Haruomi Hosono

I'd highly recommend Hosono's Monad Box, a collection of three of his instrumental and ambient records from the early 80s. My favourite of the discs included is Coincidental Music, which is short pieces made for advertising and promotional films. Sort of electronic Satie. Rather more delicate and strange than Sakamoto's work of the period.

Hosono's best solo song album is S-F-X, a Fairlight-heavy opus from 1984. There's a clip of one track here. And here are some pictures of Hosono, who's now a bit fatter, plays in Sketch Show, and runs the Daisyworld label.

Unfortunately, getting any of this in the US is near impossible. the only other thing i've managed to track down (through dusty groove) was this bizarre early 80's record that he was apparently only partially involved with, which was a strange "top of the pops" sort of medley of about 15 60's-70's pop/disco standards and a few mediocre jazz-fusion originals.

'More delicate and strange' than early 80's Sakamoto is quite a teaser. Sakamoto's B-2 Unit and Esperanto are already fairly strange (if not delicate) records, but those were the odd ones out.

I agree with Momus--Miharu Koshi is one of the greatest, most underrated Japanese artists of the '80s. She evolved from an insiginifant pop idol in the late '70s to a completely original synth-pop artist. Since the late '80s she's become a bit too idiosyncratic for my tastes ('Chanson Solaire' from '95 is probably her best from that era), but her albums are still beautifuI and I have the highest respect for her. She's due for a new album soon. I think 'Boy Soprano' from '85 is her best album--a perfect combination of her early synth-pop work and later chanson stuff. Unfortunately, her stuff is very hard to find, even in Japan. Her albums pop up on ebay, but they're always quite expensive. 'Boy Soprano' is probably the easiest to find.

One of my favorite Hosono-related bands is Chakra. They put out only three albums in the early '80s, and Hosono produced their second. They're all utterly essential exotic pop albums. Makoto Yano (Akiko Yano's first husband) produced their first album. The singer, Mishio Ogawa, put out four solo albums too, and they're also essential (especially her s/t). The last three were just reissued a few weeks ago actually, and I had never heard them beforehand. So I'm excited about those...they're very good.

Now that I'm talking about Japanese synth-pop, I'll make a few more recommendations. I recently discovered Taeko Onuki (or Ohnuki) and am completely in love. She started in the mid '70s, making more fusion-oriented pop albums, and then she teamed up with Ryuichi Sakamoto in the late '70s and started churning out one amazing pop album after the next. 'Adventure' (1981) is probably my favorite, but I have a lot that I've yet to hear!

Moon Riders are another of my favorites. They've been around since the '70s as well and, in my opinion, reached their peak in the early '80s with 'Mania Maniera' and 'Tokyo wa...'. They've spanned a lot of different style, but never put out a bad album.

Perhaps my favorite is Masami Tsuchiya's 'Rice Music' album (1982) and his follwing Ippu-Do album 'Night Mirage' (1983). Members of the band Japan assist on those two albums, as well as the fretless great Percy Jones. Bowie-esque vocals, experimental, angular guitar work (plus Bill Nelson doing his e-bow thing), completely out of control bass playing, steel drums, layers of synths, etc. Basically it's a hilariously awesome rhythm section with great songs too. I couldn't recommend these two albums more. It's too bad that 'Night Mirage' was never released on CD and 'Rice Music' is impossible to find on CD.....

Oh, and P-Model is another synth-pop great.

http://park10.wakwak.com/~techno/

http://www.artcontext.com/music/artskool/jem

That second one appears to be currently down for some reason....

I love Wha-ha-ha

Also, apparently Mishio was in Killing Time, so I need to check her out.

Yes, I've been looking for Killing Time for a long time. Please let me know if you get a hold of their stuff.

http://www.sonymusicshop.jp/smdr/sms/img/goods/L/KICS-1139.jpg

Patrick; Dleone's correct about the ReR connection, I grew up as a Recommended Records fanboy, buying anything they'd put out... Though I didn't finally hear Wha-Ha-Ha until researching backwards from the first Haniwa All-Stars record, which blew my mind in the early 90's. My interest in Senba's early Haniwa records & Wha-Ha-Ha is precisely because they're so eccentric & hard to figure out. I don't imagine they're particularly representative of early 80's JPop.

the yesasia site is listing this album in hosono searches, the title is killing me... have you heard it?

http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=FHCF-2344

The easiest way for me to get this stuff to you is through Soulseek. My name on their is Magazine, so message me if you use that program. The only other way I can think of is YSI, which will take a little while (though it's not too much trouble really).

