RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

'Naughty Boys' might be the greatest synth-pop album ever.

very...weird.

Sakamoto's '1000 Knives' is very close to the YMO sound, more jazz less kitsch though. 'B-2 Unit' and 'Esperanto' I love to tiny bits.

The new Sketch Show record 'Loophole' has disorientingly modern production; it's glitch-o-clock. But it's really growing on me. It's currently a hyper-expensive import, I wouldn't say it's $28 worth of brilliant but if you're a YMO fanatic, you definitely want this. If it ever comes out domestically, people will be talking about it.

I'm unclear on Xoo Multiples...is it just a compilation of the first two, or are the versions of the songs on that one somehow different?

the us edition replaces the skits with several tracks from 'solid state survivor'. hopefully any new reissue will just feature the japanese edition.

early copies of the us edition of 'B-2 Unit' replaced the dissonant 'Participation Mystique' with the amazing 'Warhead', from the a-side of a 12" single. if the song you're thinking about has a one-beat slapback delay on all the human vocals and insane vocoder vocals for the chorus, that's 'Warhead'. they're both incredible songs.

Those are insane and wonderful. Anyone who complains/can't deal with hip-hop skits probably just won't know WHAT to think about these.

And I agree with milton on 'Loophole'. Pretty great album. I was surprised. The one from '02 'Audio Sponge' is good as well (higher highs, lower lows maybe).

Patrick, will definitely be listening to Naughty Boys more. I found the instrumental version a bit repetitious and grating when I listened last but I was also in a bad mood, so...

'Solid State Survivor' seconded, no contest. Then 'XXO Multiplies'.

Comparing this band with late 70's/early 80's synth pop from other countries; everywhere else, the synth sounds seemed to inevitably lead to concept pop bands focusing on either amped up irony (M's 'Pop Musik') or dehumanized alienation (Ultravox / Numan / Human League, even Moroder etc.) YMO's a bizarrely happy, kitsch party band throwing out references to video games, sleazy lounge music, happy party fun. If it's dehumanizing, they seem very happy about it. Maybe because the same technology in Japan signified unprecedented financial prosperity? I can't know. Seriously, if anyone can knowledgeably fill me in on how YMO was received in their home land, please post to this thread.

Obviously a big part of the group's concept was throwing up a funhouse mirror to the west's asian stereotypes (the Martin Denny cover, the Snakeman Show skits, the unbelievable 'Tighten Up' single: 'We Don't Sightsee, WE DANCE You Understand, Yahdee!'), but they don't seem... angry... they seem happy? Or is it actually intensely focused rage? Or... what? Huh? How?

For perspective, the only other group doing Martin Denny tributes in the late 70's was Throbbing Gristle (certainly coming from an entirely different place).

The last reissue wave was the early 90's, still one decade too soon. Hopefully they'll catch on this time.

I will cop to less familiarity with the later period and shouldn't generalize. Looking forward to checking out the reissues.

my YMO 10 right now

1. Taiso
2. Rydeen
3. Firecracker
4. Tighten up
5. Tighten up (I can do this!)
6. You've got to help yourself
7. Light in darkness
8. Nice Age (perverse!!!!)
9. Day Tripper
10. Absolute Ego Dance

B-2 Unit is indeed an excellent record. I'll have to check out 1000 Knives. I've been tetchy with Sakamoto solo releases as he's rather ...inconsistent. Haruomi Hosono's Monad Box isn't really worth it either.

I have still not ponied up for any Sketch Show releases! *forehead slap*

Ally's mom in the car when Tighten Up came on the stereo: "They sound like they're making fun of japanese people!"

I can gmail/YSI you guys sick Yamantaka eye remixes also!

Solid State Survivor's so outstanding I can't believe I didn't happen upon it earlier, the perfect synthesis of their pop orientalism and mastery of electronic texture -- the "Japanese Kraftwerk" thing really plays here, with "Behind the Mask" (bizarre history notwithstanding) something of an antidote to "The Model" (there's an absolutely hideous YouTube clip of Sakamoto playing this in the 90s that makes me shivver to even think about). "Insomnia," too, with the noirish vocoder melody that appears in the last third.

I'm only digging into BGM now, but Technodelic seems to get seriously short shrift -- the sound develops by leaps and bounds here, with "Taiso" birthing Nick Rhodes perhaps even more than Richard Barbieri ever could. Transitional, but not the worse for it. Shades of the Beatles, which would show up later on with "Lotus Love."

With Service and Naughty Boys, the music becomes extremely...digital, more symphonic. Some great stuff -- "Limbo," "Wild Ambitions" (featuring Bill Nelson's eBow pretty prominently), "Kai-Koh." These records almost sound like a different band, featuring little of the wit or bounce that kind of defines early YMO songs like "Absolute Ego Dance" and "Firecracker," with much more of an opaque Ippu-Do thing going on.

Still digging in, but with such a diverse profile, it's hard to believe these guys were left with such a niche reputation.

It's great! "Epilogue" should reduce many a grown man to sobbing.

with "Taiso" birthing Nick Rhodes perhaps even more than Richard Barbieri ever could

Clearly I meant "Light in Darkness" here.

can someone recommend some other Haruomi Hosono projects aside from YMO (solo or otherwise)?

Haruomi Hosono

Paraiso is really good. Tropical music with a bizarre electronic twist. Very odd and affecting, and quite catchy as well.
Cochin Moon is an early electronic classic. Really neat stuff.
His Nokto de la Galaskia Fervojo soundtrack is chilling, it's minimal (as is a lot of Hosono's stuff) but very cold and moving. Love it.

so glad this was revived. just found a mediafire folder with all the albums and needed some guidance.

really loving these stripped down live versions YMO have been playing this year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NTnIJ61z1w

Love the synth trumpet!

Whoah, YMO doing "Thank You For Talkin' to Me Africa"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWPbDsPYxZM&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEZ3VxGWwjM

excellent video (if you can ignore the camera effects). kinda weird to see a shorthaired 70's Hosono funking out by himself. they really did keep it tight though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0adjDQyYSI4

amazing find

i think cindy crawford is in one of those!!

hah, she is! I caught her posing dramatically with a piano while randomly skipping around.

Somebody really needs to write me a good, thorough examination on YMO and the Japanese New Wave (400 pages at least). I like the process of rooting around and finding out little bits and pieces of information but I need some cultural CONTEXT dammit!

I'm thinking that Nick Kent (the guy who runs technopop.info) could probably do something like that. YMO are interesting enough to warrant their own book but Japan is such a small country that all that stuff really ran into each other at some point. Like there's 3 degrees of seperation between pretty much every one of those bands. Most of it is probably through Harry Hosono, who seemingly appeared on everything that came out of Japan from 1976 to 1990 or so.

Too true, Hosono is a walking infographic.

a book like that would leapfrogbs to the very top of my reading list, for real

it's weird how popular ymo seem to be when reading about them, but every time i've asked a native japanese if they've heard of them, they haven't. maybe it's a generational thing?

I've experienced this a couple of times with some Japanese aged under thirty or so, although they seem to know Sakamoto for some reason.

What's interesting is that if they are aware of YMO they're often interested that a westerner would be bothered listening to 'old' Japanese music, or even Japanese music period.

yeah it seems like japanese don't have the same retromania that americans do, but i have no idea really

Somebody really needs to write me a good, thorough examination on YMO and the Japanese New Wave (400 pages at least). I like the process of rooting around and finding out little bits and pieces of information but I need some cultural CONTEXT dammit!

― Late night with Amazing Bo (MaresNest), Monday, April 1, 2013 5:42 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've not felt the urge to write about music much over the last few years, but I *really really* want to write a longform piece on Jun Togawa. Never going to happen without a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese, though.

If you want to blow the mind of a 40+ Japanese person, tell 'em you love Ippu-Do or Guernica.

I know a lot of big music nerds who have no idea who Kraftwerk are, for instance...some people just don't really care about anything older than they are

You know, I heard an phone interview on Resonance last week with Akiko Yano (interspersed with some of her music), it was a show called Clear Spot. Maybe you could speak directly to Jun herself? If she speaks Eigo of course.

emily - have you read this?
http://www.groundzeromongkok.com/2010/12/memory-and-gender-in-music-of-jun.html

oops, XP

Frogs, yeah, it's a good piece (and I love the toilet ad it links to), but I want more! I guess really I want something book-length, with a really good biographical content as well as analysis.

basically, a book version of this would be the most amazing thing:
http://park10.wakwak.com/~techno/jgenealogy.html

and yeah, togawa is really fascinating. would read all of these imaginary books.

Wow - I need to hear that Akiko Yano Resonance show.

CJV - I imagine it'll turn up in the Resonance 104 Soundcloud page if you check there in the next few days.

found it!
http://www.mixcloud.com/alberto-umbridge/akiko-yano-broadcast-on-resonancefm-25th-march2013/

Japan is such a small country

It is?

Not in terms of population, but in size - like in the US, in the 70's you had the Detroit scene, and the New York scene, and the Nashville scene, and the Chicago sound...in Japan it kinda feels like everybody knew each other and played on each others' records.

Of course theres no book about any of this so I'm just guessing here. Didn't Takahashi and Hosono produce or otherwise appear on all the YEN records stuff, which made up a large portion of Japan's new wave scene?

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8sc3sC5F91qz9lsso1_500.jpg
(sakamoto being cool)

http://chinmai.net/~ichiyanagi/img/060403/ymo.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YjYEJ9WHt4

awesome!

(cuts off halfway through, but you get the idea)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkPeDQKRpEk

The syndrum break in that BBC version is proper!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GncUycY9N34&list=PL2D3C508F366E5AD3&index=3

Confession, I have gone since about 1998 thinking that the record is called 'X∞Multiples' but it's *not* it is 'X∞Multiplies' what the fuck? I have a tour poster and everything, I feel so stupid.

For your ignorance you must relinquish your tour poster to me!

i thought it was "multiples" too until recently

I have owned two copies of this album for about a decade and also thought it was 'X∞Multiples' until 5 minutes ago so you are not alone

xp

Thankful, seriously!

It's like finding out that Dark Side Of The Moon is actually called Dark Slide Of The Moon or something.

Brimstead, I just had a look on Ebay because some guy was selling the same poster there for quite a while and they weren't expensive, but not at the minute unfortunately.

one joy of "multiplies" is that i can (mostly) understand the japanese sketches and they're fucking hilarious

It's their Neu2

holy shit, also thought this was "X∞Multiples"!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00rHV1ZGrlw

this should be on all the radios all the time

I wonder if the cover art sort of leads the mind, in this case?

