SAB - Crystallization LP
$32.98
Label: EM
Release Date: June 6th, 2025
Long awaited reissue of the second release on the legendary Osaka label, Vanity Records, run by the eccentric producer Yuzuru Agi.
From the original 1978 master tapes, high-quality cutting.
Comes with Japanese/English liner notes.
A beautiful album re-emerges from realms of mystery! The long-awaited vinyl reissue of a Japanese neoclassical/experimental/new age/electronic music classic, originally released in 1978. Crystallization is a work of unwavering perfection, whose sparkle has become even more brilliant over time, in the midst of the new age music revival that has emerged in recent years and the rediscovery of Japanese environmental music so-called Kankyo-ongaku.
This was SAB's first and only solo album, recorded at his home and a studio in Osaka by a 19-year-old musical prodigy who, after the album's release, left Japan for the U.S. to follow the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and has never been heard from again. Two other musicians provide instrumental contributions, but the majority of the album was recorded and produced by SAB himself with multiple recordings & overdubs of various instruments, captured and crystallized on magnetic tape. The arrangements and instrumentation on this album show the influence of Brian Eno and the Obscure label of the time, but SAB's weave of electronics, field recordings and conventional instrumentation simultaneously avoids those influences and sits outside any direct electronic music lineage; it has achieved the status of a new classic for audiences in the 2020s.