B'angelo has some requests too. Whatever you guys request, I'll get it to you some time this weekend (or now if you have slsk).

Cochin Moon, way closer to mid-70's Cluster than I would have ever expected (though I do prefer Cluster). A surprise, even given Dominque's Tangerine Dream reference -- definitely in the 70's trance/synth records pantheon.

Bon Voyage & Tropical Dandy much more tin-pan-alley than electronic, but Paraiso is off-kilter, lays the way out for the first YMO. Omni Sight Seeing, thumbs up if you like late YMO. I like Hosono's solo mainstream pop records much more than Sakamoto's, no contest.

Miharu Koshi's Boy Soprano, wow.

And the Mishio Ogawa & Chakra stuff is eye-opening after a lifetime of Haniwa fandom. Chakra's much more straightforward / less quirky, but I'm very happy just to be able to place Haniwa in context with, well, _anything_.

Boy Soprano, the Mishio Ogawa debut, & Cochin Moon are the three I ordered online after hearing the mp3's.

Am I correct that this has Sakamoto on it?

I dunno though... even though his pop is weirder than Sakamoto's, Sakamoto's pure experimental albums (B-2 Unit & Esperanto) are 1000% more bizarre and advanced than Hosono's, those albums are timeless.

http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/pid-1004088657/code-j/section-videos/

(this should probably go on the noise board's wha-ha-ha thread but too late)

Kiyohiko Senba and his Haniwa All Stars

BTW, what exactly did Andy Partridge do on B-2 Unit?

I dunno Matthew, you heard Esperanto?

You mean that electric guitar in the right-channel that's barely audible and sounds as if it's unplugged? If so, that's...odd.

I dunno Matthew, you heard Esperanto?

Most of it — I just re-listened again this morning (have about 6 tracks downloaded). Assuming they aren't remixes, I'd say it's good but no B-2 Unit — lots mallet-y textures and ambience. But if you think I'm missing something, maybe I should re-download to verify that I'm listening to the right tracks.

ha, I first heard it with "members of the Vas Deferens Organization" too. My member was Eric

news you can use: japanese CDs are too damned expensive

I am beginning to miss the days when people were relatively certain they were talking about the same record. A few days ago at a dinner party someone put on something interesting, and when I asked what it was he said it was the new Boards of Canada. He didn't believe me when I told him that it wasn't, he just brought over to his iPod to show me the tags.

I put on Omni Sight Seeing last night, that is definitely my favorite Hosono pop album, every song...

And I first read that as "tripping on acid with members of Van Der Graaf Generator.

I am beginning to miss the days when people were relatively certain they were talking about the same record.

No kidding — but I think Dom's "news you can use" is the culprit in this instance. And actually, that's one of the 2 tracks I don't have. Still, p2p's are great for finding rarities...

Is there a good Hosono comp, btw?

I had both Matt and Eric in the room, with running commentary and interpretive facial expressions. THAT is a proper introduction to Cochin Moon, let me tell you.

and there is a song on here that is drop-dead gorgeous, and I have no memory of ever hearing it before. It's all-instrumental (so I have no way of ID'ing it). It's got the Hosono touch alright. And it's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard...? Where on earth is this from???? It sounds like it could be a centerpiece on Omni Sight Seeing. Clearly it's SOMEWHERE on my hard drive, but...... and it's marked Hosono, but........ all I have is a 30-minute file called "Hosono mixtape 260109".

I'm not complaining, mind! This is just..... so Hosono!!! Leave it to him to put a twinkling-dreamstar masterpiece onto some obscure release somewhere...

(To be clear, this was about the song that starts at 15:15.)

oh yeah, that's off of philharmony ("luminescent/hotaru"). its wonderful.

er, oops! misunderstood and that's just what kicks off the mix haha

Luminescent/Hotaru is SO wonderful. I've spent the whole day in awe of those alarm sirens that rise, rise, and turn into pings of synth.

<3

ok, so, I had to cheat and use shazaam but the other one IS shazaam-able. feel like I shouldn't spoil the fun but... it's from 1985

which, given his output back then, prob narrows it down to hundreds of tracks

okay, figured out all three:

11:30 is "Dreamtime Lovers" by Love, Peace, and Trance
15:15 and 18:48 are tracks 5 and 6 off the World Standard debut.

both albums well worth a listen by the way. I've been hoping for a LP&T reissue for *years*. maybe some day.

