Heathcliff, who is one of the few artists on this comp to sing in English. Heathcliff was actually prolific recording artist Osamu Kitajima's attempt at striking gold in 1971. Considering Kitajima adopted a British-sounding name for this release, one has to wonder if Heathcliff was hoping to pull the wool over his countrymen's eyes. On this tune, he adopts the sound of trippy California sunshine pop -- or, possibly Donovan -- and creates an incredibly likeable slice of subtle psychedelia. Heathcliff reverted to his real name for future recordings, which saw him veer into ambient, world music, and new age. In a small way, he was sort of like the Japanese version of Brian Eno in that he tried his hand at popular rock music before making his name in unpopular music.

For our second offering, we head to India to meet The Fentones, who released "Simla Beat Theme" on an Indian garage rock compilation in 1971. To quote the liner notes: "Simla was the name of an Indian tobacco company in the 1960s-1970s who wanted to appeal to the youth market [imagine that!] of the time." The company released two "Battle of the Bands" comps of Indian bands merging their traditional music stylings with that of Western garage rock. Not a single sitar or tabla is heard on the album. The Fentones' instrumental contribution is an infectious psychedelic number heavy on trance-inducing rhythm and atonal guitar.

Justin Heathcliff - "You Know What I Mean"

The Fentones - "Simla Beat Theme"

To see what Justin Heathcliff has been up to lately, go here. Next to nothing is available on the web about The Fentones. Tomorrow we're heading to Africa!