Japanese New Wave listening club - new albums every Monday

maybe not top tier, but whoa, that guitar solo is pretty "out."

most of his solos are like that; check this out

(skip to about 2:10)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCmtP7dpk4I

Ah, missed this thread!

Agree about Takahashi, though I think Neuromantic is his best. Murdered By the Music is great though. "Blue Colour Worker" is so uplifting in that relentlessly happy 80s Japanese futuristic mall music sort of way. What, Me Worry has a few great tracks too ("It's All Up To You", "Disposable Love") The "Poisson d'Avril" soundtrack has a lot of nice carefree instrumentals like early Bacharach-ish Pizzicato 5 (pre-Nomi Makiya).

Speaking of P5:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp951qxPyuc

^^ produced by Hosono btw!

that solo rules!! xxpost

^^i'm not really into guitar solos that much, but that's pretty much how to do it.

love this thread, btw, not sure if i said that earlier or if i just thought it a bunch of times (and i'm apparently too lazy to take 10 seconds to search)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3NPMYzruY4

corey - I'm a big fan of "It's All Gonna Work Out" from What, Me Worry. Maybe my favorite of his. Have you ever heard that instrumental soundtrack he did called La Pensee?? It's surprisingly addictive, kind of like one of Hosono's Monad albums. There's a track called "Brise" that's so wonderfully bizarre that it makes me laugh every time.

btw; are there any other P5 albums really worth checking out? I've got the first 6 and the only one I really like is Pizzicatomania, which Hosono produced, mainly because I love the sound (similar to his S-F-X record). They seemed to crank out records way too fast

also if no one's heard this, this is one of my favorite Sakamoto tunes ever, super surprised to find out that it was him, since it's really wild:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRAub18g1Pw

I like the early Non-Standard singles (Audrey Hepburn Complex, P5 In Action) Couples, Bellissima! and This Year's Girl.

My favorite P5-related release is Maki Nomiya's Pink no Kokoro from 1981 (which is actually perfect for this thread!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnpfqN1F0Wg

nice tune!! i like madcap stuff like that

btw is she the one who sings "Baby Universe" on one of the Katamari soundtracks?? love that song

http://technopop.info/pm/st2.GIFhttp://technopop.info/pm/bb2.GIF

P-Model (1992) and Big Body (1993)

P-Model's original run was from 1979-1986, but after six years they reformed into a more focused, techno-oriented unit while retaining their original style. They're very high-quality and are a good intro to the band (or Hirasawa in general). Unlike later albums this is still grounded heavily in technopop, with lots of sequencers and blippy noises. I was only going to post the 1992 album but decided to post them both for two reasons - one, Big Body has "Chevron", one of the greatest technopop songs ever, and two, both of them are short and sort of form a set. I might wind up posting another album but for now both of these are pretty worthwhile. P-Model is more straight-up techno, while Big Body has some more epic (and harsh) style of music. In addition to "Chevron", "Wire Self" (from the s/t) is an incredible tune that deserves repeat listens. If you get to the end "No Room" is a neat update on their first single "Art Mania".

Still not a Spotify link

Cool — I've been meaning to listen to P-Model. "Techno-oriented" sounds up my alley.

hey frogbs is this a private party or can anybody join in? i've been living in Japan since November and buying up this kinda vinyl like crazy. would enjoy sharing w/ you guyz

I have an album I'd like to post after you missingNO

you should go before me since you've been posting already !

I would love to hear some of the more psychedelic, pre-ymo stuff that's working with a primarily electronic palette.

not exactly pre-YMO, but Vanity Records put out some of the strangest electronic music I've ever heard. the Sympathy Nervous and Tolerance LPs especially are a must for all BGM disciples (they even put out a record by group called BGM iirc), super austere submerged tape loops, primitive drum boxes, insane synth programming. the Alfa/Yen Records axis gets most of the attention especially going towards the digital era but there's a lot of weird stuff out there that kinda went under the radar. there's a cool Vanity Records comp that came out last year that's highly recommended

http://youtu.be/V0oKkgiiJlo

http://youtu.be/KHYpx5ucIQc

it's like weird euro minimal synth but with better synths and psychedelic drugs

there's def a Cochin Moon/Zuckerzeit/Curiosum kinda vibe

That Sympathy Nervous track is great. I'd never heard of any of these before, so thanks.

missingNO; by all means, especially if you can get away from the Alfa/Yen Records axis of everything...nothing against that label but sometimes its hard to remember that there was other stuff out there. I haven't heard anything on the Vanity label so fire away!

