OK, first things first: explaining what this album actually is in historical terms takes some doing. Melting Glass Box was a project more than a band, centered on one Takashi Nishioka (who would later form the folk band Itsusu No Arai Fusen.) The backing band is a veritable who's who of early 70s Japanese rock: Haroumi Hosono (Apryl Fool, Happy End, Yellow Magic Orchestra,) Kazuo Takeda, Ritsuo Kamimura and Masashi Saeki of Blues Creation, Kazuhiko Kato (Folk Crusaders, The Sadistic Mika Band,) Jacks drummer Takasuke Kida, and vocalist Tetsuo Saito.

Nobody's going to blame you for getting a little crosseyed at all those names, nor would they blame you for thinking: so what? If there's one thing that rock history has taught us, it's that gathering a lot of high powered talent into one room does nothing to guarantee the end result will be worthwhile (unless you think Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas" was the height of artistic expression.) More often, it results in one or more of the following: over slickness, soullessness, lack of focus, utter mediocrity.

Well, we here at Jrawk are going to explain how "Melting Glass Box" avoided all those pitfalls to become a minor classic, and a future freak folk staple, should the distribution Gods see fit to make the thing widely available outside Japan (or even inside Japan...it's currently out of print.) To wit:

1 - Over Slickness.

No. The playing is loose, creative, and occasionally explicitly screwy. The album even opens with a statement of imperfection of sorts with "あんまり深すぎて" ("The Rest Is Too Deep,") which has acoustic guitar subtly manipulated to sound like there's something wrong with the tape (I can only wonder how many people who, having bought this on cassette, went crazy cleaning their tape heads to "correct" the problem.) The playing is not showy, remaining mostly unobtrusive despite the wide palate of instrumentation (which occasionally boasts vibraphone, then unusual electronics, and, er, breaking windows.)

2 - Soullessness

No. It's a well written folk based album with surprisingly (but, again, never showy) dynamic range of sounds that elevate it above the average guy-and-a-guitar folk "rock" that was a little too plentiful around this time. There's the unsettling, hushed vibe of the aforementioned "The Rest Is Too Deep," with backwards guitar, eerie harmonica, and a dark, uneasy vocal that sounds like a voodoo trance. It's beautifully dark in a non-obvious way. There's also the placid gospel of "まるで君と同じのっぺら坊で" (Translation is problematic to say the least. I have to plead ignorance on this one.)

3 - Lack of focus

OK, we'll cop to a little bit of this, but just a little. The ecumenical approach in the instrumentation extends to the songwriting, and the overall mood is occasionally broken by self conscious shifts in tone (as in the jarring transition between the pastoral, "I Talk To The Wind" style "何がなんだかわからない時," i.e. "What I Do Not Know" and the fuzzy "君はだれなんだ," i.e. "You're Right.") "You're Right" even has a few disruptive changeups in the song itself. While it's obviously intentional, it's a little gimmicky. There's also the tendency towards more traditional approaches as the album goes on.

4- Utter mediocrity

HELL no. There are a lot of words you could use to describe "Melting Glass Box," but facelessness is not one of them. There's too much going on, with too much detail, and too much rich atmosphere. It, like most good psychedelia, becomes deeper and more mysterious over time. It's also a superlative headphone album, with little nooks and crannies hiding surprisingly rich arrangements: without headphones, or at least very good speakers, one could miss the full orchestration of "溶け出したガラス箱" ("Melting Glass Box") entirely.

As noted before, nearly everyone involved in this album went on to some degree of greatness, but "Melting Glass Box" should not be heard as a collector's curiosity, even if its current state of availability fits that description. It neatly avoids the blandness that swallowed many similarly intended albums of the time, and that alone is enough to recommend it.