The Neu! 2 comparison is sort of spot on - it's somewhere between a full-length and an EP, and it occupies a very strange space in my record collection. There isn't quite anything else like it. I still find all the sketches hilarious in their absurdity.

speaking of the xp'd vid has anyone heard zaine griff's music? figures has pretty great cover art (by peter saville):

http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-1634587-1233568008.jpeg

kate bush, yuki takahashi and hans zimmer (meh) are listed as personnel. it must've been crazy hyped at the time, right?

oops image didn't link

http://img.sharedmp3.net/files/pics/8130/8129058/img_1_pr.jpg

I subscribe to this Facebook group called YMO Stream, it is mainly Japanese dudes in their late Forties posting up loads of ephemera, tour pics, programs, tickets, pics of Tape bootlegs, it's fantastic.

http://i58.tinypic.com/2nh24o1.jpg

http://i59.tinypic.com/10ht5dv.jpg

that is amazing

whenever i hear the skits on that record i think of the skits on "the chronic."

also, I need to join that FB group. i can never get enough YMO.

"would you care for a cigarette"
"oh no thank you, i've stopped smoking"
"ah, that's good for your health"

XP - It's my favourite group, some person takes a grainy photo of say 12 of Yuki's solo seven inch singles all laid out and i'm in heaven.

that reminds me, some guy at a record store got a bunch of YMO-related singles in and offered them to me, and i totally forgot to take him up on it. i wonder if they're still available...

i don't mean he offered them for free, of course. just asked if i wanted them before he put them out on the floor.

ah, you should find out!

I joined the FB group. It's pretty excellent. I have YT as a friend and once even tried chatting with him. He's very friendly, but his English isn't so hot. Most fun: getting game requests from Keiichi Suzuki. Only time i don't mind getting them :)

just gonna https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0Ytic5OMfg

So on the YMO Facebook group mentioned upthread a Japanese gentleman posts a pic of a B2 Unit bootleg tape he's listening to, I post a comment 'Wow, would love to hear that', guy reacts in the positive, then a few days later I get a PM with a link to a FLAC file of the concert, how great is that?

really cool!

um... YSI?

yeah.... YSI indeed.

Sure, are both yr ILX emails working?

yep, thanks!!

no :(

If you paste an address up I'll send you a link.

make sure you send it to dog✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧ first

awww, titties

dogfap (at)
gmail (dot)
com

Okay, that's been sent.

yes!! thank you!!

My webmail works, I think. Hi.

zippyshare? sendspace?

thank you!

XP - It's a wetransfer d/l link that I created, I'm happy to paste it up if it won't upset any Mods.

or if you ilx msg me an email is workin for ya, I can fwd it along, amateurist

oh just post the wetransfer link, it is not a commercial release, just an important one

was just listening to 'Esperanto' this morning and was planning on moving B2 onto a playlist

but before I move it over, I'm going to rip 'Warhead' from youtube and create a version that has all the tracks from both the US and Japanese versions, I am sick of not hearing 'Warhead' after 'E3A'

Done, it's really good!

http://we.tl/w8YrNvYdTC

'LIVE NHK'

one weird mainstream! thank you

So true, I like to envisage young dudes with Sakamoto hair and Popeye clothes, hovering over their FM receivers, stressing out over the signal strength.

awesome

so, can anyone read kanji? curious about the first credit, looks like -

somebody / ryuichi sakamoto & b2 unit - live

Found this on a blog, if it helps.

Ryuichi Sakamoto (syn, p) / Hajime Tachibana (g, sax) / Sawamura Mitsuru (sax)
Robin Thompson (Sax) / Nagata Donbei (b) / Saeko Suzuki (DS) 1.Foto Musik 2.Demo # 4 (Replica) 3.The Arrangement 4.Happy End 5.Thatness and Thereness 6.Demo # 6 7.H 8.Robin's Eye 9.Piano Pillows 10. monkey and snow and garbage children 11.Dance 12.Epilogue 13.In E

oh, nice

this is great btw!!

Done, it's really good!

http://we.tl/w8YrNvYdTC

― MaresNest, Tuesday, December 23, 2014 1:05 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thanks, dude!

btw anyone else heard sakamoto's first LP.... from before YMO and his proper solo work, it's a collaboration with Toshiyuki Tsuchitori, basically a free-improv thing (very "difficult listening") with some japanese folk inflections. not a side of sakamoto that really showed up again, even though this guy has some of the widest /range/ of any musician of the last 50 years. anyway the album is called "Disappointment-Hateruma" and it can be found on certain websites that will remain nameless.

https://whatimg.com/i/rZliIk.jpg

at this point i'm not sure there is a genre that the YMO boys didn't at least dabble in. if someone uncovered an electro-polka album by hosono from 1973 i wouldn't really be surprised.

haven't heard that particular record (yet) but the seemingly endless amount of records that have some kinda ymo connection + the variety of styles you mentioned really does make it all feel more than a scene and more like another universe. so rewarding to get caught up in.

this b-2 unit bootleg is actually a great example too. the live arrangements of these familiar tracks feel very RIO prog at times, which I never heard much of on other ymo-affiliated records. so cool.

Happy Holidays my ILX bredren :) Enjoy!

http://we.tl/9VJZKrTNY9

^^^ (psst. Another live B-2 Unit recording, folks.)

clouds just sent me the Hi-Tech/No Crimes remix compilation done entirely by early 90's British electronic people (LFO/808/Orb/Orbital/etc) and it is holy-fucking-shit so so so good.

CJV - I'm intrigued, thanks so much!

Stevie, there are some Human League vs YMO mixes floating around also that are kinda cool.

http://i59.tinypic.com/lzdj6.jpg

is there any band (let alone only three-member) that did more great things as a group and among their various side projects and solo careers? mayyybe the beatles?

Great question, though to me YMO >>>> The Beatles - but I probably would've named them too.

Discounting bands like King Crimson that have had 20-some members throughout the years, what came to mind was Neu!, because then you can throw in Harmonia, those good Rother albums, La Dusseldorf, and some of Dinger's later stuff, though admittedly post say 1987 I don't think either of them were up to much good.

https://soundcloud.com/vgo/vgo-vs-korg-dsn-12-tong-poo-ymo

I got a whole Takahashi album off YouTube and it is smooth, chic 80's excellence. I don't have the link but you can find it easily enough.

ymo and the beatles aren't really good correlates, b/c the members of YMO (particularly hosono) had done a lot of great stuff before YMO even existed. more like the faces or something.

btw hosono's work as a performer and producer is kind of inexhaustible. i feel like every week i find some new album that's in the "hosono axis" that i can't stop playing. wtf is with this dude?

@idunno not the point. not trying to come up with analogies, it's just a simple question: what (standard band-sized) band has ever put out more quality stuff, under its own banner and those of its members' solo careers/side projects/outside collaborations, than YMO?

before/after, doesn't matter.

oh, i see.

what about fairport convention?

idk if this marks me a philistine or what, but i've never really scoped them out. best place to start?

also if anyone here wants to reup the various YMO-related bootlegs that've been floated itt at various intervals...plz...

I guess the self titled debut is a good place to begin. They start out as a kinda exuberant, exotic disco fantasia made with 70s electronics and as they progress it gets more arty and sophisticated but holding onto their explorative poppy edge.

Maybe S_T>BGM>Solid State Survivor>Technodelic>Naughty Boys>x∞Multiplies>Service>Technodon, I'm sure people will chime in with a different scheme but they are all worthy of attention.

If you ask me Solid State Survivor is the best starting point, it's got some of their best-known material and it's the closest to the "Japanese Kraftwerk" tag that they always seem to get. They don't really have an LP that represents them as a whole, they changed directions so fast that they were different nearly every time out. The first five in the list that MaresNest posted are all absolute essentials. Muliplies is great too (and hilarious!) but you have to be careful to not get the US version (which has 5 songs from SSS). Service I never warmed to, even without the comedy bits. Technodon is kind of a dud though I do like the live album they came out with after. Even though it's not a YMO reunion proper, Sketch Show with Hosono and Takahashi is really good too, particularly Loophole which I still listen to a lot.

By the way, just to add to the above conversation, even more incredible about these guys is that they were putting out great solo albums even as YMO was running at an album-a-year pace. Sakamoto did B-2 Unit, Left Handed Dream, and the Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence soundtrack, and Takahashi was a pop star in his own right with the Murdered by the Music, Neuromantic, and What, Me Worry? albums. Hosono only has the (great) Philharmony album but he also was producing an insane amount of material for other artists and running the YEN label with Takahashi. Not to mention how much these three guys were touring, I really don't know how they did it all

great summary, frogbs. my favorite YMO started with SSS, then BGM, then Naughty Boys, currently Technodelic. "They don't really have an LP that represents them as a whole, they changed directions so fast that they were different nearly every time out." is really true. The first thing I heard by them was Naughty Boys and it gave me a very false impression of what they were all about. Later on I heard the S/T and was astonished.

Neuromantic and What, Me Worry? are just as good as the top handful of YMO records.

Parts of Neuromantic and What, Me Worry are super Avalon/Ferry-esque.

Not sure if this has been linked before but just found this and it looks like a good resource: http://artcontext.com/artskool/jem/yt.html

soyrev, if you have a couple minutes check out http://artcontext.com/artskool/jem/index.html and click the "YMO studio/live" link on the left for an overview of their discography

sorry for posting over and over, but one more thing:

on that last link i posted, the description of SSS says "The front cover shows the band in Red Army costumes having a drink with a chairman Mao-type character and what looks like a call-girl, who on the back cover reveal themselves to be a pair of dolls ! (There exists a heavy-metal YMO tribute album whose cover parodies this one)."

anyone heard this?

I am very familiar with that webpage and have discovered a lot of awesome groups through there (For example, I had no idea that P-Model had so many albums - Mutant Sounds kinda led me to believe they only had a couple, like the Plastics). Too bad it's not really updated anymore. All three YMO members have very thorough sections on there and there are a lot of releases on there I wouldn't know of otherwise.

i think soryev was asking for a place to start re. fairport convention, no? in which case i'd say, richard and linda thompson's "i want to see the bright lights tonight"

technodelic kind of underrated IMO

xpost oh oops!

XXP - Oh shit! Apologies soryev!!!

http://youtu.be/_UtYH95kxa4

Because there can't be too much Bryan Ferry-ism in the world IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrDIr9SKHpU

I haven't heard much FC but "Sailor's life" is really awesome and kinda typifies my vision of what I want FC to be or whatever..

haha no worries karl/mare, i appreciate the gesture anyway!

but if anyone does have any YMO/-related boots lying around, that would be super cool...:)

https://soundcloud.com/factmag/mikey-iq-jones-the-essential-yellow-magic-orchestra

promo for a new Polysics EP:

https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfa1/v/t1.0-9/p180x540/10346436_924542590913526_6432228236959749198_n.jpg?oh=878a2190bcd2acb4a4ba914e1db0681a&oe=556D07AE

that YMO Stream facebook group is really really great, you should all join

man, i sort of hate the soundcloud interface; i wish there was a way to DL stuff from that site.

