RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

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