Japanese New Wave listening club - new albums every Monday

are Plastics the band in Downtown 81?

Yep Yep

This can't get posted enough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLl44pj7a70&feature=related

or this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mFipU8PW4g

had never listened to bgm before - loved it!

ps knew I'd heard "camouflage" sampled somewhere before and it was reeeeeally nagging me until I figured out that it was on this two lone swordsemen track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PE5jTWc9lM

there was a "Arists that sampled YMO" thread somewhere in the archives. they're sampled a lot more than you'd think (especially "Computer Games"). It's somewhat sneakier than sampling Kraftwerk since most Western people don't really know of them.

Not a case of sampling but I've always wondered if OMD were referencing the intro of La Femme Chinoise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q85PSj8fqtk

With the intro to Genetic Engineering

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

there was a "Arists that sampled YMO" thread somewhere in the archives.

ah, found it. thanks!

on my third listen of the day. this album is fantastic.

xp - it pretty much has to be, right?

Susumu Hirasawa - Sim City (1995)
http://i.imgur.com/IZLYj.jpg

I've posted about this guy a lot, but if you haven't read them all I have to say is that this guy is one of my favorite musicians, period. He got his start with P-Model in 1979, which broke up in 1986. He's maintained a solo career ever since, even after P-Model reformed in 1992. His output during the 90's was, in my opinion, the best of anybody during that decade. Nothing against his first 3 solo albums, but starting with his 4th, he took things to the next level. This is his 5th, and it showcases his penchant for music with a big sound. Lots of marching rhythms and powerful synth noises. Like every album the guy releases, it's wonderfully melodic as well. Hope you guys dig this as much as I do. Sorry for the BIG image but this is BIG music.

Not a Spotify Link

Yukihiro Takahashi - Murdered by the Music (1980)
http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/d252704b21a94d54d7f45fb20c60d560/56674.jpg

Takahashi was YMO's drummer and singer, who also had quite a successful solo career during their run. Murdered by the Music is the first of 3 solo albums that sort of captured the more pop side of YMO, all of which are worth hearing. But I like this one a lot because it has the best sense of humor and some pretty neat tunes that are kind of atypical of his later career. To be honest I'm not a huge fan of his solo stuff, but these albums are pretty good. I would think just about anyone could enjoy this.

(link incoming)

Murdered by the Music
Not a Spotify Link either

> Susumu Hirasawa

how would you rate his Paranoia Agent theme compared to his other output? representative?

I love hirasawa's stuff on the satoshi kon films I've seen but have never listened to any of his other albums. really looking forward to this!

just threw it on. very good so far. love the contrast between the almost saccharine arrangements and melancholy vox on this guy's stuff.

what p-model albums are worth searching btw?

how would you rate his Paranoia Agent theme compared to his other output? representative?

Honestly I have no idea, I haven't gotten that far yet. His discography is huge and most of his albums have been really good so I haven't been able to just power through it. But from what I can tell, he does kind of embody that mentality of The Fall, you know "always different, always the same". That is, he's always trying new things, using new instruments, and writing different types of songs, but he always seems to fall back on the same sorts of things that are familiar to him - like marching rhythms, epic choruses that repeat the title over and over, even certain types of vocal melodies. What I'm trying to say is that I'm fairly sure if you like that tune you should probably just pick up a full album and go from there. AFAIK his soundtracks usually derive a bit from his full-lengths and I would guess probably aren't as good.

what p-model albums are worth searching btw?

Well I'll definitely be posting some up later, there's really no "definitive" album, just a bunch that are very good to excellent. Of the first run, I would say In a Model Room and Karkador are the best. When they reformed in the 90's, pretty much every album they released was incredible. P-Model and Big Body are probably the easiest to get into (and sort of form a set together). From there they got a bit more complex and ambitious, but the material was top notch - Fune and Enola are both great. I just started listening to Music Industrial Wastes ~ P-Model or Die, their final album, and can confirm that it's also very very good.

oh, man. thanks for the info. sounds pretty exciting!

(due to actual events not *that* surreal anymore)

Paranoia Agent Theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-anabfAg06U

i'll have to wait until I get home...can't listen to that here

xpost

Saw that series right over the summer. Always thought it was an bizarre choice considering the show's actual soundtrack.

have the Yukihiro Takahashi lp on now. not bad, has its moments (the strings at the end of "Numbers From A Calculated Conversation" are lovely), etc. but I loved the Susumu Hirasawa one and it pales a bit in comparison.

i can see that. they certainly have a different feel to them. the Takahaski one is more for those who like the more goofy, pop-oriented side of YMO. I'm a big fan of most of it.

meisenfek: just heard the paranoia agent theme you posted and it's definitely representative of his output. maybe a bit more upbeat than usual but if you like that song than pretty much all of his music from the 90's and beyond should appeal to you.