There is, but whoever uploads the song has to enable the download

the youtube-dl command line tool works for soundcloud too fyi

guess you need a facebook account to see the ymo group, huh? doesn't seem like it's public :-/

FB Page keeps on giving.

"I want to introduce the model today has produced five years ago.
But the world of self is the last...
In 1980, YMO world tour stage is.
Materials are sawn timber, Thong, bamboo, beads, etc.
Without seeing the reflection toward the transparent plastic plates so they might.
Since use for Christmas tree lights can have many variations.
Is, of course, not in the photo, I get sound. Well, I'll often do a ~ (-. -;"

http://i60.tinypic.com/2je2ujl.jpg
http://i57.tinypic.com/2jdjnza.jpg
http://i60.tinypic.com/2mdp3r7.jpg
http://i62.tinypic.com/155j6uo.jpg

Didn't really know where to post this as she doesn't have a dedicated thread but Sheena of Sheena & The Rokkets died today aged 61, RIP punk rock lady...!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_ZjRmZk8sc

looks like it was cancer. r.i.p. :-/

was surprised/amused when this scene happened in an episode of Hibike Euphonium (an anime about highschool marching bands)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_bhDwZEN5U

ha that's awesome

my japanese professors (in their 40s) know that tune so i guess it's not *that* surprising

it's "rydeen." you'd be harder pressed finding a japanese person who doesn't know it

I dunno how accurate this is but I see YMO as sort of a Japanese Beatles, nearly everything I've heard from Japan seems to be influenced by them in some way. Then again like 80% of the Japanese music I've listened to is technopop, but still

not really soyrev -- quite a few of the teachers, tutors and exchange students in my program i've talked to have no idea who they are.

"I dunno how accurate this is but I see YMO as sort of a Japanese Beatles, nearly everything I've heard from Japan seems to be influenced by them in some way."

not just japan. modern music. they were fundamental influences for everything from early techno to early hip-hop to early videogame music (a lot of which they composed). ask bambaataa, or anyone who went to detroit club nights in the late '80s. their influence is everywhere.

@clouds that's surprising. young and old, every japanese person i've met and talked about music with has laughed at me for asking if they know/like YMO. i have to imagine if you played them rydeen they'd at least recognize the theme.

This medley kicks fucking arse, especially the middle section of Rydeen, awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYFlk_GFB8Y

Oh man I love watching these dudes play with all that bulky equipment. Takakashi is one of the classiest drummers I've ever seen, all dressed up like that.

I bought this off eBay for like 15 bucks - pretty cool

http://coolestsound.jp/Takahashi_Yukihiro_Metafive_Techno_Recital_Takahas/2014.07.20/010395/

All of it sounds great, though I do question why he has an all-star lineup like this when they're just kinda along for the ride. Towa Tei's "Radio" is excellent and I'm really glad they perform it here.

my wife's best friends dad produced them! #namedrop

Damn!

Is that Lay My Love an Eno/Cale cover?

That it is!

Whoa that I would love to hear

Yeah, WTF, YouTube?

If you ask me Solid State Survivor is the best starting point, it's got some of their best-known material and it's the closest to the "Japanese Kraftwerk" tag that they always seem to get.

I'm listening to this album just now, I've never bought into the notion of YMO as the 'Japanese Kraftwerk' and this album is no closer to that tag than any of their others, in fact the comparison irritates me. I much prefer the BGM/Technodelic era of YMO fwiw.

OK, "Insomnia" is pretty Kraftwerk! But that is surely a homage?

For perspective, the only other group doing Martin Denny tributes in the late 70's was Throbbing Gristle (certainly coming from an entirely different place).

Nice shirt, Gen:

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/42/1242/1024/TG.jpg

Can't believe I had never noticed that

I agree - I don't think YMO is really much like a Japanese Kraftwerk, but it's a catchy two-word phrase that seems to intrigue a lot of people. I think SSS fits that description the best because it's very melody-centric, uses a lot of vocoders, and is playful and catchy the way that say, Computer World is. BGM and Technodelic are different, going beyond what Kraftwerk was capable of - all three musicians were in peak form and it really shows.

BGM and Technodelic are different, going beyond what Kraftwerk was capable of

Well, we disagree on that. Profoundly.

not so much the "Japanese Kraftwerk" as the "Japanese answer to Kraftwerk." i read that they were inspired by what was happening in Germany but didn't want to be seen as derivative of it, so they decided they were going to take a similar electronic approach but go in the opposite (maximalist) direction. seems like we'd all agree that they were successful in that, and personally i'd agree that yeah, the places they took it went beyond the pale of what Kraftwerk could or cared to do. especially if you expand that to include their solo works, productions, the greater 'YMO universe'

The progression of Hosono's interests through Folk Rock to New Orleans style R&B to Tropicalia to a kind of synthesised Tropicalia to YMO is amazing to me

all three of these guys are fucking unreal ;_;

oh and @maresnest don't forget the philharmony album, whatever the heck "pleiocene" is, or the fact that hosono is a god-tier ambient artist :_;

also i feel like i maybe asked this question somewhere on ilx before, but i read in an amazon review that philharmony (1982) "represents the first time digital sampling was ever used to construct an entire musical album." this can't be right, can it? first of all philharmony doesn't sound entirely sample-based to my ears (though i need to relisten again...it could be??), but more broadly speaking...in thinking about early sampling landmarks my mind goes to my life in the bush of ghosts from the year prior, but eno byrne and co did play a lot on that album so i guess it doesn't count. frustrating that, like so much of the YMO crew's work, very little is written in english about the album, at least as far as the internet is concerned.

also, in doing a little searching, i turned up a few vague reporrts (RA, Fact) that Hosono's Yen Records would be reissuing Philharmony "soon." those posts are from two months ago, but i can't find anything else about it. anyone know if this really happened, or is about to?

first of all philharmony doesn't sound entirely sample-based to my ears (though i need to relisten again...it could be??)

I think it could be.

.in thinking about early sampling landmarks my mind goes to my life in the bush of ghosts from the year prior, but eno byrne and co did play a lot on that album so i guess it doesn't count.

I didn't think there was any sampling on this album? All tape work?

some tracks on Philharmony sound that way, but what about something like "L.D.K."?

ah right, "digital sampling" quoth the amazon review. nevermind!

anyway going to relisten to philharmony in the morning, i remember doing so when i first read that tidbit and there were some things that didn't jive but that was a while ago and is now kinda a vague impression. either way i'll ask one of my music geek friends in tokyo for some leads :-O

patrick south otm in 2004, always loved it but Naughty Boys and its instrumental release have just claimed separate spots on my all-time favorite albums list

Cosmic Invention filling in on "technopolis" back in the day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=43&v=ifpBqHN9hGQ

bah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifpBqHN9hGQ

Lovely YMO Tumbler, loads of great magazine pics and ephemera - http://technodelic1981.tumblr.com/

Folks, some friends an I have a little internet radio show called Japan Alternative Sessions where we play lots of our favourite Japanese music going back through the decades.

Next Friday and Sunday at 8pm [UK Time] for two hours we are broadcasting our modest little tribute to YMO, choosing our favourite tracks and talking a little bit about the band but we also snagged 20 mins with the broadcaster Peter Barakan who worked with the band [and individual members] as a translator and then a lyric co-writer, it's a really interesting interview and worth hearing if, like me, you get frustrated at the lack of detailed info about the band available in English.

www.animeradio.uk

www.facebook.com/JapanAlternativeSessions/

www.mixcloud.com/JapanAlternativeSessions/

8pm UK Time BST (that's 3pm EST, or 4am the next day JST)

Don't know if I'll be able to listen in real time but I'm definitely gonna be on this when it goes up on mixcloud

dunno what took me so long, but i finally listened to Naughty Boys last week, and it is really amazing, been playing it non-stop.

this has probably been answered earlier in this thread, but any recommendations on best live albums? Are any in print?

I tend to favour the earlier live recordings, they're a little more dynamic and less poised, there's a bunch on Youtube.

The World Tour Live 1980 double set is great as is Faker Holic, both can be tracked down fairly easily.

In general I like the earlier sets, more jamming and more interesting tracklisting, with stuff like "Radio Junk" and Akiko Yano's "Rocket Factory" making appearances. Public Pressure is great, containing the definitive performance of "Tong Poo", with an awesome bass solo by Hosono. I believe Faker Holic is the same material, but without the overdubs (I believe a contract dispute led to Wantanabe's guitar parts being removed, and I think some of the vocals were redone as well), so maybe grab that one instead.

I remember liking Winter Live 1981 a lot but don't remember much about it. After Service is nice but it's more a traditional pop-superstar type live album. I actually liked their 2008 sets a lot, though it's a lot different than what you might expect.

I love After Service.. they transform/slickify "La Femme Chinois" and "Tong Poo" into cool 80s shades-wearing highway cruising jams

2ManyDJs did a YMO mix:

https://soundcloud.com/deewee-2/yellow-magic-orchestra-mix

I'm 6:15 in and "Tokimeki" by Akiko Yano came on, this totally rules

yeah, I listened to it while cleaning the house and it was pretty great. wish it had a tracklist!

Some kind soul on reddit made one:

•YMO - Rydeen (2manydjs Edit)
•YMO - Technopolis
•YMO - Hirake Kokoro -Jisieki-
•YMO - Key
•YMO - Tong Poo
•Akiko Yano - Tokimeki
•YMO - Tighten Up
•Ryuichi Sakamoto - Riot In Lagos
•Haruomi Hosono - Shambala Signal
•YMO - Be A Superman
•Taeko Onuki - Carnival
•Melon - Trance Dance International
•Sandii & The Sunsetz - An Antenna
•Tamao Koike - Sangokushi Theme
•YMO - ????
•YMO - Behind The Mask (Seiko Quartz CM version)
•YMO - Neue Tanz
•Haruomi Hosono - Platonic
•Haruomi Hosono - Hepatitis
•Ryuichi Sakamoto - Thousand Knifes
•Ryuichi Sakamoto - E-3A
•Clock On 5 - Theme From Furyo
•Ryuichi Sakamoto - Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
•Snakeman Show - 正義と真実
•David Sylvian & Ryuichi Sakamoto - Forbidden Colours
•Japan - Taking Islands In Africa (Steve Nye Remix)
•Sadistic Mika Band - Silver Child
•Sadistic Mika Band - Recording Data
•You An' Me Orgasmus Orchestra - 咲坂と桃内のごきげんいかが ワン・ツゥ・スリー
•Harry Hosono And The Yellow Magic Band - Tokio Rush
•???
•???
•Bill Nelson - Metaphysical Jerks ?
•???
•Miharu Koshi - Scandal Night
•Yukihiro Takahashi - Drip Dry Eyes
•Greg Phillangnes - Behind The Mask
•YMO - Behind The Mask (?? Remix)
•YMO - Taiso
•Ryuichi Sakamoto - Venezia
•???
•YMO - Computer Game (Theme From The Circus)
•YMO - Firecracker
•YMO - Nice Age
•YMO - Cue
•Haruomi Hosono, Shigeru Suzuki & Tatsuro Yamashita - Cosmic Surfin'

I filled out the (few) blanks I could - more often there were a lot of "I know I've heard this but I can't place it". I'm kinda impressed by the presence of those Snakeman Show tracks. Those albums are reaaaally hard to find.

