Haruomi Hosono

And by "on the soundtrack" I mean "in the film." Really gotta make a habit of stepping away from my ILX posts for five minutes before I hit "submit."

it might be - track 10 on the bonus CD could be it, it's the same tune but it sounds less 'sharp', almost as though it was played on a different model of keyboard. a lot of the second disc is like that, they don't feel like 'new' arrangements as much as they do the same tunes from the soundtrack transposed onto a different set of sounds. but there are some new takes on the title theme. it's not essential exactly but you may find it amusing. I can zip it to you if you like. otherwise it may be on Soulseek.

A zip would be great! I haven't managed to get Soulseek to work out here.

Speaking of 1985, Paradise View goes on climbing my list of favorites. Full of beautiful, eerie melodies.

And yeah, innarestingly, a lot of the songs that are actually played in the film are *not* quite the same arrangement that's on the soundtrack album.

77 years old today!

someone should invite him to the 77 board.

I was working on Happy End translations and thinking about him all day, so that works out. Hope he had a great day too.

Loving this 1985 song from the 20th Century Pops box:

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

that sounds more like a YT production to me! except...all the odd chords and strange halting noises. great tune, I should really give that box a full listen.

It's overwhelming but I've yet to find a song on there that I don't enjoy.

Finally reissued:

https://www.discogs.com/release/31233583-Linda-Carriere-Linda-Carriere-by-Haruomi-Hosono-Produced

real excited to hear that one

Same. Hosono noted recently that if that Carriere album had come out, there would probably have been no YMO -- he would've leaned fully into the production work!

You guys know the Country Pumpkin album? Hosono production from 1972 that the awesome alternate version of Owari no Kisetsu on the 20th Century Pops Box comes from. I just learned that the closer (starts at 28:56) is actually also a Hosono original, exclusive to this album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTTGJjm3I1M

Oh wow. From the Bob Dylan interview site, Flagging Down the Double E's, talking with a poet who visited the USSR with Dylan in 1985:

--Were you a big Dylan fan going into this?--

Oh God, yeah. I knew the songs he was singing.

In 1977, I got a call to go to Tokyo to do a jazz album based on ten of my poems, which would have been the lyrics. I flew there with Linda Carriere, the lead singer for Dynasty, which was a big group at the time. We did the album, and Kimiko Kasai, their biggest recording star at the time, covered three of the songs. Tatsuro Yamashita, who wrote some of the music on that album, he covered three. So for about ten years or so, I was getting a lot of royalties based on their performances of my lyrics in their songs. As a result, Linda’s version was not released. Now, 47 years later, they’re releasing the album, Alfa.

In any case, Dylan knew this part of me. That was a good thing, because he knew I would understand everything he’s going through. “You’re into music? You did an album?” That was another thing that brought us together, that I had something to do with music.

That's poet(/lyricist) James Ragan.

that's really cool, think I'm just gonna order a copy, you know it's gonna be good

I did not know the Country Pumpkin album. I'm listening now - is that last track really him? can't say I've ever heard *that* side of Hosono before.

I hear there are lyric translations for Hosono House in the LITA reissue, but if (like me) you don't have it, or if you're interested in an alternate take, here are my own translations. The lyrics on this album are fantastic. Working on Boku wa Chotto, I was crying like a baby.

I'm curious whether Hosono ever got confessional again -- maybe in the late albums (Flying Saucer 1947, HoSoNoVa, Vu Ja De), those all those have a few originals each, but I haven't dug into the lyrics yet. There's some straightforward honesty towards the end of Paraiso, but from Tropical Dandy on, Hosono veered mostly into storytelling and/or just being silly.

Come to think of it, maybe all the (silly) love songs on Philharmony were confessional too (Chaos Panic too, same era). And Gradated Gray, surely.

Anyway, the words on this album are fucking killer. I precede everything with self-indulgent (/and maybe sometimes interesting) commentary but/so scroll downwards if it's just lyrics you're after.