Does anyone (of maybe the two people who actually d/l these) know what kind of stuff they want to hear next week?

hah.

personally, I would love to hear some of the more psychedelic, pre-ymo stuff that's working with a primarily electronic palette. I think cochin moon is a stunning record, for example, and haven't heard much else like it from that scene... but I realize that's taking us out of "new wave" territory for sure.

Those albums are kind of tough to come by. I think that in Japan, YMO really was the pioneering electronic act, it's not like Germany where you had Cluster and Harmonia and Schulze...but I'll have to look. I'm not too worried about going out of "new wave" territory since there are only really handful of Japanese bands that can really be classified as such...I mean Sim City is pretty far away from new wave but he had his roots there and took just enough of it with him to make it count in my mind. Hell I was planning to post Kaze Machi Roman by Happy End up here one of these weeks just because Hosono was on it.

yeah, I'm not really sure if there even IS much stuff like cochin moon out there. not knowledgeable enough. have to admit... a whole world of bands running parallel to cluster/harmonia/schulze that I had never heard of is exactly what I was hoping for. :-)

but I'm loving this thread and especially the more fringe stuff like sim city! it's unlikely that I would have heard it otherwise and it is GREAT. thanks for doing this.

yea i'm into sim city, especially the title track, really appreciate the tip

Glad you guys liked it...i would be interested to know what songs were your favorites.

Hard to pick just a couple but "Caravan" always strikes a chord with me, mainly because it comes after such a melancholy stretch of music. "Moonlight" also really blew me away, especially the first time around. Seems like its going to be sort of a typical string ballad, then this overpowering industrial noise comes out of nowhere and becomes the focus of the song...very cool

Glad you guys liked it...i would be interested to know what songs were your favorites.

"lotus" is really doing it for me right now.

re-listening. a couple thoughts.

"moonlight" - wow, this might be my fave. so sweeping.

"pacific rim imitation network" - maybe not top tier, but whoa, that guitar solo is pretty "out."

the whole thing is fairly consistent, tho. and a lot of little touches to latch onto with this one.

"Moonlight" still gives me chills just thinking of it. "Kingdom" is one that has really grown on me. Kind of has a trip-hop beat to it and the organ parts in the background are really neat. BTW speaking of "Lotus" it's one of quite a few songs he did that seem to change depending on how you listen to it...like on a full system vs. headphones vs. say, computer speakers

Does anyone know anything about this track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRgLhEGEetc&feature=player_embedded

Moka posted it a while ago, and it just slays me.

cant find anything else about this on google except that its from 1983

would love to hear the rest of this album!

yeah, that's great!

i'll have to look at it when i get home

but if you know the artist or song i'll see if it rings a bell

The band name is Mariah. I have both of their albums on CD in my hometown, but their sound is a little too experimental for my tastes. I haven't heard them in 4 years, but I'm actually curious to give them a listen again. My mom is visiting me tomorrow, so perhaps I'll have her look through my collection and bring them for me!

Further googling yielded some results after all:

http://rootstrata.com/rootblog/?p=4272

Apparently some of the lyrics are also in armenian?

Thanks so much Patrick, and if its not too much trouble i would love to hear the other album as well.

looking forward to catching up on this thread.

and if you do end up ripping those, flac would be just great. :-)

I was going to say, if you find them, definitely throw them up here, that would be awesome. I did find it on Soulseek but only in 128 kbps

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've heard so little visual kei stuff, and the only thing that really grabbed me is Malice Mizer's final album which was a tribute to a dead band member, but I've only heard songs on youtube.
I doubt I would like much of the genre. I actually really dislike the image and think it has ruined a lot of manga/anime/videogame character design; I think a lot of japanese alternative musicians see visual kei as the enemy. Maybe japanese fans of YMO, P-Model, Boris, Ruins, Keiji Haino, Acid Mothers Temple, Boredoms, Melt Banana etc wouldnt be caught dead listening to it, I dont know. But I think it does look mostly very superficial, I've heard it compared to 80s glam metal in a negative way. I've also heard that the "visual" part means that the image is far more important than the music.

"Like most of these bands there's almost nothing written about them on RYM."

Yes, it always saddens me when one of my favorite bands have no reviews at all. I've started to feel like music fans (or fans of anything) should take more responsibility for the promotion of their favorite bands. I havent written RYM or Amazon reviews in years but I should really start doing it more zealously. There is endless reviews of the worst extreme metal bands and schlocky films but so few reviews of many brilliant things.

I need to overcome my fear of paypal and start buying from CD Japan, because I'm really not seeing more mp3 options for japanese bands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPiAnHgUAh0
I think this might have been the video I was looking for, but I remember it differently, but it's scary how differently I've remembered so many songs and film scenes recently. I've started to think that if you are taken aback by some encounter with art that impresses you, you'll probably have a distorted memory of it.

That Hayase Yukako song is really impressive, cant find anything else of hers like that on some quick youtube searches.

Wow, great voice!

