RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

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