I do wonder why the mix cuts off at 1986 or so (outside of the one Technodon track) - there's a lot of killer stuff in the last 30 years that would've fit really well on here

I were involved this would be 3 hours, minimum

Incase anybody is interested here's a link to the little Peter Barakan interview we did for our Radio Show's YMO special a few months ago...

https://www.mixcloud.com/JapanAlternativeSessions/japan-alternative-sessions-edition-22-ymo-special-peter-barakan-interview/

here we go...........again

this reminded me to say thanks for the Faker Holic recommendations upthread, really great.

maybe the wrong thread for this but anyone into Miharu Koshi's Hosono-produced stuff should check out the album Binasu by an artist called NV - she is from Moscow and maybe has no clue who that is but she really does nail the same sound

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXm62Ev4MYs

(no vocals on this track but it is notable for recreating the Hosono vibe which I rarely hear ANYONE able to do)

no that album totally has a miharu koshi vibe, can't be coincidence

also dip in the pool, this track could've been on it wholesale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llQcI34PMow

Wow this NV stuff is wonderful.

it really is, thanks for the recommendation. makin' my sunday morning over here, even on a thursday

speaking of Honsono produced stuff I don't think Chiemi Manabe has been mentioned on this thread?
she made one album 'Mysterious Girl' in 1982 & had various YMO alumni working on it & writing the songs
love this song in particular, written by Akiko Yano - feels a bit like Tom Tom Club?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BcacNcpQ3c

mypandashallflyyy2 months ago

Haruomi Hosono DOING THE DAMN THING ONCE AGAIN OMFG THIS GUY WTF

^^ this guy gets it

great track by the way

got "Naughty Boys" for xmas. been playing that record over and over, it's a good one!

no that album totally has a miharu koshi vibe, can't be coincidence

yea iirc there's even a track that totally bites the 'la la laaaa' melody on the haniwa all stars live album track w/mishio ogawa, she's gotta be p into this scene

title track & this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv2tS46rl1k

that just kept getting better and better - kinda Zolo-ish isn't it? love how you can pick out Watanabe's guitar style from anywhere.

anyway a quick Google search turned this up:

Hope is found elsewhere. Behind the two letters NV stands Katia Shilonosova, a young woman who also plays in the respected Moscow garage outfit Glintshake. She has a solo album to announce, called "Binasu"––published in the US by Orange Milk Records and with a title that was taken, allegedly, from the way a Japanese speaker would pronounce "Venus." The recording has been directly inspired by 1980s electronica, namely by the catalog of Lori Anderson thirty years ago. Shilonosova begins to explain enthusiastically: "She helped me to discover new layers within my own work; I opened new realms in which I'm learning to move, swim, and generally exist."

Equal enthusiasm is expressed for her KORG Poly-800 III, because of the decade it recalls. "It produced the kind of noises Haruomi Hosono was making in the early 1980s [with the Yellow Magic Orchestra]... The Japanese were experimenting with both sounds and their arrangement in the '80s. They were never afraid to sound or look silly. It was all so cool! Although Japan is a nation very faithful to its traditions, the creative people over there are really free. It blows my mind... On some Hosono tracks it sounds like they're banging pots and pans... When I first heard Haruomi Hosono, I imagined he was inviting us all into a little world somewhere. We were heading on a miniature journey with him..."

Speaking to the Moscow press, Shilonosova again name-checked Hosono's positive influence from an earlier generation. "His 'Philharmony' album [of 1982] is one of my favorites. I lost my mind when I first heard it! It's a crazy mix of dopey pop-songs about sandwiches and some kind of unreal experimental music. Until then I was really afraid of combining pop songs and strange, abstract tracks on the same recording. Thanks to Hosono, I was able to calm down! During the 1980s, none of those Japanese acts were ever afraid to look silly. They'd write goofy children's music and then pull off some unbelievably cool arrangements. Today, those same tracks sound really fashionable! That's where the future lies! Tradition can be something really severe, but Haruomi Hosono's output always expresses a real feeling of liberty––and of people doing what they want. Because... why not? That's my motto at the moment."

as far as I know this is the first time I've heard someone outside of Japan namecheck Hosono as an influence.

that's cool!

also, lol, I posted the wrong haniwa track >__< it's the one with the big 'la la laaaaa' crescendo, will post once I wrap some stuff up at work

hah I was wondering what the connection was, but that was pretty awesome nontheless

Love the Chiemi Manabe album. And it's perfect that she made just that one and basically disappeared.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xus1RBA8uCw

on hosono mega fans, there's terre thaemlitz/dj sprinkles:
http://www.comatonse.com/writings/organisedsound_8_1.html

moved to japan a long time ago, so not really 'outside of japan' but still cool imo

Oh here is a link to the Peter Barakan radio interview we did for our show where he talks about working with the band - it's about 20 mins and I had a ton more questions but I was aware he was a busy dude, but still very gracious and happy to talk.

https://www.mixcloud.com/JapanAlternativeSessions/japan-alternative-sessions-edition-22-ymo-special-peter-barakan-interview/

http://www.listentothis.info/2016/09/ice-choir-mix-for-designs-in-rhythm.html?m=1

Jessy Lanza talked about her love for YMO and all their side projects every chance she got this year, and the influence was noticeable
http://thevinylfactory.com/features/jessy-lanzas-6-essential-japanese-electro-records/

^^ will have to check out that album then. so great to see this stuff getting props now.

did enjoy that Barakan interview quite a bit. funny that Xoo Multiplies was the one that made him a convert. I do find the lyrics on the two YT albums he worked on to be fascinating - they're so weirdly literal at times, they're great but I find it hard to believe that any one person would write them that way (ditto for stuff like "Gradated Gray"). pretty amusing that BGM was slammed at its time of release - looking back now there really wasn't anything like it back then was there? is there now?

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16003157_1219981008109885_5119126157919301350_n.jpg?oh=6f35bf05ebe64b1b57fb545eea73241f&oe=5923D1D8

I really like their name.
― Alex in Doncaster (Alex in Doncaster), Tuesday, February 10, 2004 7:17 PM (twelve years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, but their music is better.
'Naughty Boys' might be the greatest synth-pop album ever.

i agree! it also might have the best name for a synth-pop album ever.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pfU9S-JxrB8/TgFldDZSqNI/AAAAAAAAFeQ/XaRV1Pn1Fos/s1600/Yellow%2BMagic%2BOrchestra%2B-%2BNaughty%2BBoys%2B-.jpg

i got this for Christmas. i love it deeply. i have known about YMO since getting into Cornelius around 1999 but i never heard this full album until this year. the sounds they use are very harmonious. it is like the perfect balance, every drum hit, every synth, it's all there and none of it is distracting or sticking out in any way. and the music is so wonderful. i have not read the translated lyrics yet but there are so many emotions and moods on this record that are very evocative. before NB i mostly knew them from "Firecracker" and other earlier stuff with the slap bass, which was wonderful but a little more on the kitschy side. NB sounds like a record that could come out tomorrow, it is timeless. i look forward to loving this album for the rest of my life.

i always keep my eye out for naughty boys. i have never seen it on the shelves!

http://i63.tinypic.com/wiqxy1.jpg

It's a great record, definitely prefer Solid State Survivor, though.

http://www.musiconvinyl.com/catalog/yellow-magic-orchestra/naughty-boys-instrumental#.WIUPcU0rJhF

this is the pressing i got. comes with the follow-up instrumental remix LP that is also awesome.

YMO mean so much to me, there's acres of depth in their respective solo careers and the endless productions, collaborations and associations, they're basically the three pillars of modern Japanese mainstream music.

I like "kimi ni mune kyun" and "kai Koh"

Was Naughty Boys meant to be a parody, or at least somewhat tongue-in-cheek? I mean the "Kimi Ni Mune Kyun" video gives it away a bit, but without understanding the lyrics it's a bit hard to tell. There's just something a bit off about it.

Do wish they'd included "Chaos Panic" because that song absolutely rules - strange they never thought to release it as a single

"Kimi ni mune kyun" roughly translated means "my heart is yours". Just another silly love song ...

Best Answer: The easiest way to say it would be, "I'm crazy about you." "Kyun " is onomatopoeia, or a word that means what it sounds like, as in "click" or "bomb." You know how your heart makes the funny sound when you think of someone you love. To put it more literally, it means "My heart is pounding hard for you."
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070315014444AASUtzi

Is there a vocal version of "chaos panic"? I just know the version on the naughty boys instrumental album. It reminds me of "girls just wanna have fun"

Yeah - it's on the Greatest Hits album I have (Kyoretsu na Rhythm). Definitely one of the hookiest songs they ever did.

"Chaos Panic" is cool but it doesn't sound like Naughty Boys to me at all – it sounds much more in keeping w Hosono's stuff ca. S.F.X and Philharmony.

Honesty, I've always been a bit torn on Naughty Boys – the Japanese verses make things a bit inscrutable and musically it sounds like a completely different band from the first several records, with Sakamoto's heavy synth pads and Takahashi's gated drum sounds replacing the Kraftwerk-ian production from before. I stupidly sold this back in college but "Lotus Love" was the only song that really had stuck with me. Listening back now, the rest ("Expected Way," "Focus," etc.) still sounds largely like kind of generic J-pop, albeit with sometimes slightly more melodic choruses.

For my money, I'm a much bigger fan of BGM's development of their sound but I'll give this another shot.

it most definitely is a different band - though to be fair most of their records sound completely different, to me

I agree with most of what you're saying, but with one caveat - it may sound like generic J-pop, but to me it's kind of the perfect J-pop album - I love every song on it.

there is nothing generic about Naughty Boys -- no another album like it. if you have an example of 80s j-pop with production that dense and detailed, show me please.

