Altered States is a band that is renowned for their musicianship. Although it may seem exaggerated, the evidence is available to anyone who is willing to search out the Japanese label releases. The music of the trio draws on a variety of influences, including jazz-rock, psychedela, metal and electronica. Altered States is a purely improvisational band. However, they are well-known for their tightly arranged music (e.g. 1997’s Mosaic, 1995), and 1996’s 6 (featuring many guest musicians). They also have interludes within extended pieces that surprise the listener. King Crimson, from the Starless or Bible Black eras, catapulted 20 year into the future, and has two decades of musical progress. Vocals are rare and can be either crazy gibberish (Makigami Koichi, Mosaic) and agitated shouts above the high-voltage instrumental jamming (4). If you prefer traditional singing, Altered States might not be for you. Altered States is a rare group when it comes down to technical skills, skilled use digital-era effects and telepathic interplay. They also have the ability to create tension and release fearfully explosive energy. Perhaps the world would view them differently if they had some hit singles. Altered States were founded in 1989, according to their 2005 double-CD album Bluffs. However, some band biographies put the date and place of their inception at Osaka in 1990. Uchihashi Kazuhisa, guitarist, was part of a jazz andimprovisational group that Yoshigaki Yasuhiro formed. They founded Altered States together with bassist Nasuno Mitchell. Although they initially played in jazz clubs, the band decided to go rock-oriented and instead chose to play in a jazz club. The idea that jazz musicians could find music more productive would be repelling to jazz purists. However, Kazuhisa Yasuhiro and Mitsuru may have been following in the footsteps Miles Davis’ footsteps, although “true” jazz fans criticized the legendary hornman for selling out a large commercial rock audience around Bitches Brew. Altered States, on the other hand, could not be accused of selling out that particular audience (as if they had ever had a large fan base from which to sell to a larger number of rock fans in the first instance). Altered States are best classified as a rock band. However, they have never abandoned jazz’s improvisational aspects. After a string of blistering avant-rock releases in the ’90s the band released an album of their fractured interpretations warhorses like “All the Things You Are,” “Someone to Watch over Me” and “A Night in Tunisia” at the end of the decade. The album was titled Altered States Plays Standards/Eyewill/Highways. It features retro ’60s-styled covers that suggest a classic release from the days of Blue Note and Riverside. They collaborated with Ned Rothenberg, a Brooklyn reedman who is also a circular breather. Rothenberg appears on Mosaic as well as the 1996 Phenotype album Cafe 9.15. Jazz is not out of reach for Yasuhiro (drummer and trumpeter), who is also a member of Otomo Yoshihide’s New Jazz Quintet, as well as the New Jazz Orchestra. He appears on albums such as the 2005 Out to Lunch Eric Dolphy tribute by NJO. Altered States has been included in the performing artist rosters at forward-thinking jazz festivals across Europe and Japan. The band made several well-received performances at international music festivals in the 1990s, such as Tactlos, Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Quebec and Ring Ring, Serbia. Altered States’ early recordings show that they were together for at least two years after their inception, before releasing their debut album on Kazuhisa’s Zenbei label in 1992. Six more Altered State CDs would be released in the 1990s. These were not only on Zenbei, but also on independent labels like Trigram, God Mountain, Eyewill/Highways, and God Mountain. You can start your exploration of Altered States with the studio releases Mosaic 6 and 6. However, live albums such as 1994’s Lithuanian and Estonia Live, which was recorded at Tallinn and Vilnius Jazz Festivals (with Yoshihide) in 1994, and 1996’s 4 recorded at New York City’s Knitting Factory, April 1995, are a good place to start. The Zenbei label released a series of monthly videocassettes in 1995 that featured Altered States performing live at various locations throughout Japan, Europe and the United States. This included the Knitting Factory gig. Altered States’ three members were all members of Yoshihide’s Ground Zero band in the 1990s. These CDs include Consume Red, Revolutionary Pekinese Opera and Ground Zero’s Plays Standards CD. Maybe because of their involvement in other projects (Kazuhisa is not only a frequent collaborator and organizer of Kobe’s Festival Beyond Innocence), Altered States didn’t release a new album after 1999’s album of standards. Instead, Bluffs was released in 2005 on the Innocent Records label. Bluffs ii was published in 2006, a relatively quick follow-up to Zenbei’s replacement. The albums are entirely improvised and, especially the Bluffs magnum opus (on the Innocent Records label), show that the trio’s abilities have not diminished from the peaks of the previous decade. Allmusic
