Japanese New Wave listening club - new albums every Monday

i can put a couple of albums up today

unless somebody else plans to?

go ahead doog

ok

phew - phew (1981)

http://www.geocities.jp/pinkytanaka/img034.jpg

http://www.discogs.com/Phew-Phew/release/807330

this fucking album. fresh from her collab w/ Ryuichi Sakamoto, ex-Aunt Sally singer Phew went into Conny Plank's studio with Jaki Liebezeit and Holger Czukay. brutal synths, sick drumming, insane vocals

grooveshark link: http://grooveshark.com/#/album/Phew/5538132?src=5

jun togawa unit - kyokutou ian shouka (1986)

http://ex-img.com/AC-109/May09409.JPG

http://www.discogs.com/戸川純-極東慰安唱歌/release/2040839

another in the long tradition of unique Japanese female vocalists, this might be Jun Togawa's best album. straight up j-pop ballads, Okinawan folk, ukuleles, cartoon military marches, Casio keyboard demos, an EBM song about losing one's virginity, an Egyptian pop song about picnics. highlight is "kyokutou hanayome" -- monster movie sampled strings, goth-y atmospheric pads, clanking 808, ridiculously funky fretless courtesy of Hosono, and Jun Togawa singing about feeling like a cattle girl or something. crazy and great

dunno how cool ilm is w/ posting links to full albums so i'll leo it if anybody is interested

yeah i'm not really too sure about it either but no ones said anything to me; i guess it doesn't hurt that these albums are usually impossible to find in the US without paying ridiculous ebay prices

pretty interested in the Jaki/Holger collab

just posted Jun Togawa album on leo thread

the Phew record is beyond classic, especially if you're a fan of some of the other Conny Plank stuff from that period -- it's a great companion to Zero Set, for inst.

Whats a leo thread?

noize borad

but it seems like posting full albums is fair game so i guess i'll put it here. it's very out of print anyways

http://www.sendspace.com/file/leoldy

bonus listening: "urahara" from the Phew 7" w/ Sakamoto

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh9JQCXUPIw

you can also find some of what i guess are out-takes from the same session in the yt suggestions column, sounds like early TG

Thanks! Actually I've just found a few Phew records on the mut@nt s0unds blog, so yay.

Have to give props to this blog, some great stuff here.

http://kiwi-dodo.blogspot.com/

not very new wave though, that blog

bonus beats pt ii: Jun Togawa singing "Yumemiru Yakusoku" on some tv program. Prophet 5!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWGuc6E2UaI

Oh I don't know, there's lots of Phew, Jun and I'm just grabbing this at the moment.

http://kiwi-dodo.blogspot.com/2011/01/va-burst-new-wave-1980-1980.html

oh cool, i guess i didn't go far back enough in the archives. you should grab that Geinoh Yamashirogumi album as well while you're there, not really suitable for this thread but very very good

The blogger has helpfully separated all his posts into specific countries, most of which are Japanese. I'll def check out the Yamashirogumi, thanks.

Hard to believe Jaki and Holger were on that Phew album - it has a neat, almost haunting sound to it, a far cry from the real Can 80's reunion

I have one album from GY, called "Osorezan" or something (afaik it's their debut); I always loved how the first thing you hear is this woman screaming at the top of her lungs and it turns out to be a good primer for the rest of the album. Not sure if that's the one you're talking about but I enjoyed that one quite a bit! (though, it's a pretty far cry from "New Wave" anything)

Am crapping myself over the Phew record - what a line-up. Got it d/ling now.

