Help Your Satori Mind

Description

In 1996, Masaki Batoh, who had spent the previous decade recording, performing, and living in a communal, hippie environment with the acid folk and heavy psyche band Ghost, decided to embark on something completely different. He had just finished the incredible Lama Rabi Rabi, but making music with Ghost was an intense physical and spiritual commitment. For a change, Batoh simply wanted to freely and openly enjoy the pleasure of making the music he had grown up with – 70s British, American, and Japanese sounds. Help Your Satori Mind is the result of this new approach. Things naturally took shape over a couple of sessions. It’s an album completely outside of Ghost's world, even if it features bandmates Fuji on congas and Michio Kurihara, a psychedelic rock guitar god who had played with White Heaven and would later join Damon and Naomi. This album also features virtuosic madman drummer Futoshi Okano from the Osaka heavy rock trio Subvert Blaze, bassist Chiyo Kamekawa from Yura Yura Teikoku, and keyboardist Jun Koto from Kakashi. Together they were Cosmic Invention. Their sound is as exploratory as it is explosive. Such a powerful combination that Batoh would recruit them for his second American tour the following year. Originally released by The Now Sound label over 20 years ago, this album emerges from its sarcophagus more alive than ever, offering a vinyl release for the very first time, the unreleased bonus track "Long Jamming," and exclusive photos that immerse us back in the atmosphere of the era.