So it WAS World Standard! Soiichiro Suzuki was on some wavelength back then -- I would've sworn that was a Hosono melody. Can now rephrase to "a melody worthy of Hosono", which may be the first time I've used the phrase

Thank you for the shazzaming + digging, you two.

its a bit similar to Inoyamaland's Danzindan-Pojidon in that it does have Hosono's general vibe to it to the extent that you suspect he was involved with some of the writing. amazing how many times a song has come up on shuffle where I won't know what it is but I'll figure out that Hosono had to be involved with it in some way.

I've been hoping for a LP&T reissue for *years*

the cd has been pretty common on the used market for a long time… just checked on discogs and prices have gone up but… not tooooooo bad. was expecting worse given prices in general and the hosonossaince the last few years.

the album is musically 90s as hell if you ask me but the booklet and packaging are, like, objectively 90s… its a good cd listen, i think

cant believe "Hasu Kriya" didn't make Pure Moods

OOohh, "the Hosonossaince".

Thought of the evening: Capricious Salad gives Sports Men a run for its "greatest pop song ever recorded" money.

Also, I've been making myself more of those "mystery mixes". The hardest thing is waiting a week to play them back, haha. Nothing I couldn't ID on this one, but it's good. Folksier than the last.

It's amazing how well both of these mixes have flowed, even though I gave exactly zero thought to order! I was tossing things into Audacity through squinted eyes, to make sure I wouldn't register the song titles... I suppose that's what comes of making "omni sight seeing" not just the name of one album, but an entire career animating spirit.

Also also, mindblowing discovery of the week: Morio Agata is a member of the back-up vocal choir on Worry Beads. I know perfectly well which Agata tracks have Harry on them, but it never occurred to me that Agata might appear on a Harry song.

Capricious Salad gives Sports Men a run for its "greatest pop song ever recorded" money.

Hosono's production on this certainly is incredible.

Hosono's basslines rule so hard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahY07g4Qnwk

when I hear the live takes on "Tong Poo" circa 1979 or so I think he could've made it as a fusion bassist

I think today might actually be the 33rd birthday of Medicine Compilation From the Quiet Lodge, if you're in a meditative mood. That record holds up beautifully. Hosono was very much at the forefront of electronic music still. It's such a fantastically produced album front to back, such an easy album to get enveloped in

Made myself another of those blind Hosono mixtapes, and been playing it a ton this week. I woud like to say it's weird that I can select several random Hosono songs, toss them into Audacity in a random order, and come out with something which sounds as full of forethought, and as carefully sequenced, and also -- bizarrely, you'd really think! -- as cohesive any record in his official discography. But then I remind myself that this is the man whose finest solo album is probably the geographically and generically restless Omni Sight Seeing. So: no surprise, really. And yet it's incredible.

I'm finally listening properly to Sketch Show. Audio Sponge was merely okay on first two listens, but now I'm listening for the third time and it sounds totally fantastic. YMO lives again!

It did take me a while to fully appreciate that one. I still think a song or two could've been trimmed in the middle. But it's got such a warm and welcoming sound to it, it's deconstructive but doesn't feel bare, I think in 2002 it must've totally felt like where electronic pop might be going but it just wasn't. Still like Loophole a lot more - I think I heard it pretty close to when it came out, thinking it was great but something that might not hold up. It really does though...again, glitch pop didn't really take off the way I thought it might, so records like this sound pretty unique still

Still like Loophole a lot more

This is kind of a crazy thought, because the more I listen to Audio Sponge, the more incredible it is. Imagining that Loophole may be even better is setting up all kinds of expectations that, knowing Hosono, will probably be not only met but surpassed.

Takahashi's fingerprints are all over those albums too, its really a shame they didn't make more albums. they really were magic together.

listening to Coincidental Music tonight...wish I could've seen the ad exec's face when they first heard "George Don". imagine, the process was probably "we want a jaunty electronic theme, lets get one of the YMO guys" and this is what they got back

listening to Coincidental Music tonight...wish I could've seen the ad exec's face when they first heard "George Don". imagine, the process was probably "we want a jaunty electronic theme, lets get one of the YMO guys" and this is what they got back

Hahaha! I imagine ten seconds of silence and then someone shuffling in their seat and saying, "But let's remember, Firecracker and Rydeen were huge hits. The hell do we know, right?"

I love Takahashi's charmingly unschooled "you think I'm not a crooner, but really I am" vocals of the YMO era, but he became SUCH a marvelous singer in the '90s and beyond!! The vocals on Audio Sponge alone are to die for! All those epic Takahashi leads... and these past couple of listens I've been realizing that Hosono is all over the back-up vox -- I barely noticed his voice the first few times, except on the two (is it two?) songs he takes lead on -- but he's pretty consistently there, it's just subtle. The mixing on this album is genius.

