― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 25 May 2006 19:32 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 25 May 2006 19:38 (seventeen years ago) link
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.
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 2 November 2006 05:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― Zachary Scott (Zach S), Thursday, 2 November 2006 06:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Patrick South (Patrick South), Thursday, 2 November 2006 07:01 (seventeen years ago) link
It's great! "Epilogue" should reduce many a grown man to sobbing.
― LC (Damian), Thursday, 2 November 2006 12:06 (seventeen years ago) link
with "Taiso" birthing Nick Rhodes perhaps even more than Richard Barbieri ever could
Clearly I meant "Light in Darkness" here.
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 2 November 2006 13:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Thursday, 2 November 2006 16:52 (seventeen years ago) link
can someone recommend some other Haruomi Hosono projects aside from YMO (solo or otherwise)?
― amateurist, Tuesday, 4 August 2009 14:49 (fourteen years ago) link
Haruomi Hosono
― damo tsu tsuki (r1o natsume), Tuesday, 4 August 2009 14:52 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― frogbs, Monday, 15 November 2010 19:26 (thirteen years ago) link
so glad this was revived. just found a mediafire folder with all the albums and needed some guidance.
― brotherlovesdub, Monday, 15 November 2010 21:58 (thirteen years ago) link
really loving these stripped down live versions YMO have been playing this year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NTnIJ61z1w
― missingNO, Saturday, 25 December 2010 03:16 (thirteen years ago) link
Love the synth trumpet!
― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, 26 December 2010 17:47 (thirteen years ago) link
Whoah, YMO doing "Thank You For Talkin' to Me Africa"!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWPbDsPYxZM&feature=related
― Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, 26 December 2010 17:48 (thirteen years ago) link
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.
― frogbs, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 12:23 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0adjDQyYSI4
― Late night with Amazing Bo (MaresNest), Sunday, 31 March 2013 23:48 (eleven years ago) link
amazing find
― original bgm, Monday, 1 April 2013 00:20 (eleven years ago) link
i think cindy crawford is in one of those!!
― frogbs, Monday, 1 April 2013 02:10 (eleven years ago) link
hah, she is! I caught her posing dramatically with a piano while randomly skipping around.
― original bgm, Monday, 1 April 2013 04:38 (eleven years ago) link
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, 1 April 2013 16:42 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― frogbs, Monday, 1 April 2013 17:42 (eleven years ago) link
Too true, Hosono is a walking infographic.
― Late night with Amazing Bo (MaresNest), Monday, 1 April 2013 17:50 (eleven years ago) link
a book like that would leapfrogbs to the very top of my reading list, for real
― your holiness, we have an official energy drink (Z S), Monday, 1 April 2013 17:51 (eleven years ago) link
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?
― 君ちゃん (clouds), Monday, 1 April 2013 18:16 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― Late night with Amazing Bo (MaresNest), Monday, 1 April 2013 19:19 (eleven years ago) link
yeah it seems like japanese don't have the same retromania that americans do, but i have no idea really
― 君ちゃん (clouds), Monday, 1 April 2013 19:40 (eleven years ago) link
― 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.
― emil.y, Monday, 1 April 2013 19:42 (eleven years ago) link
If you want to blow the mind of a 40+ Japanese person, tell 'em you love Ippu-Do or Guernica.
― Late night with Amazing Bo (MaresNest), Monday, 1 April 2013 19:43 (eleven years ago) link
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
― frogbs, Monday, 1 April 2013 19:46 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― Late night with Amazing Bo (MaresNest), Monday, 1 April 2013 19:46 (eleven years ago) link
emily - have you read this?http://www.groundzeromongkok.com/2010/12/memory-and-gender-in-music-of-jun.html
― frogbs, Monday, 1 April 2013 19:47 (eleven years ago) link
oops, XP
― Late night with Amazing Bo (MaresNest), Monday, 1 April 2013 19:47 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― emil.y, Monday, 1 April 2013 19:51 (eleven years ago) link
basically, a book version of this would be the most amazing thing:http://park10.wakwak.com/~techno/jgenealogy.html
― original bgm, Monday, 1 April 2013 21:53 (eleven years ago) link
and yeah, togawa is really fascinating. would read all of these imaginary books.
― original bgm, Monday, 1 April 2013 21:54 (eleven years ago) link
Wow - I need to hear that Akiko Yano Resonance show.
― That elusive North American wood-ape (Capitaine Jay Vee), Monday, 1 April 2013 23:49 (eleven years ago) link
CJV - I imagine it'll turn up in the Resonance 104 Soundcloud page if you check there in the next few days.
― Late night with Amazing Bo (MaresNest), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 12:37 (eleven years ago) link
found it!http://www.mixcloud.com/alberto-umbridge/akiko-yano-broadcast-on-resonancefm-25th-march2013/
― original bgm, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 14:37 (eleven years ago) link
Japan is such a small country
It is?