A1 Rock-a-Bye, My Baby
A2 I'm Sort Of
A3 Choo-Choo! And the Clattering Train
A4 The Season of the End
A5 Crossing the Winter

B1 Party
B2 Fortune, Come In! Demons, Get Out!
B3 No Fixed Abode, Jobless, Barely Making Any Money
B4 Love is the Color of Peach Flowers
B5 The Rose and the Wild Beast
B6 Sharing an Umbrella

thank you so much for doing these, it's kinda hilarious to compare to the titles I've got...I have B3 as "No Address, No Job, Very Little Income"

one fun bit of trivia I just learned is the director for the commercial "Normandia" was used in specifically asked him to compose something like Sakamoto. I'd say he did a pretty admirable job but it still sounds like Harry.

Sakamoto heard the commercial Normandia was in and thought, "What the fuck? This sounds a lot like me. Who the hell would ape my style this way?"

But that's not even the end of the story. There's a Hosono tribute album that came out yeaaaaars later (Strange Songbook, I think, which also has Takahashi's killer cover of Sports Men) and who should appear on it, covering Normandia? Ryuichi himself.

Frog, is that LITA's version? Their title sounds more elegant than mine. I couldn't resist alluding to the Muir translation of Kafka's Worries of a Family Man.

Also, I've begun to think that maybe the Miharuomi stuff (Hosono + Koshi) is my favorite of all Hosono's epic collaborations -- over Happy End (whom I adore) and maybe even over YMO... granted, with Hosono it's all god-tier anyway, so why bother with comparisons? But those Hosono-produced Koshi albums, and all her guest spots on Hosono solo songs, just crush me. Of course it might just be the flush of infatuation-in-early-stages that makes me say so. But in any case the Miharuomi body of work is *at least as good* as Happy End and YMO, despite being a whole lot less famous/celebrated.

But back to the Normandia topic again -- yes, it does sound to me more like a Nokto de la Galaksia Fervojo outtake than anything truly Sakamotian! Hosono's melodic touch is too distinct.

Today is the one-year-anniversary of the start of my Hosono/YMO/etc obsession. I've hardly listened to anything else all year. It all started with frogbs and then was deeply and constantly nourished by the various ILM threads relating to this universe, so -- thank you all so very much. Who knew the world had this much more joy in it. And here's to (I expect) year two of the same.

god, yeah, I remember discovering all this for the first time...it started with "Firecracker" on a compilation, then a kinda janky best-of, then getting Solid State & Technodelic, then the rest, then being like...oh god there's more? way way way more? it's been a real joy seeing it all take off online, too...as posted on the other thread, the idea that Hosono would be namedropped to sell albums is still kinda crazy to me. as an American, that is.

I love how the mega catchy riff in Laughter Meditation is just the same note played eight times.

Goddam the drumming on Shimendoka.

funny, I always assumed it was YT on drums because of something I'd read once about the album, that it was a "proto-YMO" album (no doubt influenced by the "Yellow Magic Band" label) - always thought he sounded weird on there, since YT obviously has a pretty distinct drum style. turns out it's the Tin Pan Alley guy and that Takahashi is only on "Femme Fatale".

Yeah, and the propulsion on Femme Fatale when the drums come in! So YT. Playing just ahead of the whole band. Tin Pan Alley's Tatsuo Hayashi is more about emphasizing the off-beats, finding weird pockets... both wonderful drummers... so was Happy End's Takashi Matsumoto -- pure soul, with such an easy swing to everything he played. Hosono always knew how to choose 'em.

The things you learn as you dig... you folks know Luminescent/Hotaru, from Philharmony? That beautiful sparkly bright-turning-dark ambient piece with the pitch-altered vocals ("come, firefly!" and "the water is so sweet") ? Turns out those lyrics are quotes from Yuugure Hotaru, a song by Chu Kosaka (frontman of Hosono's first band, Apryl Fool). It's on Kosaka's first solo album Arigatou, which came out a month before Kazemachi Roman and was the first album Hosono produced (not credited as such, but Hosono's the one who actually did all the work). How much must Hosono have loved that Kosaka song, to be quoting it eleven years later?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPGavV4dQVI

Hosono spent the whole first day of the SFX sessions working on a song called Hokkyoku (The North Pole). He never finished it though, because when he played the work-in-progress to a friend that night, the friend said, "Umm, Hosono-san, you wrote this song already, it's called Cue...?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ojyBy1sGUI