That Brian Wilson tribute song is insane! And now that I check Discogs, it's listed a sole Takahashi credit. Same with Flying George, which is at least as good as the 1967 Beatles songs it's paying tribute to... and the cover songs, also insane: they pick songs that sound totally like the kinds of things they themselves would have written for a YMO-universe record in the early '80s.

Listening to Theme from a Summer Place and melting here...

Hello.

https://www.shy.center/p/lattice-200ec7

To quote Shy on Bluesky about this:

Hey, did you know Haruomi Hosono scored a soundtrack for an obscure rail shooter for the PlayStation? And that the audio is fully playable if you put the game disc in your CD player? Here's the story of a hidden gem by one third of Yellow Magic Orchestra.

whoa, I had no idea about this! what that article is missing is a link to the actual music, I found it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7P4XbyCH1M

clicking through it's pretty samey throughout, I can see why this was never re-released or anything, still pretty interesting if you wanna hear him do a hard driving sort of techno style. it's definitely Hosono, but it sounds like Hosono copping Ken Ishii's style. funny to hear him say "I don't remember making this" when reached for comment...he says the same about the Muji BGM stuff and the tracks from Pacific which have suddenly become popular...does he just go into some sort of trance when making music?

ha, I guess I can't be too mad about forgetting about this one if the big man himself even forgot about it (just went to poke around for a non-streaming copy and realized it was already in my library)

he's on a new Akiko Yano song, which feels Hosono influenced in a few ways...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKshmjc0Is

cute

with Tatsuo Hayashi (of Hosono House, Tropical Dandy, Bon Voyage Co and Paraiso) drumming!!

caught a screening of evening primrose (1974) yesterday, loved it:
https://boxd.it/6U66

featuring an early (pre-ymo!) hosono score that really fit the goofy, lackadaisical taisho period feel. great stuff.

caught a screening of evening primrose (1974) yesterday, loved it:
https://boxd.it/6U66

featuring an early (pre-ymo!) hosono score that really fit the goofy, lackadaisical taisho period feel. great stuff.

so nice i had to post it twice

Whaaat, that sounds amazing.

yea had a blast with the movie. was expecting a “leftists on the run” movie but got “leftists moseying around and getting into funny situations” instead, which, no complaints, and it really worked with the boogie woogie hosono score

Someone on his official YT channel has uploaded the great Tin Pan Alley live footage - worth it alone for the funky, falling off the drum stool intro to Chouchou-san - sadly, it's not that much more improved than the other versions on YT, maybe the sound is better, but still worth a watch.

new album on 9/11!

https://pitchfork.com/news/haruomi-hosono-announces-new-album-yours-sincerely/

Oh hell yes!!!!

1. Note of Mothership

otm

Haruomi Hosono - Yours Sincerely
https://haruomihosono.bandcamp.com/album/yours-sincerely

Why thank you! Preordered.

finally got my hands on that Tropical Dandy reissue, its been such a long time since I've heard it, it sounds like such a hidden treasure

its also a crazy listen knowing the kind of music he'd be making 3 years later, and then 3 years after that. gotta be one of the weirdest career arcs ever

its also a crazy listen knowing the kind of music he'd be making 3 years later, and then 3 years after that. gotta be one of the weirdest career arcs ever

Absolutely. And three years earlier he'd been recording Happy End's third album, which sounds nothing like Tropical Dandy either. My mind gets blown every time I remember that only *six years* separated the last Happy End record from the first Yellow Magic Orchestra record.

I've been playing lots of HoSoNoVa and Flying Saucer 1947 since this new one got announced. They're both marvelous. Maybe the two most feel-good records in his discography.

Its real interesting, given how he'll likely be remembered as a guy who was on the bleeding edge of music for well over a decade, that he suddenly dedicated himself to replicating music from the year he was born. as if to say, "I've seen the future and it sucks"

Apparently he spent the '70s, '80s, and '90s certain that Nostradamus was right and that the world would end in 1999, and when it didn't, he felt he needed to "reset" -- which would put him at... 26 years old right now, just a young whippersnapper. If the London show last year is any indication, this new one (which is more than half originals -- and when it's covers, it's, like, Beethoven) could be pretty innaresting! The fact that he conquered his almost decade-old dread of making decisions about mixing is encouraging.

Harmonizing along with the Flying Saucer 1947 version of Sports Men is one of the supreme joys in life.

― TheNuNuNu, Sunday, August 3, 2025 3:10 PM (nine months ago) bookmark flag link

This continues to be true.