RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

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