''Cross Point'' is the fifth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

by Japanese

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as jazz rock, jazz-rock fusion, or simply fusion) is a popular music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric gui ...

band

Casiopea , is a Japanese jazz fusion band formed in 1976 by guitarist Issei Noro, bassist Tetsuo Sakurai, drummer Tohru "Rika" Suzuki, and keyboardist Hidehiko Koike. In 1977, keyboardist Minoru Mukaiya and drummer Takashi Sasaki ( ja) replaced Koik ...

, released on October 21, 1981 by

Alfa Records , originally a publisher known as Alfa Music Ltd. and later succeeded by record company Alfa Music Inc., was established in 1969 by composer and record producer Kunihiko Murai. It was formed into an independent record label known as Alfa Recor ...

. This is the band's second album to be created and produced with

Harvey Mason Harvey William Mason (born February 22, 1947) is an American jazz drummer, record producer, and member of the band Fourplay. He was the original drummer for Herbie Hancock's band The Headhunters. Life and career Mason was born and grew ...

. Casiopea did a domestic tour in late November and December after this album's release, which inspired the '' Mint Jams''

live album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track or cassette), or digital. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th centur ...

in February of the following year. The album's name has a double meaning: first referring to an

intersection In mathematics, the intersection of two or more objects is another object consisting of everything that is contained in all of the objects simultaneously. For example, in Euclidean geometry, when two lines in a plane are not parallel, their ...

for roadways (as on the cover art), and second, as it says on the LP's OBI paper strip: "The music scene has reached a new cross-point." This is the first album fully recorded with Mukaiya's GS-1 synthesizer, gifted to him by Yamaha. The CD release and vinyl include a pamphlet documenting the band's history, written by bassist Tetsuo Sakurai.

Track listing

Personnel

CASIOPEA are: : Issei Noro –

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...

( YAMAHA SG-2000 & SG-1000 Fretless,

KORG , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instrument An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electr ...

guitar synthesizer, Lynn Drum Computer), arrangement : Minoru Mukaiya – keyboards (

Fender Rhodes The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

, YAMAHA CP-80, GS-1, CS-30,

800DV,

Trident A trident (), () is a three- pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm. As compared to an ordinary spear, the three tines increase the chance that a fish will be struck and decrease the chance that a fish will b ...

, Mini Moog, Prophet 10,

Roland Jupiter-8 The Jupiter-8, or JP-8, is an eight-voice polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizer introduced by Roland Corporation in early 1981. The Jupiter-8 was Roland's flagship synthesizer for the first half of the 1980s. Approximately 3,300 units have ...

acoustic piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an action mechanism where hammers strike strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a chromatic scale in equal tempe ...

) : Tetsuo Sakurai –

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

( YAMAHA BB-2000) :

Akira Jimbo , is a Japanese jazz fusion drummer, best known as the drummer for the Japanese jazz fusion band Casiopea in 3 separate stints (1980-1989, 1997-2006 and 2012-2022). Aside from his work with Casiopea, Jimbo has also participated in side projects ...

–

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

(YAMAHA YD-9000R),

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

:Eiji Urata – synthesizer programming

Production

* Producer – Shunsuke Miyazumi * Co-Producer –

* Associate producer – Satoshi Nakao *

Executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the production of media. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights or royalties). In film ...

– Shoro Kawazoe * Synth Programmer – Eiji Urata * Engineers – Norio Yoshizawa * Assistant engineers – Atsushi Saito * Art direction – Tsuguya Inoue * Designer – Tsuguya Inoue *

Illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...

– Thomas Bayrle / UNAC TOKYO * Coordination – Toshinao Tsukui * Remastering engineer – Kouji Suzuki (2016)

Release history

External links

* *
Thomas Bayrle's art

References