<3 Togawa, got the Guernica record and her third solo LP ordered at the moment, hopefully coming soon. Unfortunately I've got so into her so quickly I just want to buy *everything*. Argh.

she put out a lot of great music. have you checked out her other band Yapoos yet? their first three albums are all classics, insane mutant pop. there's a good 3 cd comp called Togawa Legend, might be Japan only but it's well worth tracking down, covers everything from the early punk-y new wave stuff to Guernica and Yapoos to the later noise stuff in the 90s

i love how she was able to so freely move between pop and experimental music -- even the purest of her 80s j-pop stuff tends to have something just slightly off about it. def laid some of the groundwork for Shiina Ringo in the 00s

Only heard three or so Yapoos songs so far, all from youtube. Really wanted to get the first solo LP but that sold while I was dithering about finances, the third one has some of the most poppy stuff I've heard, but it's still kind of deranged. Been listening to Halmens quite a bit, which I love, but not sure how much she's actually in there.

Bear in mind that the first thing I heard from her was her absolutely mental cover of 'Casablanca Moon', too. Crazy woman, crazy talented.

yay togawa

missingno, thanks for akiko yano links. offhand do you know the name / album of the schubert song carl sampled for 'shing kee'? I've heard carl's piece countless times but never heard the original.

Here is the Togawa 3cd comp MNO mentioned above.

http://kiwi-dodo.blogspot.com/2011/01/jun-togawa.html

Yeah I'm not sure what to make of that Togawa disc so far; at first it kind of reminds me of the sort of sparse and personality-rich synthpop that say, Miharu Koshi does, but it changes so much from track to track that I'm not really sure what it's all about yet

I do have all the Yapoos albums though, she's definitely a weird one

Just to link everything together, she does appear on some of Hirasawa's early albums and AFAIK he wrote a few of the Yapoos tunes on Dadadaism that are done in a P-Model style

hey Milton, it's Schubert's "Der Lindenbaum" from Akiko Yano's 1986 album Brooch

http://www.sendspace.com/file/e30stc

btw here's the Carl Stone piece that samples Akiko Yano, for those who've never heard it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsQ4UdJ-Vww

might want to light one up first

thanks for the yano post, sir

the midpoint of carl's piece when it pivots into the second half of the sample, never get tired of that. and didn't know the yano sample came out the same year he wrote the piece -- man, he just got right to work on it

man, I am in love with that togawa "yumemiru yakusoku" track. incredibly catchy. looks like hosono produced too.

the whole album is all over the place but consistently high quality. one track sounds a bit like jon hassel! I think it's the one singled out in your write-up ("yokutou hanayome").

some cursory listens of yapoos material as well. VERY promising so far... :-o

phew is, weirdly, not really doing it for me. I've actually heard this one before due to the krautrock pedigree. basically like just about any krautrock record no matter how bad, so I'm not sure what my problem is. I'm going to hold off for now and re-visit.

also checked out the latest p-model album referenced above - Music Industrial Waste - P-MODEL or DIE. it's excellent.

definitely going on a hirasawa binge in the near future.

loved this track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOPXyL5hqFE

and is that a sample 55 seconds in? sounds familiar.

carl stone track is brilliant too. thanks for that.

LOVE this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=933H611lAq8

that simple but super-dramatic synth melody reminds me hirasawa's stuff

that's no coincidence, Hirasawa appears on the last few Yapoos record AFAIK and even wrote a few of the songs

Don't know if there's any interest in this, but I thought I'd post this up since it's a very tough album to find and very well worth tracking down:

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/2882f999b770065244191313a8bf2581/1186588.jpg

This is Harry Hosono's first soundtrack (if I recall correctly), for an animated movie called "Nokto de la Galaskia Fervojo", based on an old Japanese fable. I don't think the music here really got showcased, I've heard that this one got rejected in favor of a more "mainstream" soundtrack, or something like that. Anyway, if you've heard any of the four Monad albums that Hosono did around this time (1985), you'll know what to expect here. This is fairly minimal and chilling, not necessarily a downbeat soundtrack but it portrays feelings of loneliness and isolation very well. All the track names are in Esperanto. The whole thing is great but Track 14 ("La Travida Malgojo De Giovanni") is a stunning piano piece that's one of my favorite pieces by him. Miharu Koshi also appears ("La Gojo"). If you're a fan of his Monad period, this is a must have, as it beats all four of those albums in my opinion. If you have "The Endless Talking" you may find portions of this familiar.

click here

yeah, this is nice.

glad to have this thread back.

is there any interest in this thread yet? it's kinda been stagnant for a while and I'm debating just letting it die

no offense Alan but you can just message me on soulseek if you're looking for anything

I pop onto this thread every so often to have a listen to stuff, but don't have much more to contribute at the moment other than 'this is nice' about most things.

