Black Ship Japan- South Country Vision (Track Review)

Written by Pat Moran

Black Ship Japan takes its name from the fateful 1853 encounter between U.S. naval commodore Matthew Perry and Japan’s isolationist Tokugawa shogunate. Perry’s black ships triggered the collapse of traditional feudal Japan, which was followed by the country’s accelerated modernization.

The black ships have inspired songs by Japanaese pysch rockers Sadistic Mika Band and Japanese-American alt violin virtuoso Kishi Bashi (K Ishibashi). Black Ship Japan tackle this cultural tipping point, not with Sadistic Mika Band’s face-melting hard rock or Ishibashi’s sprightly tribute to Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli’s Le Quintette Du Hot Club De France.

Instead, on “South Country Vision,” the mysteriously-monikered jazz combo turns to the meticulously composed blues-based jazz of Duke Ellington for inspiration. With hissing brushes on the drums, bent blue note guitar, descending meditative piano patterns and arching honeyed horns, Black Ship Japan depicts one of the world’s most transformative encounters with a classicist yet experimental jazz fusion masterwork.   

The result is forlorn yet soothing, intimate yet majestic. “South Country Vision” takes its time as it unfurls like waves gently lapping against the bows of the band’s titular vessels, creating space for a trilling piano fill plus a spotlight for a pointillist and percussive Django-style guitar solo.

Take a Listen