Yea I'm referring mostly to the songwriting there. Though even then, songs like "Lotus Love" are quite strange - hard to think of another by-the-numbers ballad that seems to be constantly fallonh apaet like that.You're right that its got a very unique sound to it.

Ok phoneposting is weird :)

Can anyone recommend a J-pop album with songs as good as Naughty Boys? As much as I love earlier YMO albums and members' contemporary solo albums (especially Technodelic, B-2 Unit, and Philharmony), Naughty Boys is my favorite--it's just one perfect song after another. If it's "generic J-pop," then please give me more of that shit.

Surprisingly tough, Naughty Boys is a high bar, Tadiama by Akiko Yano perhaps?

not into picking apart songcraft, esp w synthpop, where the sound of things is the main appeal.

i like other YMO albums but they are more recognizable as bands in the studio playing instruments, where "Naughty Boys" sounds like it fell from the sky wholly formed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4cyBlFs_RY

The commercial for BGM included there is wtf, wish it was longer.

omg. thank you. this is awesome.

There are so many cool YMO things out there like this. i've been listening to them regularly for several years now and i still feel like i'm barely scratching the surface

one of YMO's early producers' son is the director of atlanta.

these fuji tape commercials are amazing

Rabbit hole awaits you - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbjcQtiyNcA

<3<3<3<3

Thank you mates nest !
Does anyone have mp3s of these?

So glad to see YMO threads at the top of ILM so often. I have dug around for YMO-related albums for years and I can tell you the three I think are the best. I should mention that my favorite YMO is their first album.

The first is Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto. I think this is his best album and a must-listen for any YMO fan. I would share a Youtube video, but this album appears to be scrubbed from Youtube.

The second is Unit by Logic System. This is the side project of Hideki Matsutake, sometimes called the unofficial fourth member of YMO, although he should have been an official member because they wouldn't have sounded the same without him.

The third is Orient by Hiroshi Sato. I think this album is an absolute gem. Hosono plays bass on this album and it's clearly very in line with what YMO were trying to do -- in fact, Sato was one of the first musicians Hosono approached to be in YMO, though he declined. He later appeared on their albums and on tour, and is considered part of the 'YMO family'.

Thousand Knives and Orient were released in the late 70s, when YMO was at their best, IMO. If you like this side of YMO, I would recommend the stuff Hosono did for the CBS Mastersound series. Also check out the "Summer Nerves" album by Ryuichi Sakamoto & Kakutougi Session, and Sakamoto's collaborations with Kazumi Watanabe.

YMO is in my top 3 bands of all time, but I think they were downhill from Technodelic on. And unfortunately, most YMO-related material seems to come after this point, so it has a more J-Pop sound and less of their original sound, which i think of as a combination of experimental electronica, jazz fusion, disco and self-referentially oriental exotica.

I have a disc of sakamoto's commercial music, it's positively delightful. Contains akiko yano singing the most beautiful song about diapers ever

hiroshi sato is fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUQjdwRno5g

Question about this Hiroshi Sato album: Discogs lists it as a compilation (from 1985). If this is true, what does it compile, and from which albums? Japanese characters make it impossible to tell. I really love Orient but that's the only one I've heard so far, and I really love this "Say Goodbye" song and need more of that pronto

I am busy spending my morning face down on a pillow, but you could probably just dump the text into google translate and it'll point the way

"This album released in 1985 has become sought after album for the 80’s Japanese boogie lovers. It features a revisited version of “Sweet Inspiration” originally released on Hiroshi’s previous LP Sailing Blaster in 1984. This album also contains the amazing track “Say Goodbye” that was originally released on his 1982 album Awakening (featuring singer Wendy Matthews)."

Is all I could find

Thanks! I've done a little poking around and it looks like I need to buy a copy of Awakening.

Only on ILX can I, while waiting for tea to steep, innocently open a thread about YMO--a group I like based on the three albums of theirs I own--and find myself, two days later, in a deep city pop rabbit hole, desperately trying to outbid vaporwavers on eBay

wimmels, i'm pretty sure it's a comp of singles and non-album tracks but i might be wrong. there are no tracks from orient afaict.

These Miharu Koshi records may be of related interest too, if you didn't already know them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASUSdIw4n9o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adUYFXLPZbI

xp yeah, I noticed that, but only because Orient is the first one I downloaded and, while good, none of it reaches the heights of "Shiny Lady" or "Say Goodbye" imo

Non-album tracks, though, that's too bad, because as far as I can tell, This Boy is a relatively tough one to find (though probably a lot easier to find than the original singles!)

xp thanks! Don't know these at all. Pretty new to this stuff in general. This thread has been awesome / devastating in this regard

^^^

It might be my favorite ILM thread

City pop in a non vaporwave, irony free way has definitely been making some kind of small comeback among Japanese musicians and producers it seems.

Toki Asako's new record Pink for instance is pretty upfront about it, using producer Tomi Yo who is regarded a a big City Pop stan.

Okay I always try to resist mentioning mine and my friends little radio show and sounding like a shill but I've caved in, mainly because we do play a lot of late 70s early 80s stuff of this stripe and the inevitability of a YMO connection is at the running joke stage, particularly Hosono.

It seems the more we keep digging the more great stuff we find that they've had a hand in somehow, be it mentoring, producing, releasing, guesting, it's madness and unending.

Kate NV's album "Binasu" has that Hosono-produced Miharu Koshi vibe all over it (did I already mention this upthread. If so - sorry).

The YMO-produced rabbithole can be a great one to fall into. For me the Akiko Yano albums that had YMO - or iterations of - playing with Sakamoto producing are the top example of how wonderful this stuff can be.
Hosono-produced stuff can go from shiny, glorious synth/sample based pop to fairly standard commercial production. As the '90s loomed the guys seemed to fall in love with cheesy "rave" sonics and lost much of their charm. I like the glitchy "clicks-n-cuts" approach of HASYMO and the Hosono/Takahashi collabs of the early '00s but - again - they seem to have gotten stuck in this sound, or at least Sakamoto has, for the last 10 years or so.

more ppl need to hear binasu

I will confess I am struggling a bit with Hosono's singing voice. Assuming I'm alone on this one?

it took me a while but now i love his weird voice

There's a ... a...."Sesame Street" quality to his voice that I find comforting.

Kate NV's album "Binasu" has that Hosono-produced Miharu Koshi vibe all over it (did I already mention this upthread. If so - sorry).

frogbs mentioned it earlier:
RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

and i fucking love that album. it's one of my favorites of 2016 in retrospect

Oh yeah! Thanks frogbs - I discovered "Binasu" through that post!

me too! i have found very little about NV elsewhere. i have no clue who she is but whatever she releases next is my most anticipated release

Never had a problem with Harry's voice, it took me a long time to get used with Yukihiro's excessive Bowie/Ferry/Sylvian style though.

Oh man, this thread has got me looping Hosono's 'Pleocene' over and over, it's truly the best thing ever.

Recent Kate NV interview. there's a cool solo live set up on YT as well - just her and a couple of instruments doing "Binasu" stuff. And she's gorgeous.

http://thequietus.com/articles/19916-nv-glintshake-kate-shilonosova-interview

Actually meant to post this recent interview. Other link is a year old.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-glimpse-of-alternative-russia-through-the-music-of-kate-nv

Binasu is the only time I've gotten the Hosono vibe from an album that he wasn't directly or indirectly involved with. It's such an odd thing to replicate - all of Hosono's work feels surreal and strange to me, even when he's not trying to be. He's kind of on another planet.

Never heard Hiroshi Sato before, kind of amazing there are YMO-related albums I haven't heard yet given my decade-plus obsession with tracking everything down. So much good stuff there. Glad Akiko Yano was mentioned b/c her stuff is seriously amazing, even outside the YMO-collab period. She can really sing too. This song - so freakin great. Plus that has got to be one of the best album covers ever.

https://youtu.be/-MK9V7S3XuQ?t=12m

I have dug around for YMO-related albums for years and I can tell you the three I think are the best.

god, I couldn't even imagine paring it down to three. Hosono's Paraiso would definitely be the first one though.

How do you guys rate Pacific?

Hosono-produced stuff can go from shiny, glorious synth/sample based pop to fairly standard commercial production. As the '90s loomed the guys seemed to fall in love with cheesy "rave" sonics and lost much of their charm. I like the glitchy "clicks-n-cuts" approach of HASYMO and the Hosono/Takahashi collabs of the early '00s but - again - they seem to have gotten stuck in this sound, or at least Sakamoto has, for the last 10 years or so.

yea this is pretty much spot on. so weird hearing Hosono do straight techno stuff in the mid 90's, still kind of strange though. Medicine Compilation (not actually a compilation) has some great stuff on it. N.D.E. I never got into. Sakamoto fell into some bad habits in the early 90's too, trying to do overly commercial pop stuff that IMO just wasn't very good. not surprising that the YMO reunion album was kind of a dud. for what it's worth Takahashi had a bit of a career renaissance in the 90's; his late 80's period is where he really fell off, but from like '95 on he really seemed to find himself again. he has a song that's like a half-cover of Underworld's "Jumbo", it's incredible.

really wish Sketch Show would've gone beyond the two albums. I thought Loophole was really special.

Pacific is bad smooth ez jazz "fusion" (speaking as someone who likes that kind of stuff) BUT the early version of "cosmic surfing" (the only electronic song on the album) is vital to the YMO story

Love "Loophole". To me the last great YMO tune was this
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mnPkiVRbJts

omg no pacific is the best kind of library jazz

to each his own, it gets much too "sweet" for my tastes

yeah, was hoping more for American Garage circa Metheny vibes but listening now, it's nowhere near as awesome as that. Not hating it though, it might perfectly slot into my life at a late date, but right now there's too much other stuff on this thread to binge on

I'd highly recommend asami kado's la fleur bleue. takahashi produced that one & it's basically the optimal ver of his more sentimental style. great record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFIJtZjISWo

he does backing vocals on this too right? definitely sounds like a number of YT tunes.

