Yasuaki Shimizu

Kakashi is the latest in a long line of largely forgotten Yasuaki Shimizu albums and side projects to be given the reissue treatment.

The album was originally released in Japan by Better Days back in 1981, and saw the jazz man-turned-ambient explorer join the dots between melodious, post-punk era jazz-fusion, new age influenced downtempo grooves, dub, ambient and eccentric, hard-to-pigeonhole experimentation. While musically diverse, the album hangs together beautifully. This is primarily down to two key factors: the ubiquity of Shimizu's evocative saxophone, flute and clarinet playing, and the richness of the multi-instrumentalist's superb production.