Fighting Tatsu, The Rickshaw Man (1964) Tai Katô, Ryôhei Uchida, Jûshirô Konoe, Hiroko Sakuramachi

Reissue of wild 1972 Danish hard prog with Yes-like vocals, wild, frantic guitar soloing, organ roars, lengthy tracks.
The Old Man & The Sea offers a heavy prog type of music quite typical for that era, organ laden with similarities towards british school of that time like Uriah Heep, Purple or Atomic Rooster. The sound is accesible and melodic but also are some more hard rock parts that is well integrated in the overall prog atmosphere. The opening Living Dead or the ending Going Blind are quite more then ok, hammong melted with bluesy guitars but under prog flag. Nice vocal arrangements, Ole Wedel has a very good tone for such music.

Too Late for Edelweiss, The Tallest Man On Earth – the project of Swedish musician Kristian Matsson weaves together a sparse collection of home recordings made in Sweden and North Carolina, captured fresh off a 39-date run with the adrenaline of tour rattling through his veins. His first release since 2019’s I Love You. It’s A Fever Dream, and his signing to ANTI-, the songs on Too Late For Edelweiss have been with Matsson since he started playing music as The Tallest Man on Earth in 2006. In those early years, Matsson used to perform “Lost Highway” before he had enough songs to flesh out a full set.

Kristian Matsson has never remained in one place for very long. Having spent much of the last decade touring around the world as The Tallest Man on Earth, Matsson has captivated audiences using, as The New York Times describes, "every inch of his long guitar cord to roam the stage: darting around, crouching, stretching, hip-twitching, perching briefly and jittering away…

Ray Russell has had quite the glittering career. Setting off at age 15 with the John Berry Seven, the guitarist went on to play with the Graham Bond Organisation and then Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames. Eventually, Russell would lend his talents on-stage and/or in the studio to a plethora of performers, from Tina Turner to Lulu, the Bee Gees to Phil Collins, and branching out in the '70s to compose for the small screen. Amidst this busy career, Russell also put together the odd band, like the Running Man, whose sole, eponymous album was released with little fanfare in 1972. The core trio of Russell on both guitar and bass, vocalist/organist Alan Greed, and vocalist/drummer Alan Rushton was supplemented by Harry Beckett on trumpet and flügelhorn and the late Gary Windo on tenor sax.

The Old Man & the Sea split up back in 1975. Yet the band still kept in contact, and frequently met up to do jam sessions. One of these occasions were taking place on the 5th. of April 1978. At that time Tommy Hansen had established a studio facility called “HT Studio”. In these humble surroundings, the magic of “Witches Brew” ascended. Some dedicated friends of ours joined in for this particular jam session.
Apart from John Lundvig (drums) Erik Dolle Halager (bass) Ole Wedel (guitar) and Tommy Hansen (keyboards) Harry Jokumsen played the guitar, Poul Aage Hersland played the flute - oboe and saxophone, Torben Fingal Frederiksen did percussion, mainly congas, and finally Preben Lundvig did some guitar…