I'm guessing most of you have heard this, but if not - Akiko Yano's "Rose Garden" is on another planet. Up there with anything YMO themselves did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRSm1osRINo

sure sounds like it but I've never been able to find a physical copy for a reasonable price :-/

tadaima is so great.

anyone familiar with her stuff from the 90s on? I caught her live a few years ago and it was she was def in jazzy singer songwriter mode. it was fun but I for sure gravitate towards her electronic records & I get the sense that's the style for much of her later material. but I'd be interested in some highlights if anyone knows this stuff.

mega dated 90s fun with photoshop techno cover for go girl is making me want to start there:
https://www.discogs.com/Akiko-Yano-Go-Girl/release/3731210

These Miharu Koshi records may be of related interest too, if you didn't already know them.

there are some really cool music videos of her on youtube

You may want to check out the yanokami records then - a collab between her and Rei Harakami. sadly Harakami passed on at a rather young age. Here's a cover of Sylvian/Sakamoto's "Bamboo Music", with Yoshinori Sunahara (ex-Denki Groove, now in METAFIVE) taking over Harakami's role:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WnjiGYxsRI

the other song I found from that performance is great too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG8OjWhFMlE

For the most part I don't know her 90's stuff too well - I think I've heard her 91 album Love Life and it was incredibly pretty, as is basically everything she's done. But if you're looking for more stuff like Tadiama that ain't it. Her latest (Welcome to Jupiter) is full of younger collaborators and seems very interesting, but I've only heard a couple tracks (which were great). In general she seems like the sort of artist who has a lot of great stuff but you have to know which albums are which since there are a lot of solo piano and covers discs in her catalogue.

mega dated 90s fun with photoshop techno cover for go girl is making me want to start there:
https://www.discogs.com/Akiko-Yano-Go-Girl/release/3731210

that reminds me, there is a sort-of guide here - not updated since 2005 though
http://technopop.info/ay.html

Go Girl

(@) 99.8.4 Epic cd: ESCB 2006

This one has sort of high tech album art. While not at all old fashioned, its not the sort of techno collage music the cover looks like. It was recorded with American musicians and Jeff Bova (the Hammonds) co-produces about half the album with her (she the other half, he shows up on most tracks). Her son Futa Sakamoto sings backup on a track. Enjoyable, plenty of synths, though no, as I like to call them, synth thrills.

Why hasn't more Japanese music spread on digital paysites? I did see P-Model's Perspective and Another Game was released two years ago on mp3.

I'd guess it's bc japan's record industry has been slow to adapt to streaming services in general. there was almost nothing on spotify a few years ago unless labels outside of japan put out the records (e.g. sakamoto). but I've been noticing that newer acts are frequently on there lately. noticed just about all of the suiyoubi no campanella catalog went up when their first major label record dropped, presumably bc they are being marketed towards a younger demographic? (catalog acts like ymo, yano, etc. are still largely absent.)

and thank you for the yanokami rec! familiar w/yano & harakami (r.i.p.) but not this collaboration. cool!

it's been strange to see things pop up on the US iTunes store that has no Western presence whatsoever - the new Denki Groove album just went up on there, I also found the latest by Yasuyuki Okamura (!!) and Ryukyudisko (!!!). strange because this is not stuff you'd normally find on file sharing services, or even what.cd when that was up. it's funny to search through all the usual channels and come up empty and then to be like...oh, it's on iTunes

The Denki Groove album is on amazon too.

And for supreme Hosono production beauty you can't pass up Chiemi Manabe. It's criminal how much this album goes for on Discogs. This def. needs a quality vinyl reisssue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BcacNcpQ3c

Rei Harakami's own records are all pretty great too, particularly 'Lust'

anyone familiar with her stuff from the 90s on? I caught her live a few years ago and it was she was def in jazzy singer songwriter mode. it was fun but I for sure gravitate towards her electronic records & I get the sense that's the style for much of her later material. but I'd be interested in some highlights if anyone knows this stuff.

I love 2004's Honto No Kimochi, a really great mixture of styles even getting close to some raucous Number Girl style guitar pop, also featuring Harakami on a couple of tracks.

that sounds great. will check it out soon, thank you!

how is the new denki groove? they're all p good, so I imagine that it's at least p good

XP - Welcome, ping an mail to my profile address (not the webmail link) and I'll send it to you.

I'm saving it for a bit later :) but the samples I've heard have been good. the album title seems to give away the album's overall sound

I'm probably not the guy to ask though since I love pretty much everything they've done, so I'm just gonna say that yes, it's excellent.

cool :)

and xp - appreciate that but I have a copy. gave it a cursory listen yesterday. 行かないで is beautiful. will need to spend some more time w/it.

also randomly tried out yano's elephant hotel, and wow, some really great songs on here. super eclectic; working in a large variety of styles & sounds. sounds like a lot of session players to me. very nice.

here's something I happened across - a cover of Hosono's "Sports Men" by Kimonos, a duo featuring Leo Imai. covering Hosono's stuff is tough but I think they nailed it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gi8futLRbM

Sports Men is one of my favourite Hosono solo tracks and that's a really fantastic cover

just want to say that I totally love the two yanokami albums & thanks for the rec frogbs

no problem - they're definitely very cool albums

by the way I've been really digging the new Denki Groove...it's longer and less refined than anything they've done since their comeback, with a number of extended tracks and a lot of great melodies (as usual). definitely going on my year end list.

Another great member of the YMO family is Masayoshi Takanaka:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv_YC56zq4c

He was the guitarist on YMO's first (and best, I think) album. The song above has Sakamoto on keys, and while discogs doesn't credit him for writing or arrangement, it's clear he co-wrote the song. Compare it to Tong Poo and Sakamoto's influence is unmistakable.

Here's another with Sakamoto on keys.

Here's a rare example of all four YMO members coming together on a non-YMO album. Even Matsutake is on this one:

Rajie - Giraffe Landscapes (1979) -- you can hear Tong Poo again, Behind the Mask, the elements are there. Unmistakably YMO.

just snagged this during last night shopping spree

http://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/ijcAAOSwo3pWctwE/s-l200.jpg
http://www.ebay.com/itm/YELLOW-MAGIC-ORCHESTRA-YMO-YMO-USA-YELLOW-MAGIC-ORCHESTRA-2-VINYL-LP-NEW-/332158065189

Lucky you, that's the best YMO album. That pre-Jpop YMO is so embedded in every anime and NES soundtrack. Japanese to the core.

YMO user's guide in Wire issue 404

Cool, I might keep an eye out for that.

Me too, I bought an old Wire mag from Ebay with a really nice Hosono interview recently.

I think I hit the motherlode today.

Kamiya - Mu (1980) The whole album is amazing.

Osamu Shoji - Night Flight (1979) Also amazing all the way through.

Himekami - 年 全辑 (1981) This album is great and the one after is pretty good too.

None of these are in the YMO family but the sound is exactly right for what I want. Hope you enjoy.

wow @ the Kamiya one, I can't figure out which tune from the YMO s/t that's modeled after because it basically sounds like every one of them

the other ones sound a lot better to me, will definitely be checking both those out

Good to see this thread being revived again. I've been obsessively listening to Sakamoto's Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia this week. Such a wonderful album.

i started listening to a youtube playlist after the Kamiya song, and it eventually led to this, which i think is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRza12FLW4

especially the part after the breakdown, around 2 minutes in. siiiiick
1983, i think.

Right on, 3x5!

love Night Flight.

<3 been on a major YMO kick this year too. i want to hear "Simoon" on a constant loop for the rest of my life

awesome will check those recs.

These days, my main YMO jam is Technodelic, which some seems more fun to me than BGM, and the songs are a little less obscured by the recording/technology. It's weird that a lot of people lump YMO into the "sounds like Kraftwerk" bucket, because they were really a different thing altogether. I almost want to look at them as a (fairly radical) extension of exotica composers like Les Baxter and Martin Denny, but using modern technology.

totally and the reclaiming of "Firecracker" is the gateway.

id also put The Ventures in that list.

posting here bc i think y'all will enjoy it + the production is v honoso i(y)mo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17OeCznSm5I

xxp yea I think a comparison like that makes more sense if you consider them to be an offshoot of what Hosono was doing from 76-78, though they quickly evolved into their own thing. it's nuts that the self-titled and Technodelic were only three years apart.

I agree that Kraftwerk comparisons are mostly bogus, if only because these guys were actual musicians and the stuff they wrote was a lot more melodically complex than anything Kraftwerk could do. That said I don't really mind the label, it gets people interested

right now one of my favorite YMO things is this tune from Akiko Yano from when YMO was essentially her backing band. it's 8 minutes long and feels a bit like a showtune medley. there's an amazing electronic drum freakout about halfway through. I feel like this album is up there with anything YMO did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk8NScB_R7Q&t=2675s

there's such a richness/depth to their compositions, they obviously know a lot about classical and tin pan alley (ha) type stuff

xpost One of my absolute favorite albums. Pretty much perfect straight through. Was listening to this and Tadaima before bed last night.

Love the "choir" vocals (throughout both those albums) and tonal shifts in that tune.

I've somehow ignored YMO until recently (maybe because I confused them with ELO, who I also don't listen to?), but finally ended up here after going down a Youtube hole of Haruomi Hosono stuff, all of which is just insanely ahead of its time.

ya Tadaima is maybe even better, though it's just a single instead of a double. gotta love when a skilled and generally tasteful musician just goes off the deep end.

I think it's pretty difficult, and rare, to get the YMO sound right. Honestly, I think YMO stopped getting YMO right towards the end of their careers, and all the solo and Yen records stuff that came after misses the mark and goes into the generic J-pop bin, for me.

For me, the YMO sound is their early sound: self-consciously electronic, self-consciously Japanese, informed by their disco/fusion/lounge sensibilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE2DQQhGam4

Jazzy chord progressions with a pentatonic melody over the top. Perfect.

hell yeah

Ehhh see I disagree. I think they began losing it after Technodelic. The earlier stuff is kitschier and has Hosono's sensibilities reigning heavily over everything. I think BGM and Technodelic sound like no one else at that time.

But it's all great and I don't want to come across like Turrican or something lol.

I agree that Kraftwerk comparisons are mostly bogus, if only because these guys were actual musicians and the stuff they wrote was a lot more melodically complex than anything Kraftwerk could do.

This is unfair. Hütter, Schneider and Bartos were all classically trained. Kraftwerk's minimalistic style was a deliberate aesthetic choice.

brimstead knows what I'm talking about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLUgH6ztFes

84 maxell commericial, music by sakamoto. there is a longer version available on two different comps of his commericial/tv work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ25BzokNNU

i love the wireless headsets they used in this performance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4JwpaTnz2U

This doesn't sound much like YMO, though it's also from the same time, also from Japan, also weird electronic pop. Basically I just came across it, love it, wanted to share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHGqvYVfpEU

It's weird that a lot of people lump YMO into the "sounds like Kraftwerk" bucket, because they were really a different thing altogether.

It's not weird at all - I mean, I can see why people have a tendency to lump YMO in with Kraftwerk, even though at the same time I can see why they shouldn't be lumped together.

I agree that Kraftwerk comparisons are mostly bogus, if only because these guys were actual musicians and the stuff they wrote was a lot more melodically complex than anything Kraftwerk could do.

Kraftwerk were also "actual musicians" and were indeed more than capable of writing melodically complex music, but they made a conscious decision to simplify and limit themselves.

I don't want to come across like Turrican or something

I don't think you've got anything to worry about.