There is a video with lots of cgi model penises spinning around in one of their live video shows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGuQ1XLikKU

I feel uncomfortable making fun of bands but this video illustrates what I don't like about visual kei.

A band called Dip In The Pool. Not sure what to make of them. It sometimes seems like too little is going on, but I'm still curious enough to keep listening. There is also a collab with them and Hosono.
This is pretty nice...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_0guvM2DFM

Odd video/song concept...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spRXxU81WI0

I spent a very long time searching youtube and last fm for good Japanese goth music and found very little of interest. Mostly serviceable/okayish early goth/post-punk or downright crappy sounding stuff.
One of the better bands was G-Schmitt, but I'm not sure they were much more than a Siouxsie and the Banshees soundalike. But I found this fun tune from the solo career of singer Syoko that fits this thread...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyZCmnnjksE

yeah Dip in the Pool is pretty neat...they are kind of like a Japanese Mecano. maybe a little too New Age for my tastes.

I have heard their first album. I really don't understand what they're all about. That video is really hard to watch.

Why hard to watch?

all the flashing color changes!

Thanks for recommending Hirasawa's Sim City, I bought it recently and it is fantastic and beautiful; well worth the 30 quid I paid.

I'll always remember when I first listened to it; I was driving back from the airport, seriously sleep-deprived, really taken by it all (I specifically remember feeling like the music was being broadcast from five miles out) - by the time "Caravan" came on it felt like an aural hallucination!

so much cool music in this thread. Recently been really enjoying the music of Oorutaichi. it is contemporary and i certainly wouldn't call it new wave, but you might like it if you have a love of japanese electronic music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvS5SLGAzpU

discovered him via a great set on Beats in Space last year.

Yeah, I was trying to think of how to describe the sense of scale in Sim City and the word "distance" is makes sense. Sometimes I pictured this immense river of sound/energy.

this is the single most kinetic & danceworthy thing I have heard in a very, very long time & i can restrain these restless limbs no longer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGdUpPE60rg

oh man, the synths on that one

only Koshi album I have is the one with "Pussy Cat" on it, which is a hell of a tune

Wait, isn't there a TV performance of this song with Harry Hosono and some other luminaries playing? Where did I see that?

Can anybody school me a little on Tatsuro Yamashita?

Revive. Was watching some Sandii & the Sunsetz videos on YouTube. Found a compilation with them, YMO solo, and some other people I don't recognized on a used LP.

We should totally get this going again!

finally picked up on that Oorutaichi rec above, and yeah, this is maybe sort of a modern take on Zolo? definitely love "Pan 1 Nonaki" a ton, total headfuck from start to finish

starting to catch up on some of the bands mentioned here, Soft Ballet has been really sticking out as a potentially great band - can definitely see why Hirasawa seemed to like them. this early track is really cool. sound like Nitzer Ebb + Human League to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rIC84HEqMA

Nice one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKY38Nx8dSo&t=1802s

huh, anyway that link was supposed to be: Yasuaki Shimizu - Kakashi.

https://youtu.be/HKY38Nx8dSo

That's the one that comes up on a load of people's yt recs. Pretty nice record.

ha, yeah thats how i discovered it. cheers to the yt reccomendation engine and the hive-mind for it's excellent taste. a very ahead of its time record. hope someone reissues it at some point.

speaking of which just picked up a new pressing of this which was another yt sidebar discovery uploaded by the same guy . on the transcendent forest gamelan tip:

Midori Takada - Through The Looking Glass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWGjYg2LmZQ

https://youtu.be/DWGjYg2LmZQ

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2017/04/11/music/hard-core-vinyl-fans-fueling-revival-obscure-japanese-music-1980s/#disqus_thread

Just realised that I've never seen a foreign documentary on a foreign band or genre. You'd think there'd be lots of subtitled documentaries on youtube.

I am deep in a Mishio Ogawa rabbit hole right now -

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

good find

have you heard 4 to 3 yet? love that record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P43Q3xzbX-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv2tS46rl1k

mishio live with haniwa all stars

lol, I love that Haniwa live record but never actually watched any live footage before, those are some magnificent solo faces right there. Also I was somehow unaware that Mishio Ogawa had solo records though I really like Wha-ha-ha and Chakra, so I ought to get on that

I love Chakra but I never realised that she had a solo career until recently and I've liked everything I've heard so far including 4 to 3, which is ace.

Why do I ignore this thread? Afraid people will yell Devo at me out their car windows?

The Love, Peace, and Trance album (Mishio + the lady from dip in the pool + one other lady + Haroumi Hosono) is quite lovely

There's a track by Shoukichi Kina and Champloose that I'm dying to share here because it's totally brilliant, it's a mix of traditional Okinawan music and loose folk with crazy monosynths recorded live in 1977, however it's not anywhere I can share :(

Some great selections here. Anyone heard those Fairlights Mallets & Bamboo compilations? I generally don't like various artists compilations but these might be pretty helpful.

Those compilations are great yes!

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!