If you guys want to go next week be my guest (or just throw them up whenever), if you can't post up two albums let me know because I still have a good amount and can put up one more if you like. Really appreciated...for a while I didn't think anyone was going to help me out!!

I'm pretty cool with this being like two or three people just trading records or whatever. :)

absolutely, as much as I want to share these albums, I was definitely hoping to find some lurkers with weirder tastes than me

I would love to contribute but I'm really just dipping my toes in at this point. knowledge definitely isn't v. deep right now but I am really loving everything on this thread so far.

No problem — the fun of sharing stuff I already know is seeing the reactions of those not already familiar. It's always awesome to see more people get into BGM.

Yeah...it's kind of the Sgt. Pepper or whatever of the genre; one of the few early synth albums that really "plays up" to whatever speakers you have...if you have subs, there's such a big kick-thump on tracks like "Ballet"...not even Kraftwerk had that! And "Mass" continues to scare the shit out of me in any situation

yeah it's one of the few records of that era that lets the bass in the 808 kick come through in the mix. compare BGM to a Soft Cell record from the same period and you'll see what I mean

there's a different mix of "Happy End" w/ a straight 4x4 808 kick drum that's well worth tracking down

is that the one on Sakamoto's Arrangement EP?

btw "1000 Knives" is definitely one of the high watermarks of 808 beats

agreed on BGM. just played it on my living room setup last week and it sounded great.

that sympathy nervous track is excellent!

Read somewhere that YMO playing "1000 Knives" live was the first concert appearance of an 808? Not sure if that's true or not but I believe it.

Who else was using them in 1980/1981? It didn't really become popular until the mid-to-late 80's.

Roland (coincidence?) Bocquet's "Robot Bleu" has a few tracks that use it. Tangerine Dream was using them too in their live shows, but they were using them essentially as "rhythm boxes" and not really realizing their programming potential the way YMO did.

I'm thinking the Germans would have been among the first, thought maybe Cluster had used them at some point but I guess not. I thought Kraftwerk used them for Electric Cafe but just found out it was a Linn drum machine.

Oh wait, it was on "Musique Non Stop"

xxxxxxp; i really like the Sympathy Nervous track; seems to have ties to some of the really old experimental electronic stuff I've heard...not a dig on the music, but I'm kind of surprised it came out as late as 1980

my favorite japanese new wave song, talk back by logic system. first heard it in the late '90s and i still find it fresh today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXO5IIIhVy8

was thinking about uploading that album some day; that one's pretty good but I haven't really found any of the other Logic System albums worthwhile. he doesn't strike me as much of a composer...

so are you guys going to take over next week or should I keep going?

I'll do Monday.

i'll take the week after then, if that's cool

Does anyone have any early Maki Nomiya or Portable Rock? That YT upthread is great, would love to hear more, SLSK not yielding any results.

I actually don't have time to do this atm, but if someone else wants to go they're more than welcome. Sorry :\

that's ok; if anyone else wants to post something up go ahead
otherwise i'll maybe put something up

anyone doing next week?? or should I put a few more up?

until then, here's a song that's kind of taken over my life lately...I even had a dream about it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oE903xV53E

uh yeah i was gonna do tomorrow but i have to pull out now, as soon as i get a home internet connection i'm back in

ok, here are a couple more:

Haruomi Hosono - Paraiso (1978)
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_WdV28slTW00/SsYG7zwzh4I/AAAAAAAAAFM/xLAJZTRHlpQ/s400/front.jpg

Not really "new wave" per se but still one of my very favorite albums. Hosono was the founding member of YMO and wound up quite famous as a composer of ambient and electronic music. However, before that, he was the bassist in a couple of rock bands (including Happy End) before taking an interest in tropical and exotica music. By 1978, he was starting to incorporate electronics into his work, most famously on Cochin Moon, released the same year. This is more song-based, and holy cow is it magical. It's catchy, relaxing, and otherworldly. Has the feel of a good exotica/folk album but the electronic textures make everything off-balance. And then you have Hosono's goofy vocals, which are charming (if not very good on a technical scale). Hey, I like his voice. Check out the cover of the Okinawan folk song "Asatoya Yunta", which almost sounds as though the vocals are sung backwards. Creepy, but in a good way. Lots of great music here.

