Love Live Life + One

There were several progressive psychedelic groups in Japan in the early '70s, including the short-lived Love Live Life + One. They played a handful of live shows and only released one LP in 1971, but that record, Love Will Make a Better You, is considered one of the classics of early Japanese psychedelia. Not too much documentation exists about Love Live Life + One, a group of nine musicians. The "Plus One" seems to refer to vocalist Akiri Fuse, who had been singing pop music since the mid-'60s and appearing on LPs since 1967. Otherwise, Love Live Life consisted of Hiro Yanagida on keyboards and organ and Kimio Mizutani on electric guitar, as well as K. Ichihara on flute and sax, T. Yokota on flute and soprano sax, T. Naoi on guitar, M. Terakawa on bass, C. Kawachi on drums, and N. Kawahara on percussion. Most of these musicians are obscure, except for Yanagida and Mizutani, who have had wider musical careers in other psychedelic groups. Prior to Love Live Life, Mizutani was in the band People, with the rare 1970 LP Ceremony -- Buddha Meet Rock, and the same year that Love Will Make a Better You came out, he released his solo album, A Path Through Haze. Yanagida also released a solo album in 1971 called Milk Time. Prior to Love Live Life + One he was a member of the highly acclaimed Foodbrain, which released the album Social Gathering in 1970, and he was also in Strawberry Path, whose record When the Raven Has Come to the Earth came out the same year as Love Will Make a Better You. Love Live Life's only record, like the other albums mentioned above, is a mix of blues-based psychedelic music that pushes into progressive and even avant-garde realms, while the skronky sax playing even recalls the edgier end of the jazz spectrum. The record was self-released in small...