Detailed Review [Six North - 2000 - "I'm Here In My Heart"]

Six North (Japan) - 2000 - "I'm Here In My Heart"
(59 min, 'Stream Line' 001CD)

Attention:
Hideyuki Shima - bass, additional synths
Yumiko Murokami - keyboards (she has died just a few months ago; she was very young...)
Eisuke Kato - keyboards
Hiroshi "Gori" Matsuda - drums
Toru Morichika - saxophones, woodwind
Shinyu Odajima - guitars
Takumo Seino - guitars
Hiroshi "Gori" Matsuda - drums
Chizuko Uro - vocals

All compositions by Hideyuki Shima, except Ajikan - an ancient Japanese piece about 1500 years old. All lyrics by Hideyuki Shima, except for (6) - By Shizuko Ura and Hideyuki Shima. Produced by Nebuya Tanaka and Hideyuki Shima. Engineered by Chris Howe at "Bosco" and "Kuri" studios between Agst and Dcmb 1999.

Prologue. I think Progressor is probably the only Prog-site that observes such an important Progressive Rock scene as *Japanese really more or less effectively, as there are lots of unique bands in this small country, and also at least a dozen of true Prog-Titans, including the heroes of these lines. "I'm Here In My Heart" is the debut album of Six North, led by a very talented composer and musician Hideyuki Shima, who is also the owner of the new independent label "Stream Line" (though, Musea has already released this album, too, to have it distributed all around the world).

The album. Conditionally "I'm Here In My Heart" could be divided in two parts, slightly different among themselves, very simply. 5 of 8 compositions are pure instrumental pieces and only three tracks contain female vocals with Japanese lyrics: these are tracks 5,6 & 8. In reality, however, each separate track on the album sounds quite differently from any other, though at the same time the album on the whole presents itself as a work of a monolithic stylistic concept. It is because each new track sounds as a logical continuation of its predecessor despite the presence of some obvious structural differences between them. Ajikan with its distinct 'classical' scheme of arrangements - when symphonic forms dominate totally and everywhere - could be sounding a bit strange among other pieces, but it was conceived as an opening track, and also, thanks to the fluent transition into the second piece its presence on the album looks really wise at all. Ajikan - this originally very, very ancient song (isn't it - from our 'Earthly' standpoint?) still brings so powerful an energy with its as if eternal calmness (powerful energy of the eternal calmness - this is the point of meeting of two distinct contradictions - what could be more Real in our dual illusory world?). So, Ajikan was a classic for the future about 1500 years ago and still is the same Classic for the same Future that is, maybe, coming from our Past? Really, maybe... As the next composition contains within itself a wide variety of musical styles, but this is by far not just a set of neglected parts from a true, totally composed, Jazz-Fusion yet with bits of improvisational, ie traditional jazz, Classic Art Rock 'woven' out of symphonic 'threads' yet with bits of distinct sonatas, ie elements of classical music. So, I'm Here In My Heart, full of all the possible (and, maybe, even impossible, but exactly) combinations, I'd even say unions of varied musical stylistics in Harmony, as well as our material, as if totally chaotic, world is also full of as if impossible events, fortuities and coincidences. But if you feel a particle of God in your heart, you know there are no fortuities and coincidences in our Whole World that is nothing else but a Kingdom of Harmony. Yes, usually we call such combinations of the aforementioned musical styles as RIO, but I've told you a 'story' of I'm Here In My Heart, full of such strange comparisons, not in vain. Because this is an absolutely new 'statement' of that which we used to call RIO. I'm even afraid to call the style of the second composition, as well as all the 'rest ones', a new manifestation of RIO, as anyone after listening to this album as a whole might ask himself how to call this new music within the Progressive Rock genre. And when I said that despite the fact that "I'm Here In My Heart" is an album of united stylistic conception, I also said that all the separate pieces there at the same time sound quite differently. Both these times I said the truth.

Summary. The same words I just said with regard to the second piece, being addressed to each other track on the album (including songs) with proper amendments in accordance with the specific structures of each composition, could be reduced to a similar conclusion. So, I could be meditating and musing, comparing and philosophizing upon this album and its every piece for quite a long time. But I hope the majority of lovers of serious (profound, philosophic, sometimes I'd call it even adventurous) progressive music that, in a certain sense only, I could name as a new school of the RIO movement, have already understood this is an album of their dream.

*Thanks a lot to my dear Japanese friend Hiroyuki Kitada, my guardian angel, for his invisible yet so tangible presence in my everyday life, and for introducing me to the progressive music of the Land of the Rising Sun a few years ago.

VM. October 25, 2000