click here to get it

Akiko Yano - Japanese Girl (1976)
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WdV28slTW00/StJvfF833tI/AAAAAAAAAF8/jQGDQZk0dPk/s400/624daceb.jpg

You might recognize Yano's name from her husband of nearly two decades, Ryuichi Sakamoto (they have since split). She often played live with the group, especially in their 79-80 era, and they would sometimes perform a few of her songs ("Kang Tong Boy" is probably the one you've heard if you follow YMO). She's also a pretty prolific solo artist, regularly releasing solo albums since 1976. On this, her debut, she must have been a teenager when she wrote most of the songs. But it's a very enjoyable listen with some very memorable tunes and a lot of neat Japanese instrumentation. It was recorded in L.A. with members of Little Feat. The tune "Helicopter" in particular is stunning. Rolling Stone rated it the 26th best Japanese album of all time, whatever that means.

click here to get it

japanese girl is a stone classic, easily as good as anything YMO ever did. good picks

Love that Akiko record, iirc it has *all* of Little Feat as a backing band.

yeah I wasn't sure whether to put that or Gohan Ga Dekitayo up, as it has a lot more electronics and definitely is more of a New Wave album, but ultimately it lost out because it's so damn long...right now I only really have her early stuff, are the later albums worth getting?

Trying to catch up on this thread. Love this stuff so much.

XP - I have 'Honto No Kimoch' from 2004 which is pretty great, has elements of the first album sound I guess, haven't listened to it in a while, will revisit.

Later Akiko Yano albums are great! Highly recommended.

I see they were brought up in the YMO BGM thread and a bunch of non-genre threads. I'll get them someday. Wasn't there a few related compilations?

This from the JT link upthread, it seems they've been part of the catalyst that has resulted in the renewed interest in some dusty areas of 80s J music.

"He helped artists such as Prins Thomas acquire copies of “Utakata,” who then put songs from it into mixes shared online, helping turn the record from virtual unknown to secret gem. Beyond Shimizu, the internet played a central role in spreading older Japanese sounds. Portland-based producer Spencer Doran’s 2010 mix “Fairlights, Mallets and Bamboo — Fourth-World Japan, Years 1980-1986” attracted attention, while Gorchov says YouTube’s “suggested” algorithm kept highlighting ’80s Japanese songs."

We play a bunch of this type of stuff on our little show and it's def become easier to track down and to get information on over the last year too, which is great, we're going to interview Patrick St Michel soon and ask him whats going on.

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/djmix/bo_en/plastic_platform__c67___bo_en/

This is the other one I was thinking of but it's not all Japanese.

http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/various_artists_f2/ymo_rewake/

Anyone heard this?

Decided to bump this thread to up some Yasuyuki Okamura, who is not really YMO-adjacent like most of the stuff here but does fit into the funkier division of the New Wave scene. He appears on albums by Cornelius and Denki Groove and if you're into J-pop you may see his name crop up a lot. He reminds me a lot of Falco, but with Prince's falsetto and Michael Jackson's sense of rhythm. He actually borrows a ton from Prince but that's obviously not a bad thing. Anyway, he was pretty huge from 1987 to 1990, during which he released four albums, a greatest hits, some singles, and starred in a film. He's slowed down considerably since then, always "active" in some sense (mostly as a producer and songwriter) but he's only released three actual solo albums after 1990, plus some self-cover discs and collaborations. Partially this is due to two drug arrests which derailed his career; if you know anything about Japanese drug law, getting caught with anything is bad news, even if you're a celebrity. But he's actually managed to become a hot name again these last few years, mostly due to the success of the single "Viva Namida" which wound up a high-profile anime theme.

I find his music to be totally addictive, but I couldn't really figure out what album to upload here; in my opinion they're all pretty good, but he's one of those artists where there's a large gulf between his best work and everything else. So I decided to make a playlist, which I've been jamming like every day this month so far. It starts off with his early hits and more pop-oriented work and then goes into his funkier and stranger material. Included are covers of "Burning Down the House" and "Turtles Have Short Legs", the latter of which is from a collaboration with Takkyu Ishino of Denki Groove. Enjoy!!!

Link: https://mega.nz/#F!4qxw1KCJ!Cp2zeKsnP4-SRb3fISUKuw

sounds great, thanks!