Casiopea - Mint Jams

Japanese import

As Alfa Records expanded into Europe, it was planned to produce an album for Europe by one of its artists, Casiopea. Initially, it was planned to be a compilation of best songs from existing albums, but was later turned into a live album.

Live sound recordings from a two-day performance at Tokyo Kaikan were used, and subsequently remixed at Alfa Studio 'A' by Shunsuke Miyazami, Satoshi Nakao, Norio Yoshizawa and Atsushi Saito. The songs were arranged in advance with studio work in mind. To achieve the likeness of a studio quality sound, the audience noise from the Chuo Kaikan live performances were cut from the mix, except for during the bass guitar and drum solos in 'Domino Line', and the latter-half part of 'Swear' which include the drum and rag piano solo.

Besides the title of the album being an arrangement of the band members' first and last initials, it derives the word 'mint' to imply 'a mint condition' and 'high performance'. The word 'jams' describe their live performance of which the source material was taken from.

This album is widely considered to be Casiopea's best, as it combines their live dynamism and precision with careful studio work.

Mint Jams was also Casiopea's first album to mainly feature the Yamaha GS-1 FM synthesizer, operated by Minoru Mukaiya. This synthesizer was subsequently used in many of their live-performances.

All music is composed by Issei Noro

1.    "Take Me"    4:51
2.    "Asayake"    4:58
3.    "Midnight Rendezvous"    4:57
4.    "Time Limit"    2:38
5.    "Domino Line"    7:22
6.    "Tears of the Star"    4:29
7.    "Swear"    6:48

Casiopea:

    Issei Noro – electric guitar (Yamaha SG-2000), arrangement
    Minoru Mukaiya – keyboards (Yamaha GS-1, CS-70M, CP-35, Moog Source, Roland Vocoder Plus)
    Tetsuo Sakurai – bass (Yamaha BB-2000)
    Akira Jimbo – drums (Yamaha YD-9000R), percussion

Production:

    Shunsuke Miyazumi – producer
    Satoshi Nakao – associate producer
    Norio Yoshizawa – engineer
    Atsushi Saito – assistant engineer
    Toshinao Tsukui – art director
    Masao Hiruma – illustration and design
    Kouji Suzuki – remastering engineer (2016 reissue)