Samurai

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of a freshly re-mastered and expanded edition of the classic and highly regarded self-titled album by the Progressive rock group SAMURAI.

THE SAMURAI OF PROG was born in 2009, project and nickname of Marco BERNARD who worked on Colossus and Musea; its philosophy is to integrate guest musicians according to album releases; 15 including three per year since 2020, impressive. Kimmo PÖRSTI and Steve UNRUH forming the backbone, after covers of MARILLION and other groups, they embark on personal compositions from 2014 to make music of quality and emotion; themes on short stories such as Gulliver, Robinson Crusoe or Grimm's tales. Here it's S-F composed by Marco GRIECO for a symphonic prog stamped 70's. "Anthem To The Phoenix Star" on travel with the constraints of time and space as a preamble, a PINK FLOYD sound for bass, Marek's sax and Juhani's guitar, voice-overs including that of Clive NOLAN forming a spatial soundtrack where the synthesizer is king and where the universe shaped is indeed dystopia…

Multinational ensemble THE SAMURAI OF PROG was formed as a project lead by Finland-based Italian composer and bassist Marco Bernard. He's been active in the Finnish Association for Progressive Music since 1995, and have been involved in their Colossus Magazine since 1996 - and instrumental in the Colossus series of theme albums they have created in cooperation with French label Musea Records. It was for a contribution to one of those projects that The Samurai of Prog was born, and joining Bernard as permanent members we find US artist Steve UNRUH and Finnish drummer Kimmo Pörsti. Besides this core trio, the philosophy of this band appears to be to involve additional musicians as needed and wanted, and their debut effort Undercover from 2011 bears testimony to that line of thinking, with a list of guest appearances impressive in length, scope as well as quality.

The multi-national, Finland-based recording project did it again, a marvelous, superbly produced album of first class retro-natured symphonic prog composed and co- performed by excellent prog musicians from various countries including e.g. Argentine, Netherlands, Italy and Japan. 'Another Time' (written by Ronaldo Rodrigues and Steve Unruh who also sings) evolves dynamically from mellowness to energetic instrumental section and features Marek Arnold on saxophone. Oliviero Lacagnina composed a pompous symph prog instrumental 'Dear Amadeus' inspired by Mozart. One may think of 70's RPI bands such as Latte e Miele…

Mickey Curtis was born of English parents in Tokyo, Japan in 1938. After the end of The World War II he lived by singing in the Occupation Forces or Camps, and as a result he was approved as a rockabilly singer. Although he had been an active pop singer and a frontman of two chorus-pop outfits named 'City Crows' and 'Vanguards' in mid 60s, he was awakened to rock suddenly and finally formed Samurai (The Samurais in their early days) in 1967. During the first two years Samurai made a lot of gigs and released two albums - "Tenor Sax Of Love" (1968; as The Samurais) and "Samurai" (1970) - in Europe. In early 1969 their soundscape was completely shifted to progressive rock, and we can easily realize the fact especially in their eponymous album…

Following TSOP's first Omnibus box set subtitled "The Early Years" from 2018, this new set contains the albums On We Sail (2017), Archiviarum (2018), Toki No Kaze (2019) and Beyond the Wardrobe (2020) with five bonus tracks.
A must for the festive period when one can spoil one-self, beautiful presentation mini LP style card box sleeve package with extensive booklet as ever by Ed Unitsky. 4 disc with bonus tracks, symphonic prog of the highest quality. Limited issue so don't miss out.

The Samurai of Prog are having a prolific run. A few short months after 2020‘s "Beyond the Wardrobe" album, the core trio of Marco Bernard, Kimmo Pörsti, and Steve Unruh are joined - as is their way - by a cast of contributing artists and writers, this time crafting an album inspired by The Brothers Grimm fairy tales. ("The Lady and the Lion" is the first of two Grimm-themed albums set to be released in 2021.) The Samurai have become known in progressive rock circles for their symphonic prog creations, which feature lush and varied keyboard sounds, powerful picked bass guitar, dynamic drums, virtuosic violin and flute, and always mixed and mastered for audiophiles. "The Lady and the Lion" features a terrific array of talent, including Ton Scherpenzeel and Bart Schwertmann (Kayak), Octavio Stampalía (Jinetes Negros), Cam Blokland (Southern Empire), Valerie Gracious (Phideaux)…