Flower Travellin Band broke up in April 1973 and Ishima couldn’t seem to wait to move on, as his solo album was announced the next month. He even changed the writing of Hideki from 秀樹 to ヒデキ. He gathered up a bunch of old friends for the album, including drummer George Wada and late-period keyboard player Nobuhiko Shinohara from FTB. A few friends from Ishima’s time with The Beavers were involved as well, including drummer Chito Kawauchi from The Happenings Four and ex-Spider guitarist and writer of the first Beavers single Katsuo Ono on guitar, organ and Moog. Ex-Beaver Ken Narita plays harmonica on ‘Unbalance’ and vocalist Masumi Ono from folk band Garo provides backing vocals for one song. Ishima plays guitar and bass all tracks, which include the two instrumentals ‘Unbalance’ and ‘Artificial Flowers’. He sings in English on four tracks and Japanese on the last one, ‘Trash Blues’.
Wada and Shinohara play on “We’re Just Trying My Way” and “Artificial Flowers” and they have a bit of a spacy Pink Floyd feel to them, as does “Depending by the Time”. “Lady Bird”, “Night mare” and “Trash Blues” are a bit early 70s Eric Clapton/ George Harrison. “Unbalance” reminds me a bit of Johnny Jenkins’ “Ton-Ton Macoute”.
Samples of this album are available at Tower Records’ site.