― Step not on a loose unforgiving stone on a pyramid to paradise (Tom D.), Tuesday, 2 April 2013 14:42 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― frogbs, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 14:59 (eleven years ago) link
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?
― frogbs, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 15:01 (eleven years ago) link
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8sc3sC5F91qz9lsso1_500.jpg(sakamoto being cool)
― your holiness, we have an official energy drink (Z S), Wednesday, 3 April 2013 00:36 (eleven years ago) link
http://chinmai.net/~ichiyanagi/img/060403/ymo.jpg
― many machines on ilx (MaresNest), Sunday, 29 September 2013 20:10 (ten years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YjYEJ9WHt4
― many machines on ilx (MaresNest), Thursday, 24 October 2013 21:54 (ten years ago) link
awesome!
― clouds, Friday, 25 October 2013 13:59 (ten years ago) link
(cuts off halfway through, but you get the idea)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkPeDQKRpEk
― not a lunch that is hot (snoball), Friday, 25 October 2013 14:28 (ten years ago) link
The syndrum break in that BBC version is proper!
― MaresNest, Friday, 25 October 2013 15:28 (ten years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GncUycY9N34&list=PL2D3C508F366E5AD3&index=3
― MaresNest, Tuesday, 22 July 2014 17:16 (nine years ago) link
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.
― The 5 FPs (MaresNest), Tuesday, 11 November 2014 21:10 (nine years ago) link
I've never knowingly heard a Kraftwerk song. What should I try first?
Kraftwerk released six classic albums between 1974 and 1986* and one of their many remarkable aspects is that each one is completely different in concept and mood to the record that preceded it. Autobahn invented synth-pop and has a very melodic major-key sound, but is also quite Krautrock-y in places. Radio Activity (1975) is much more somber and atmospheric in feel, which of course sometimes exactly what you want.
Trans-Europe Express (1977) kicks off with a lovely pop epic ("Europe Endless") but then works its way through a series of gothic masterpieces. The penultimate track, "Franz Schubert", is hauntingly beautiful and dreamlike; I think it's the most slept-on piece in their whole catalogue. This album marks the point where Kraftwerk acquired their first sequencer, but it's used throughout as a fifth band-member, meaning that there is still a discernible "live" feel in places. By contrast, every track on The Man-Machine (1978) is built up from ultra-precise sequenced rhythm patterns, and the band's drummer essentially became surplus to requirements. This is one of the reasons that The Man-Machine stands in elite company as one of the most influential pop albums ever recorded. That said, conceptual and technical brilliance doesn't count for much if you don't also bring some great tunes to the party, and Kraftwerk delivered on that too. "The Model" was released a single some years later and hit number one in the British charts!
Computer World (1981) doubles down on the interest in danceability that began to appear in its predecessor, and in places radically pares back the band's usual focus on melody and harmony in favour of funky proto-electro drum patterns. That said, it does include their pop songwriting apotheosis, "Computer Love", which is built around their most beautiful and melancholic set of melodies. Kraftwerk are often described as musical visionaries, but what's also fascinating here is that the lyric imagines an electronic match-making service, prefiguring the emergence of Tinder by about three decades. ("I need a rendezvous / Computer love, I call this number / For a data date")
* Electric Café was generally regarded as a disappointment on its release in 1986 and is still derided even by many aficionados. However, while I will admit that it's not wholly on a par with their previous few records, I do really like it. Although Kraftwerk's de facto leader Ralf Hütter subsequently became content for the band to become a heritage act, in the mid-80s he was still very intent on pushing forward musically. To this end, they retired their warm-sounding analogue synthesisers in favour of the most sophisticated (and expensive) digital workstation of the era, the Synclavier. And it had the desired effect, in that Electric Café did sound absolutely state of the art at the time of its release. Although there is a nice, wistful pop song ("The Telephone Call") half-way through, the overall vibe is prescient, angular minimalism. "Boing Boom Tschak" and "Musique Non-Stop" are playful, but also viciously funky. Turn up the volume and the Synclavier's hard-edged drum samples will pummel you into submission.
― Vast Halo, Friday, 29 March 2024 11:50 (one month ago) link
I always think about that when I listen to the '78 debut -- how in god's name did it occur to Hosono that he should make this kind of all-digital music BUT keep a live drummer?
he plays bass on it too. actually I'm pretty sure there's real bass and drums on all of YMO's albums in varying quantities. but on later albums it's way more of a mix.
how did it occur to him? probably just heard YT play :)
― frogbs, Friday, 29 March 2024 14:44 (one month ago) link
the mood of “rydeen” is particular is very LETS GOOOOOOO!!! what a tune.
