HAJIMARI
SOZO
KOI
OROCHI
NAGEKI
MATSURI
REIMEI

all songs written and arranged by KITARO

additional musicians:
Kohhachi Itoh: electric bass
Yasuo Ogata: keyboards
Hiroshi Araki: guitar
Syoji Fujii: drums
Hideo Funamoto: timpani
Steven Kindler: violin
Skywalker Symphony Strings

Arrangement with wide range of dynamism, powerful rock feeling, beautiful and impressive melodies, the contrast between quiet and big sound... enough of these KITARO Music's important charming points can be heard on this album, consecutively from last album THE LIGHT OF THE SPIRIT. Thrilling tension of this album is, without doubt, among top five in KITARO-san's whole discography. Particularly this album has the most thrilling ending in his whole discography (at the same time, it is cool and touching).

As the title is telling, the story of Japanese traditional "Kojiki" unfolds through this album. And this story is smoothly blended into "KITARO-san's typical flow represented through an album". As a result, this album became so approachable. (In this album, KITARO-san regards the story of "Kojiki" as a creation story of mankind which can be found anywhere on this planet.) Just like GAIA - ONBASHIRA album, even though the theme of the album has a deep connection to the particular place on this planet, the music is so global... that's one of KITARO Music's typical character.

When this album was released, KITARO-san said so often that this album is a "rock symphony". It makes sense, even though KITARO-san's usual performance in his live show sounds like "symphonic rock". As same as the "symphony" in classic music genre, all seven songs in this album must be performed in this order. And also real orchestral sound performed by Skywalker Symphony Strings (of course, having relation with Skywalker family of Star Wars, and some part of this album was recorded and mixed at Star Wars director George Lucus' Skywalker Studio) can be heard in right parts, and that makes the sound more symphonic than usual. And also, like general classic music, this album sounds like having no improvisations. This means that this album lacks one of KITARO Music's most important elements. But while having that aspect, this album contains many strong and impressive melodies.

This album is good for the very first KITARO album for those who is new to KITARO Music. But as written above, remember that this album lacks KITARO-san's spiritual improvisations which is one of KITARO Music's most important elements. Since this album's release, even these days, KITARO-san has been performing many songs from this album in his live show. This means that this album contains many of KITARO-san's favourites i.e. KITARO-san's important repertoire.

If last album THE LIGHT OF THE SPIRIT can be regarded as "the album which made KITARO Music valued highly in the US", this album KOJIKI should be regards as "the album which made KITARO Music valued highly in the world". Masterpiece.

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