Ain Soph
ProgDay '08
Storybook Farm, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Aug 30th, 2008 5:30pm - 7:10pm

Lineage: Audience cassette -> CoolEdit -> WAV -> FLAC Frontend -> FLAC
Additional lineage: FLAC > WAV > CDR > EAC (secure) > FLAC (L8)

CD 1
1. intro (0:38)
2. Marine Menagerie (13:21)
3. Odessa (13:08)
4. The Lost Era (14:24)
5. Sleeping Sun (4:33)
6. Ride on a Camel (13:13)

CD 2
1. 7 Up (8:55)
2. Ancient Museum (12:01)
3. Variations on a Theme
by Brian Smith (10:25)
4. The Valley of Lutha (8:51)

Total Time: 1:39:33

Kikuo Fujikawa - keyboards
Masahiro Torigaki - bass
Hisashi Nagao - saxophone
Taiqui - drums
Yozox - guitar

http://ainsoph.jpn.org/


Original notes:

Recorded with my usual set-up of a Panasonic portable
tape recorder connected to two decent external microphones.
Recorded onto Maxel XL-II 90 min tape. The resulting tape
was fed into my PC via an Onkyo tape deck using CoolEdit.
CoolEdit was then used to break it into individual tracks
and FLAC Frontend was used to convert those to FLAC.

This recording came out pretty well for the most part.
Unfortunately, my right microphone must not have been
connected up securely, because there were a few spots
where the right channel volume dipped down to nearly
inaudible level. It happened a few times during the
song "Marine Menagerie" (mostly between 4 minutes and
6 minutes into the song), and several times during the
last 20 minutes or so of their set. I did my best to
"correct" it using CoolEdit by amplifying the right
channel and cross-mixing some of the left channel in
at the bad spots. It's fairly noticable, especially
if you're listening through headphones - the recording
will suddenly sound "mono" for a few seconds. Near the
end of the set, the mono patches get longer, and the
last four minutes or so of the recording are entirely
mono. The last song was also marred by rain, which
you can hear hitting the umbrella I put over my microphones.
It sounds kind of like a staticy radio signal. About 3:20
into the final song, you can hear my umbrealla get blown
away. It's a shame all these problems occurred, because
other than that it's a very good recording of a
great set.

There was also about 40 seconds of "dead air" between
the band's introduction and when they actually started
playing - I edited most of that out.

A friend of mine who got a copy of the band's written
set list said that they had planned to continue with
Magic Carpet, The Swan Lake, Strage Bag and Flooded
by Sunlight if the rain hadn't cut their set short.


About ProgDay:

ProgDay is an outdoor festival of progressive rock
that has been held annually since 1995. In 1996 it
was expanded from one day to two and has been hosting
anywhere from eight to eleven progressive rock bands
each year since. The event takes place at beautiful
Storybook farm, unless rain forces it indoors (which
has fortunately only happened twice in the festival's
history). It's a relaxed atmosphere, where you can
view from anywhere you want - right up against the stage
for the bands you like, or back in the vendor tent while
CD shopping during bands you're not wild about. The
people are friendly, and the band members often hang out
all weekend taking in the show and chatting with fans
when they're not on stage. If you're a prog rock fan
and can possibly attend, it's well worth the effort.
The festival just barely breaks even (or sometimes
doesn't), so every ticket sold really helps. Go if
you can.


About Ain Soph:

Doing a Google search turned up two bands called
Ain Soph - most of the information was about an
Italian industrial/ambient band. This isn't that
group, it's a band from Japan that play an instrumental
mix of jazz fusion and Canterbury-influenced prog. Given
the instrumentation and nature of the band, you might
expect them to sound like the other headliner at this
year's ProgDay, Secret Oyster, but the two bands
sounded suprisingly different. Ain Soph is generally
a mellower band, and strech every song out with
long solos by the keys, guitar and sax.


Originally seeded by biceeichler in September 2008. Thanks!

Please support the artists! Buy their official releases and go to their concerts!
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Uploaded to DIME by propylaen in October 2016.

Enjoy!