― brimstead, Friday, 29 March 2024 14:58 (one month ago) link
So apparently, when they were making BGM, Hosono asked Sakamoto to write a new song in the vein of Thousand Knives. Sakamoto said, "Fuck you. Why don't you just put Thousand Knives on it then?"
― TheNuNuNu, Wednesday, 24 April 2024 22:15 (two weeks ago) link
Extensive 2020 interview with Hideki Matsutake!
https://www.electricityclub.co.uk/logic-system-interview/
I love that Hosono kept the Infinite Space Octave in mind for THREE YEARS.
― TheNuNuNu, Friday, 26 April 2024 00:53 (two weeks ago) link
Everyone. Single favorite Yellow Magic Orchestra song. Go!
If the Tong Poo > La Femme Chinoise > Bridge Over Troubled Music > Mad Pierrot > Acrobat suite counts as a single song, then that's the one. The debut is not my favorite YMO album but Side B is definitely my favorite album side.
If not, then it's gotta be Gradated Gray -- one of Hosono's most soulful vocal performances (AND one of his best sets of lyrics), plus that insane -- subtle, ghostly -- band arrangement. If Technodelic as an album is the apogee of the three in full-on-collaborative mode, Gradated Gray is the apogee of that collaboration WITHIN the album. The drums in the chorus destroy me (that little kick-snare combo: "every minute..." kick SNARE). And the vocal melody at the end! Mixed quieter than the main vocals, like they're intentionally encouraging you to listen in. "To where... gray meets white. To where..."
Frogbs, is it still your favorite too?
― TheNuNuNu, Tuesday, 30 April 2024 03:53 (one week ago) link
that song definitely connected with me during a long drive - there's that line "my car radio's playing a song, that makes me feel very strange"...like yeah I'm listening to it right now. I agree there's something about how everything lines up in that song that feels a bit strange, it's very precise but feels a bit backwards. it's probably still my favorite, so long as you can't pick an entire album side :)
I also like the Sketch Show arrangement of it. fun to see them actually play it so you get a sense of what the band members are actually doing. the added guitars in the chorus are really something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6JaenTfVnQ
and then, 10 years after, this countrified, sorta jazzy arrangement. amusingly without even watching the video I can tell that's Harry on piano. his playing is not unlike it was on the Monad albums.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NjSg54eNSM
― frogbs, Tuesday, 30 April 2024 13:57 (one week ago) link
I-in my defense, Side B of the debut is seamless! And each song is the exact same tempo! (And as such, the proggiest the band got?)
Gonna check those out soon. I didn't realize the song stayed in live rotation.
― TheNuNuNu, Tuesday, 30 April 2024 15:10 (one week ago) link
Also -- after frogbs called the Technopolis fade-out to my attention, (with everything fading out early, but Takahashi's drums playing on at full volume), I realized that Absolute Ego Dance ends the same way: the other instruments fade first, the drums stay (along with some percussive odds & ends). And then Rydeen is the exact opposite, the drums drop out first, and everything else keeps going for a while -- as if paving way for the (relative) quiet of Castalia.
― TheNuNuNu, Tuesday, 30 April 2024 15:14 (one week ago) link
Side B of the debut is interesting to me since all 3 tunes do clearly go together but they were all written by different members. They never really did anything like that since. I think back then the band was just supposed to be a one-off on a sort of gimmicky concept so they were all going outside of their usual styles and clearly having a lot of fun with it. in YT's solo catalogue you'll hear songs like Nice Age or Ballet or Cue, but not La Femme Chinoise. nothing Hosono did really sounds like Mad Pierrot.
― frogbs, Tuesday, 30 April 2024 16:50 (one week ago) link
The After Service version of “La Femme Chinoise”
― brimstead, Tuesday, 30 April 2024 17:47 (one week ago) link
For my OPO
Taiso for me, but it's only a hair ahead of like 20 other songs of equal stature, imho.
― Maresn3st, Tuesday, 30 April 2024 22:23 (one week ago) link
Just heard this for the first time. Takahashi's vocals! Goes to show how far five years of constant singing can take you.
And both those Gradated Gray live takes are awesome. The guitar brightens the choruses up, which is pleasantly disorienting. I love how sedate both arrangements stay and how psychedelic both get, in their own ways. Great woozy piano-led outro in the Hosono version.
Taiso could go for fifteen minutes and still wouldn't get boring.
― TheNuNuNu, Thursday, 2 May 2024 00:11 (one week ago) link
Naughty Boys always ends SO SOON.
There's a much improved translation of Lotus Love over at the blog:
https://grainsparrow.blogspot.com/2024/03/translation-lotus-love-yellow-magic.html
(In addition to stylistic fixes, I made a major error in the version originally in this thread -- misread one kanji, ruining a beautiful line...! Sorry Harry.)
― TheNuNuNu, Tuesday, 7 May 2024 19:16 (six days ago) link