Biography
Japanese avant-prog provocateurs Zletovsko issued their self-titled debut album in January 2013, yet the unit had originated more than a decade earlier when keyboardist Isao Horikoshi and bassist Shigekazu Kuwahara formed the band in 2002; Kuwahara himself had co-founded the Tokyo progressive group Pochakaite Malko. During the mid-'90s he had also participated in a Magma tribute ensemble alongside Ruins drummer Tatsuya Yoshida, who subsequently recruited him for bass duties on Koenji Hyakkei's 1994 debut A Hundred Sights of Koenji. Although the original three-piece lineup, deeply shaped by Emerson, Lake & Palmer and U.K., disbanded before completing any recordings, the group would eventually resurface, with multifaceted Swedish avant-prog figure Lars Hollmer serving as both direct collaborator and posthumous impetus.
Near the millennium's turn Hollmer joined Pochakaite Malko in Tokyo to perform Zamla Mammaz Manna material and later assembled SOLA: Lars Hollmer's Global Home Project with additional Japanese musicians including Yoshida—who would also appear in the 21st-century edition of Samla Mammas Manna—and guitarist Kei Fushimi; that ensemble released an album of Hollmer favorites the same year the first Zletovsko trio was established. At a 2009 tribute concert for Hollmer, who had died the previous year, Horikoshi, Kuwahara, Yoshida, and Fushimi resolved to reactivate the project as a quartet, drawing on their longstanding shared interests. The long-gestating self-titled debut finally emerged on the band's own Zelot label in January 2013.
Near the millennium's turn Hollmer joined Pochakaite Malko in Tokyo to perform Zamla Mammaz Manna material and later assembled SOLA: Lars Hollmer's Global Home Project with additional Japanese musicians including Yoshida—who would also appear in the 21st-century edition of Samla Mammas Manna—and guitarist Kei Fushimi; that ensemble released an album of Hollmer favorites the same year the first Zletovsko trio was established. At a 2009 tribute concert for Hollmer, who had died the previous year, Horikoshi, Kuwahara, Yoshida, and Fushimi resolved to reactivate the project as a quartet, drawing on their longstanding shared interests. The long-gestating self-titled debut finally emerged on the band's own Zelot label in January 2013.
Albums