Guess I was unaware of Kraftwerks musical prowess...haven't really heard them play

The prog/fusion musicianly aspect of YMO is the part that interests me least.

Kraftwerk being able to play makes sense and seems evident in a lot of their earlier jammy stuff. "Autobahn" is a 22 minute long song. you can't really sustain a single song for that long if you don't know how to play.

melodic complexity is overrated. it's fine if you have it but it's entirely unnecessary compared to rhythmic invention at least in the modern/pop sphere imo.

YMO seems born out of Japan studio pros, almost more like a synth Led Zeppelin

Yeah I don't know I always thought kraftwerk came from the academy whereas the ymo guys had been woodshedding in bands and jazz combos or something

Not that a group can't do/be both

Hosono was in Happy End who were very successful, kinda like Japan's answer to The Band or CSNY, Takahasi was the drummer for Sadistic Mika Band who had a fair amount of reach into the west, only Sakamoto came from an academic background, studying music composition.

https://image.ibb.co/ccnaLm/22853297_10155371537889877_6830628044043759678_n_1_2.jpg

need some context

It's hanging in the Gare de Paris-Est I believe. There's an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou Metz about contemporary Japanese design.

http://www.centrepompidou-metz.fr/en/japanorama-new-vision-art-1970

This is a slightly bizarre debate. Kraftwerk weren’t total noobs—Hütter and Schneider went to music school—but they weren’t Can or YMO either in the sense that they weren’t already somewhat established as players and composers by the time they got together. Compositionally and performance-wise, their early stuff (Tone Float, I and II, Ralf and Florian) reflects this.

That said, if you cannot hear an enormous (and wonderful) debt to Kraftwerk in a song like Insomnia from Solid State Survivor you have rocks between your ears.

definitely - KW's fingerprints are all over SSS. their instrumental skill comes out on their other records though, particularly the live ones - Public Pressure has some really great performances on it, and I think the work they did on those Akiko Yano albums are top notch. I kinda wish they'd explored that side even more. Even now in a band like Metafive, it's kind of astounding how good a drummer YT still is, even though he (I assume) hasn't really played much in decades.

Much of the very recent live work has seen YMO adopt a more straightforward “band” sound; the No Nukes 2012 album feels really live. And yes, Takahashi is an astonishing drummer.

YMO is amazing and Kraftwerk are a joke band

YMO are both those things

i like this youtube comp of 1980-era recordings:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anxRQNWiVW4

SIDE 1
0:00 - 1. School of Thought [Sakamoto]
4:14 - 2. Tighten Up (Japanese Gentlemen Stand Up Please!) [Bell]
7:56 - 3. Blue Colour Worker [Hosono]
12:28 - 4. Riot in Lagos [Sakamoto]
18:04 - 5. Citizens of Science [Sakamoto]
22:29 - 6. Bijin-Kyoshi at the Swimming School [Takahashi]

SIDE 2
26:40 - 7. Nice Age [Takahashi]
30:24 - 8. Multiplies [YMO/Bernstein]
33:20 - 9. Stop! in the Name of Love [Holland/Dozier/Holland]
36:35 - 10. Thatness and Thereness [Sakamoto]
39:47 - 11. The Core of Eden [Takahashi]
45:59 - 12. The End of Asia [Sakamoto]
47:32 - 13. Here We Go Again (Tighten Up) [Bell]

Tracks 1, 3, 6, 9 and 11 originally from 'Murdered by the Music' by Yukihiro Takahashi.
Tracks 2, 5, 7, 8, 12 and 13 originally from 'X∞ Multiplies' by Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Tracks 4 and 10 originally from 'B-2 Unit' by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

i like this because i always wish X∞ Multiplies was a full album, without all the comedy sketches, and this kind of feels like that.

that's nice, always felt like Xoo Multiplies & Murdered by the Music were companion albums

This may have been shared out elsewhere, but it's ace -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn5biK_zfC4

sunday's soundtrack:

Live all day with a day of Haruomi Hosono / YMO dedicated radio - tune in at https://t.co/Fu5KNRhKIi pic.twitter.com/rQJkwnKLL1

— NTS Radio (@NTSlive) November 26, 2017

https://www.nts.live/schedule/2

A 15-hour tribute to the influential Japanese songwriter, Haruomi Hosono, known from his prolific productions and work in the electronic trio, Yellow Magic Orchestra. Expect mixes exploring his career and adjacent music from NTS' most dedicated Hosono-philes.

looks like visible cloaks is going to be doing a YMO/hosono set a couple hours from now, and then light in the attic a little bit later

one more thing, sorry. i really liked a song that came on near the end of jen monroe's set, and shazam revealed that it's this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmScAoPrg_I

"zoot kook", from eating pleasure (1980) produced by hosono. the album also features "drip dry eyes", coming out a year earlier than takahashi's version on Neuromantic.

Any possibility this can be listened to at a later time? The livestream/podcast whathaveyou thing that rocked your world today?

i'm not sure! i hope so, because i'm going on my 6th hour of listening and it's been phenomenal. perfect sunday afternoon music.
i accidentally recorded a 2 hour portion of it earlier this afternoon (i meant to record just a certain bit but forgot to hit stop), so at least i'll have part of it!

Would love to hear it! (it's bordering on Monday morning here, still perfect)

there's still about an hour left! i kind of have things i need to get going on but i feel the need to stick it through til the end

Easy for you to say, I'm staring a four hour night max in the eye here! Stick to it, and I'm sure it will surface somewhere. But it sounds like something that's hard to come by for relatively illiterate YMG and related stuff peoples like me.

good news, it looks like it'll all be archived on NTS either monday or tuesday!

Aw yes!

The NTS Hosono Day shows are now all up on Mixcloud (where NTS archive everything) - I've made a playlist here:
https://www.mixcloud.com/mnida/playlists/nts-hosono-day/

(I *think* this was the broadcast order - I can't seem to find the schedule online - but do let me know if there's any corrections!)

oh man, that's great, thank you! the only thing i might suggest is adding the artists/tracktitles for each show, at least the ones that were made available (unless you already did and i didn't see them?).

the playlists for each show are at https://www.nts.live/recently-added
some of the shows didn't include a playlist (like the japan blues set: https://www.nts.live/shows/haruomi-hosono-ymo-day/episodes/japan-blues-hosono-26th-november-2017)
but others did, like the visible clouds set (https://www.nts.live/shows/haruomi-hosono-ymo-day/episodes/visible-cloaks-hosono-26th-november-2017)

No worries - although I didn’t actually upload these to Mixcloud, NTS use it to archive everything, I just assembled the playlist so everything’s in one place. So am afraid I can’t add track lists to the uploads - although doesn’t Mixcloud sometimes attempt to auto identify tracks?

The Visible Cloaks mix is terrific, as you’d expect.

I had a listen to that imaginary 1980 YMO album linked upthread and it's terrific - flows really nicely and all the tracks feel of a piece, which does make you realise how the later YMO albums were effectively collections of solo tracks.

Also interesting how closely Takahashi's solo stuff tracks whatever YMO were doing at the time. His work is less routinely praised than Hosono or Sakamoto, but you get the impression he was a seriously dominant force in YMO sessions.

Takahashi's solo stuff is all really well done, though perhaps a bit too much in the new romantic vein for me a lot of times. I don't see him as any less of a force in that band than the others, especially after the first album or two

good time to mention that one of my favorite YT tracks is finally on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4vBXABbsFE&feature=youtu.be&t=25m26s

pretty easy to figure out what "influenced" this but I still love it

I do buy the idea that Takahashi was the dominant force in the group - despite his many diversions into AOR and Burt Bacharach-inspired schmaltz he's always had the technopop thing in his back pocket

which track is it? (the youtube video is down, at least for me)

"00" from The Dearest Fool

oh cool, thanks! i haven't heard anything from that album. there is a lot to go through.

while googling for dearest fool i ran across a feature on solo material (http://mostly-retro.com/2017/01/22/ymo-101-the-solo-records/), which has probably been linked here before. part of a 6-part YMO series

oh man, that looks like a fun read. I think he nails it with Takahashi's discography - every single YT album I've heard has at least one killer track but as a whole those mid-80's/early 90's discs were pretty bad. from '95 on I think everything he did is worth hearing. there's a live album from '98 that I'm particularly fond of.

Ah no --- THIS is the site for info on YMO and YMO related musics. Hasn't been updated in almost a decade but I think it's still essential information. http://artcontext.com/artskool/jem/index.html

oh yeah, that's definitely the source! it's much comprehensive, and i've browsed through there many a time. i just linked to the mostly-retro set of pieces for a different angle on it.

I came to that site a long time ago for information on the group and had no clue about any of the artists on the sidebar, outside of Polysics. A decade later I think I know nearly all of them, outside of some of the *real* obscure ones. Awesome website.

xp wow thanks bamboohouses for putting that together

Not sure when this happened, but the YMO back catalogue has popped up on both Spotify and Apple Music here in the UK - they’ve never been on any streaming services over here previously.

!!!! Same in the us!!!

It happened about two/three weeks back.

why was i not notified?

I did actually post it up in the 'bands absent from Spotify' thread, should have done here too, sry :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aH501zC0qk

i'm once again listening to the NTS mixes of hosono and YMO-related material that were discussed upthread. i really liked this one, written by Hosono, which comes in about half of the way through Light in the Attic's mix:

https://www.nts.live/shows/haruomi-hosono-ymo-day

it's fairly pleasant but run of the mill Buggles style new wave until the chorus kicks in, which is just heavenly

oops, wrong link. meant to post this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD3J6NIe3-k

probably a weird comp but it reminds me of the giddy feeling i would have a kid when listening to manic monday

as a kid. i haven't had any given birth to any children via the bangles (yet)

https://i.imgur.com/Iz2XAHV.png

"Technopolis"really is a masterful piece of music. Packed with melodies, funky, weird, tense, exciting, elegant...

And I guess really it's very "triumphant" sounding, overall

this Akiko Yano tune is so gorgeous - I apparently 5-starred it on iTunes long ago but never gave it another listen. oops!!

https://soundcloud.com/technopop2000/akiko-yano-assembly-1984-2016-remaster

while fruitlessly searching for it on Youtube I came across this, a duet with her and Hiromi Uehara - never seen Hiromi live, she's such a beast - amazing that Akiko can keep up with her at all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKQ3Hr5INTA

wow, she puts the percussion into the piano. she's amazing!

whoa that duet is great thanks... gonna have to check out their albums.

"assembly" isn't very representative of the album it comes from.

