(Psychedelic rock) Apryl Fool - "Apryl Fool 1969 + The Floral (singles) 1968" - 2002, FLAC (tracks)

"Apryl Fool"

Hiroyoshi Yanagida – organ, piano
Eiji Kikuchi – lead guitar
Tadaki ‘Chu’ Kosaka – lead vocals
Haruomi Hosono – bass
Takashi Matsumoto – drums

"The Floral"

Hiroyoshi Yanagida – organ, piano
Eiji Kikuchi – lead guitar
Chu Kosaka - vocals
Takashi Matsumoto - drums
Haruomi Hosono - bass

Jap-Rock Sampler: Led by prime mover and ex-Floral organist Hiro Yaganida, the extremely cool and longhaired Apryl Fool quintet was one of the few New Rock bands even to approach the power and originality of their Western equivalents. Still suffering from weak-as-shit drumming and an inability to let go of their eary ‘60s influences, Apryl Fool nevertheless hit a coupla real peaks on their lone self-titled LP, released in 1969 on Nippon Columbia. For, while most of the record is perfunctory bar-room post-Animals blues, their attempt at real psychedelia on ‘The Lost Motherland’ does approach genuine meltdown, in much the same way as late ‘60s American LPs such as St. Stephen were want to do. If only there had been more of that stuff within the grooves, though… who really needed versions of Dylan’s ‘Pledging My Time’? Well, bass player Hosono and drummer Matsumoto, obviously, for the pair of them went in precisely that obvious direction with their next Band/Little Feat-styled project Happy End. And mightily successful they were, too. Nothing more was heard from lead guitarist Eiji Kikuchi, but vocalist Tadaki Kosaka joined the chorus of the musical HAIR. Keyboardist Yanagida also worked on HAIR, but in the far more lofty position of keyboard player in the house band. Thereafter, he recorded two solo LPs, MILK TIME and a self-titled second effort, as well as contributing major to the sessions for Love Live Life +1 and Foodbrain. - Julian Cope.

CD Universe: This 1969 album from bluesy psychedelic Japanese band Apryl Fool features nine English-language tracks, including a cover of Bob Dylan's "Pledging My Time." The Apryl Fool was a very accomplished late-'60s band from Japan whose lone, self-titled album is a great mixture of hard psych and blues-rock. Their best-known track is probably "The Lost Mother Land, Pt. 1," which was featured on the Japanese volume of QDK's Love, Peace and Poetry series, certainly one of the most crazed, over the top productions and performances in the entire series, with its massively phased and treated vocals and general menace. But that tune is really the anomaly on the album, despite the prevalence of monstrous fuzz guitar on a number of tracks. At their heart, the Apryl Fool seem to be a blues-rock band, although one that was clearly experimenting with the burgeoning psychedelic scene. Tracks like "Another Time," "Honky Tonk Jam," and Bob Dylan's "Pledging My Time" are pretty straight blues-rock, and "April Blues" just adds some fuzz guitar to a boogie-woogie piano bit. The other tracks up the psych quotient considerably, like on "Tomorrow's Child," with its Farfisa and wicked fuzz leads, or the aforementioned "The Lost Mother Land, Pt. 1." There are additional crazy tape effects on "The Lost Mother Land, Pt. 2." About half the tunes are in English and half in Japanese, but it's all good stuff. Historical footnote: years later, bass player Haruomi Hosono would become a member of one of Japan's most popular music groups ever, Yellow Magic Orchestra. - Sean Westergaard.

Amazon: Psychedelic Japanese band featuring Haruomi Hosono on Bass. This is classic blues inflected psyche-rock, the vocalist Chu Kosaka sings in English on most tracks and you would swear these guys are from the states. Features a cover of Bob Dylan's 'Pledging My Time'. Originally released in 1969.