ceremony - buddha meets rock

first 180g vinyl reissue No.16 on Julian Cope's Top 50 Japanese album chart pressed on 180g virgin vinyl
Nobody's sure if the muscians on this recording ever performed as a group or whether Ceremony was simply a studio super project. Certainly guitarist Kimio Mizutani had already enjoyed a certain amount of crticial exposure following stints with Love Live Life + One and Masahiko Satoh's Sound Brakers and it is Satoh's jazzy fuzz guitar licks that help to lift this album to a higher level. Unfortunately this was the ensemble's only album, but the concept work, Ceremony - Buddha Meets Rock, is an absolute classic. As the title suggests, this 1971 recording was an attempt to fuse Buddhist-influenced spiritual vibe into an innovative oriental form form of hypnotic psychedelic prog rock. . All in all a rather weird record but the sound is mindblowing - experimental and trippy, but never too free or over the top, and at times a more traditional Japanese style of music lurks in the background. A monumental album that's never going to go out of style."

Side 1 1. Prologue 2. Shomoyo Part 1 3. Gatha "

Side 2.1. Flower Strewing 2. Shomyo Part 2 3. Prayer Part 1 4. Prayer Part 2 5. Epilogue"