Heavy Way

[[Release Detail]][[Release Description]] A long-lost Japanese acid folk gem, Niningashi’s 1974 private press debut Heavy Way shimmers with originality, deft song writing and a dream-like groove. Although he was training as a pharmacist, Kazuhisa Okubo was much more interested in prescribing musical medicine. A coming-of-age album, Heavy Way captured a turning point in Okubo’s life, and Japanese society more widely as a nostalgia for the pastoral calm of the traditional life, met the cosmopolitan thrill of coffee, sex and cigarettes in the big city. Intoxicated by Tokyo, driven by a passion for music and surrounded by a thriving acid folk scene, the young student filtered his experiences through a psychedelic cocktail of soulful influences from the US and Japan. Niningashi was his first band, and Heavy Way was their only album. It was honest and raw, deep and strangely funky, in an off-beat kind of way. Across nine tracks, Okubo and the 6-piece band put their own spin on the new folk s