Not sure how much longer you'll have a choice about whether to let the thread die, so if you've got more goodies then bung 'em up here!

I could prob do a week if y'all think this is worth keeping up but I am still a dabbler and my picks will not be particularly "new wave."

if anyone's interested I did chuck up another SH album to megaupload to share with someone because I think it's really really good. it's called "Technique of Relief" and it's similar to "Sim City" but it has more of an "orchestral techno" feel. i don't have many words to describe it, just d/l it because it's such a neat album. i will point out that "Niwashi King" is really one of the best songs ever. could listen to that one for an hour on repeat.

http://www.mclub.com.ua/images/alb/cover17231_68788.jpg

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NPYP9WUO

played "the man from narcissus space" 3x in a row on my first listen. thanks for this.

WB frogbs

xp thats a great one but I like the next track "Stange Night of the Omnifiscience" even better. maybe the "biggest" song he's ever done

btw MaresNest - whatever happened to acoulethic?? I used to get you guys confused a lot but he seems to have fallen off the board lately

AN INTRODUCTION RO EARTHLING
----------------------------
Earthling's choice of name is as self-confident as their 
performance. The Japanese trio defines itself as a worldly 
representative, capable of creative exploration without
limits. The group calls their first album DANCE to express
the fullest flowers of rhytmic movement, attending to both
physical and spiritual needs.
Earthling consists of lead vocalist/guitarist John, his wife,
bass guitarist Yoko Fujiwara, and keyboard/sythesizer player
Jin Haijama. The group was formed in Tokyo one years ago
when John and Yoko, who had been fashion and textile designers,
felt the desire to give the music they'd written a more
permanent environment. They recruited Jim, who was working in
an amusement park, and evolved a musical form which pulsed with
a steady beat, yet was tempered by hypnotic vocal chanting. 
The electronic power that sustains DANCE is complemented by
Johns's introspective delivery, the natural result of his 
training as a Buddhist priest.
The sound of Earthling is dedicated to reinforceing the
subtle and sensitive connections which link modern music to
dance. While the group utilizes a rhythm-machine to epitomize
the sustained beat of their society's ordered technology,
the emotional vocal impact of songs like "Heavy Feeling in
My mind" and "The Guard of Sensitivity" add an urgent, street-
wise dimension to their precise instrumental presentation. 
Although Earthling are not fluent in English, the write in 
our language for its universality and appropiateness.
Earthling are sound pioneers, painting future dreams that
transcend the present day. They understand that the future 
cannot be easiliy classified, and that tomorrow is not simply
another today.
####
LP: Dance, King K28A-154 (japan)
45: "Slow Down the World" b/w "Urbanitrops" King EA-01 (Japan)

Toby Goldstein, 1981

stolen from
http://elcaunegre.blogspot.com/2011/04/earthling-dance-1981-king-records.html

XP - frogbs, he says hi from afar, I think he is maybe self banned at the moment.

that sucks, why'd he do that?

anyway, make him d/l that megaupload link above anyway

listening to the keiichi ohta (of guernica) solo album. I have actually never listened to guernica (tho they are on my list) but I'm enjoying this quite a bit. the synthesized classical arrangements with live piano mixed in are wonderful.

also feel like zeuhl prog fans could get into this. and I'm a huge magma and koenjihyakkei fan, so...

post it up!!

dig the cover too:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eUmHkK0XMpg/TTcFaF22PoI/AAAAAAAAC80/ROyHPBUN0U0/s1600/KEIICHIOHTAohtakeiichinojingaidaimaikyou.jpg

sure. I'll do it in a few hours when I'm by my computer.