At the Top of Mt. Brocken featured Tenko the composer and studio artist. It is a carefully produced album, rich in arrangements, that called for an impressive cast of Japanese musicians. After the recording sessions, the singer picked out a few of these session players -- some she had not played with before -- and formed Dragon Blue. One rehearsal later the group was giving their first live performance, preserved on this CD. It can be considered the dark side of the previous album, the other facet of Tenko. Here she puts all her energies in her singing; feverish and raucous, she drives the music forward, a brand of avant rock more raw and powerful than her studied studio constructions. Her backing band is no less than stellar: turntablist Otomo Yoshihide, then a rising star of the avant-garde, with Ground Zero of the same group, bassist Kato Hideki, Tipographica guitarist Tsuneo Imahori, and Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida. The repertoire is drawn from the singer's previous albums and is given a fresh approach. Storm and Kaguya stand out as blasting charges of noisy, dysfunctional rock led by the deep voice of the singer, who can switch from torch song sensibility to banshee screams in a split second. The band still needed to refine their tuning and the sound quality could have been better, but Dragon Blue remains nonetheless the best document of what Tenko could deliver on-stage. ~ François Couture, Rovi

1		Magic
2		Where's Missing
3		Bolero Hyperbolic
4		Shi-Ru-Si
5		Storm
6		Passing Through the Night
7		Happy End
8		Kaguya

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