Sei Shonagon

Certainly the most anomalous release on the legendary, 70s audiophile Japanese jazz label Three Bind Mice. As far as the experts know, this is the only progressive rock album to be released on the label during its lifetime. The cover art looks straight out of a 1969 psychedelic pop album, but this not pop music. The group, who only made this one album, was Yoko Sumiya (electric keyboards), Shin Okabe (drums) and leader Jimmy Shironaga (vocals, electric bass). This is straight-forward, classic prog rock, most obviously informed by ELP and, since it was originally released in 1978, it is very late to the party for the glory days of classic prog, but it also predates the classic progressive rock revival that hit Japan about a decade later!

Nagiko's father was a calligrapher, and when she was a little girl he would write his birthday greetings on her face. Her mother would read aloud from a 1,000-year-old manuscript, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, which dealt among other things with the arts of love. Because children invest their birthdays with enormous importance, it's no wonder that when Nagiko grows up she finds a powerful link between calligraphy, human flesh, poetry, and sexuality.