Things you find out from YouTube comments threads: Haruomi Hosono's grandfather was the only surviving Japanese passenger of the Titanic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masabumi_Hosono

Hosono's story remained a source of shame for his family for decades. He never spoke of it himself, though his letter to his wife was published at least twice, after his death and in 1980 when an unsuccessful bid was mounted to find the wreck of Titanic.[1] In the late 1990s, the Hosono family released the letter to the media[2] in the wake of James Cameron's hugely successful 1997 film Titanic. Haruomi Hosono, Masabumi's grandson and leading member of the band Yellow Magic Orchestra, declared that he was "extremely relieved. Honour has been restored to the Hosonos." As Julian Stringer puts it, the letter "enables Haruomi to build a 'bridge' back to his father's emotional life, and so reverse years of social disgrace, through the symbolic properties encrusted in its patina."

i just learned about this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgvJkWmdnkg

Yeah, a poll of all the versions would be interesting.

new kate nv album alert. haven't listened to it, but i look forward to doing so tomorrow

hah, good thread to put that in. I had no idea

https://preview.ibb.co/hVq178/ytrs.jpg

xpost

ha, yeah i think this is the only thread she's mentioned in. i have to admit i'm bummed there's (almost) no singing on her new one. most of the album plays out like a more chilled out version of the instrumental tracks on Binasu. i always liked those tracks, but her ability to channel that vibe into pop songs was what made Binasu one of the best albums of 2016 (imo)

yup, it's very good but it's no Binasu.

listening now, this is kind of like her Monad album huh? not sure what to think of it yet

I met with a piece of legend at Yukimasa Okumura’s studio last night...
昨日は久しぶりに奥村靫正さんの事務所へ。いつも通りの軽やかな感じで「こんなの出てきたんだよ〜」って、こ、これは…(！)#YMO#BGM#TECHNODELIC pic.twitter.com/aA4lbZgRKn

— 古平正義 Masayoshi Kodaira (@KodairaFLAME) April 17, 2018

Ugh, sorry for huge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFCZ0GYpZnM

this version of Cue performed by Metafive is maybe even better than the original with the added horns

one of my favourite songs ever

New compilation of YMO and some solo tracks coming out as part of the 40th Anniversary of the band, curated by Towa Tei, remastered etc:

Seems a little redundant as we all know there are a shit load of YMO comps available.

http://www.110107.com/s/oto/page/YMO40?ima=3555

Yeah not sure what the point of that is exactly. I think the idea of mixing in the solo stuff is good but who needs another comp at this point. Especially given that all three musicians are still plenty active....

That version of Cue is excellent. Even though Metafive probably isn’t gonna record another album it’s pretty cool that they’re all constantly working together still. I could put together a great comp of tracks that are like...half of that group at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HInLbYBtXEc

a great performance of one of my favorite songs of theirs

wow I love the feeling the piano gives it, fantastic

http://www.110107.com/s/oto/page/YMO40
Standard LP, 2x45rpm LP, and SACD reissues forthcoming. At least in Japan, I assume they'll be available globally, too

wow @ that "Wild Ambitions" performance, that's really special. agree that the grand piano really makes it.

don't know if I've posted this before but I really dig this cover of "Sportsman"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gi8futLRbM

We Want Sounds really are doing some great work at the moment. They just announced reissues of Ryuichi Sakamoto's Thousand Knives and Yukihiro Takahashi's Saravah in the next couple of months. I picked up one of the Akiko Yano vinyl reissues earlier this year and they've done a nice job. Apparently a few more of her albums will be out early next year.

I bought all of their Akikos on CD and am looking forward to more. I would've appreciated some English language liner notes to "translate" a bit — if not the lyrics, maybe an essay. Japanese Girl and Tadaima just include a brief paragraph that reads a bit like a promo sticker. Maybe with a name like We Want Sounds they're after something more purist and less historical than, say, Light in the Attic would do. Basically these discs don't seem too different from what you'd get buying more expensive Japanese imports.

Nonetheless, I'll be looking out for the two reissues you mention. Having listened to it on YouTube, I'd love it if they'd put out Takahashi's Neuromantic, though copies of that album are probably easier to acquire since it had a worldwide release at the time.

You can scoop up Neuromantic (both cd and lp) for a normal price on discogs, it's not rare.

Didn't know about these latest reissues, looking forward to them! 'Saravah' is great.

Yeah, Neuromantic is one of the few YMO related albums I often see used. I wouldn't be surprised if they work their way through his solo albums though. Saravah is such a joy. I've been listening to that one a lot in the last week. Will definitely pick up the reissue.

I actually reached out to We Want Sounds on Facebook and they're really cool. Ended up having a back and forth with them about a few titles. They'd really like to do Miharu Koshi albums, but there's licensing issues which stops them. The next Akiko Yano title they're doing is Gohan Ga Dekita Yo which will be out in February.

I also saw that Ryuichi Sakamoto's B-2 Unit is getting reissued next month. Unfortunately it's on a different label and is currently set at $50 plus.

will definitely be picking up Gohan & Tadaima. maybe Iroha Ni Konpeitou as well if only for the cover, which is one of my favorites ever

along the same lines I wonder if there will ever be a formal Moonriders reissue campaign, those albums seem like they ought to appeal to YMOheads but they haven't quite broken through to the English speaking market in the same way.

I've not gotten around to Moonriders yet. Their discography is intimidatingly large! Could you recommend two, three good ones?

The period where they start getting into New Wave & technopop is pretty good. I started with Modern Music which has some pretty killer tracks, its a bit uneven but a good listen and I think you'll probably dig it right away. Camera Egal Stylo is their wonky Zolo disc which seems to be quite popular. The two following albums Aozora Hyakkei & Mania Maniera are also very good, I sorta consider them two parts of a double album since they came out the same year and are very similar. Admittedly I haven't listened much past that, their other 80s albums have great tracks but like YT & Akiko they started using "state of the art" drum machines and digital production techniques which makes these records feel cheap. I've heard some of the later stuff on occasion (90s and beyond) and it sounds like they changed their style up a lot. This was when Keiichi Suzuki was doing the Earthbound soundtracks so he was very much at his 'peak' then.

couple of my favorite tracks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmSwGI4rPXI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMj4Ct3-6oc

actually my favorite Moonriders album is a double live one released in 1986 called "The Worst of the Moonriders", but good luck finding that one. it covers their whole career up to that point and most of the songs are dramatically rearranged. there's a ton of tunes that don't appear anywhere, including a very long medley which ends with a new single. like YMO they were constantly switching up their sound and if you look at some recent live videos they don't sound anything like they used to, to the point where you almost can't recognize the songs.

Thank you Frogbs, much appreciated!

I found 'The Worst of the Moonriders' on slsk so that will be my first.

lol good chance you got it from me

All hail slsk user shabroky :)

there's a vocal bit on Track 2 at the 4:00 mark that sounds exactly like Timmy from South Park, it freaked me out when I first heard it

always was a bit frustrated that some of my favorite tracks basically had no studio version, or they're covers of songs I don't recognize. #8 "The Good Child" and #11 "Russian Reggae" in particular. now that I look at it I don't know if the version I have (which has 30 tracks) is an official one. the last few are a standalone studio single that was probably a bonus disc. I got these MP3s back in '04 I think. who knows?

also I don't wanna oversell these guys but their music always gives me Andy Partridge vibes. same reference points & same strained vocal inflection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OCqTJiC5pU

amusingly Partridge did do a brief voice over on their '91 album Christ, Who's Gonna Die First? which if nothing else is the best ever title for a reunion album

anyway to keep the thread on topic - I've actually never heard the Naughty Boys Instrumental album before now, I've been grinning through the whole thing. can't believe how well it works

The most YMO Moonriders track is Itoko Doshi from 1978—largely because it's produced by Hideki Matsutake.

Those Moonriders tracks are wonderful.

New track from Akiko Yano (she deserves her own thread!) and Hiromitsu Agatsuma, from forthcoming album Asteroid and Butterfly. Cool video too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI04_iIGYzs

that rules

might have to start such a thread

Brilliant tune/video!

She's so great and deserving of a dedicated thread, for sure.

Nice to see We Want Sounds reissuing her albums. I just picked up Gohan ga Dekita yo.

yeah, awesome video! the domestic bliss follow-up to bjork's video for All is Full of Love

Great video and co-sign the need for a dedicated thread!

Here 'tis - Akiko Yano

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lvjq1COo9E

how old is this girl??? god damn

"Chaos Panic" on the Naughty Boys Instrumental album is so good, the synthfiddle is such a trip

this is like the happiest music I've ever heard

just listened to naughty boys + the instrumental album again for the first time in a while and Wild Ambitions/Chaos Panic back to back is amazing. Its a remnant of my religious upbringing but I suffered thru many lame lectures about what is happiness vs. joy and none of those lectures explained the range of emotions in happiness/joy that exist as well as this shit.

I mean, the instrumental "You've Got to Help Yourself" alone is like the giddiest thing on the planet

I've also come to realize that once you listen to the instrumental version a few times you don't really want to hear the original again. you really miss those goofy synths

the giddiest thing on the planet

this is how i feel about "firecracker"... it's so exuberant.

Do you know about me?
My name is

https://i.imgur.com/5qZLFJ2.jpg

someone unearthed a 1978 performance of YMO, to my knowledge the earliest available live performance by them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiRdITBKRv8

has covers of "Come On" and "Satisfaction" (!!!) plus "Mad Pierrot" which they never did live after this

finally someone made this gif

https://i.imgur.com/MWs0bBf.mp4

'Kyun!'

Friday mood

https://i.imgur.com/YEalIZK.mp4

https://i.imgur.com/gKNfvFv.jpg

i'm sure this one has been here sometime before...

https://i.redd.it/y8j84eep98541.jpg

so fkn cool, love all those people (yes, sting too)

everyone looking so dapper in that pic

it'd be funny to see like, a meat puppet in that photo too

inside all of us there are 3 ppl: a police, a orchestra, and a meat puppet

3.5 million views on this...wonder if it's another oddity of the YT algorithm. its such a cool performance, particularly on the part of Watanabe and Hosono (and yes Akiko too) but the real fun is just watching Takahashi play, he makes the drums seem like so much fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzSIwivBWJc

also have been altered to the presence of an HD version of the "Kimi Ni Mune Kyun" video which might be the best low-effort music video ever made

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24bRSUeITXc

XP - Whenever I see the footage of them playing in the US or Europe from that era I always wonder who their crowd was at that time. They seemed to be playing decent theatres, was it like your Talking Heads/B52s/Police fans maybe?

from that same greek theater performance, the GOAT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z5sJJgX3GM

amazing how utterly transformed that tune was on BGM

Yeah that Tong Poo performance is constantly in my recommendations, must be another algorithm quirk.

No idea who their US/European audience were! Kraftwerk fans maybe?