Alongside noise guitarist Masayuki Takayanagi, the late saxophonist Kaoru Abe was in the vanguard of Japan's new music, articulating an approach to the saxophone that matched extreme velocity with an elastic facility with the instrument's most phantom registers and a sculptural approach to instant composition that saw him carve poignant shapes from massive blocks of silence. Abe died of a heroin overdose on September 9th, 1978 at the age of 29, making 2004 the 27th anniversary of his passing, one that was marked by special rites in Japan. As a memorial to this great sound-thinker PSF put together a special package, an official release of the rarest of Abe's recorded works, originally released as a bootleg in a plain white sleeve on the Osaka Soundworks label in 73/74. The early-70s were Abe's most prolific and inspired years and this live set from 1972 is a stone classic, a powerfully focussed set of solo saxophone that works the molten flow of his brain and fingers into lines of dense, ferocious beauty, from drooling, all-out blurt to exactingly articulated ice-cold blues. Mesmerising. Includes Japanese/English liners by PSF owner Hideo Ikeezumi.