Haruomi Hosono

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.

http://s33.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2CE5XMURV2R7N2CTJUHM631DW7

The MONAD Albums: These 4 ambient-like albums came out around the same time in 1986 and form a sort of set. They were reissued as a boxed in 2002

Coincidental Music
1985 Monad cd: 30CH-143, TECN-18037, TECN-15337

A sampler of un-released music for movies, TV, commercials and installation 1982-85. This is a good album to hear Hosono's vastly different styles of compositions, though the content is so varried it makes incoherent listening as a whole without programming your CD player.

1. Lichtenstein's 0.31 (recorded 11 Oct 1984)
2. Pietro Germi (re-recording version) 5.30 (recorded 7 July 1983)
3. Normandia 2.36 (recorded 11 July 1984)
4. The Man of China 1.50 (recorded 24 April 1985)
5. Sayokoskatti 4.45 (recorded 8 May 1982)
6. Mazinger "H" 3.14 (recorded 10 March 1984)
7. The Plan 0.31 (recorded 20 June 1985)
8. Nokto de la Galaksia Fervojo (re-recording version) 1.31 (recorded 22 Dec 1984)
9. George Don 1.01 (recorded 7 May 1984)
10. Bio Philosophy 4.40 (recorded 8 May 1984)
11. Memphis, Milano (re-recording version)10.27 (recorded 10 Aug 1982)

Mercuric Dance
1985 Monad cd: 30CH-144, TECN-18038, TECN-15338

All synth with a bit of percussion, though rather monochromatic. Recorded 1983-4. For a modern dance ensemble. A video version was once availablet. (Emotion BEB-33)

1. Sunnyside of the Water
2. Mercuric Dance
3. Formation of the Venus
4. Down to the Earth
5. Fossil of Flame - Fifty Bell-Trees
6. Prepared Quartz
7. Sea of tau
8. Windy Land
9. To the Air

Paradise View (Soundtrack)
1985 Monad cd: 30CH-145, TECN-18039, TECN-15339

An album of very interesting, sampled and re-assembled Okinawan music with an emphasis on gamelan-like sounds. I got a chuckle when a Village Voice film critic commented on the wonderful, authentic Okinawan score ("authentic" Hosono and his K250 that is). In the film, Hosono plays a supporting role as a sensitive, but out of his element Japanese grade school teacher transplanted to Okinawa. The big in-joke is that one of the teenage girls in the story has a YMO shrine in her room and seems quite infatuated, yet has no apparent interest in her school teacher and his resembalance to a YMO member. This was the first Okinawan language feature film and according to the IMDB co-stars Jun Togawa though when I saw the film quite some time ago I didn't know what she looked like or had a translation of the cast list.

1. The Image of a Paradise
2. The Image of a View
3. Mabui Dance
4. Yuta's Pray
5. Atti
6. Wheels on Fire
7. The Truck on the Sea
8. Roochoo Jazz
9. The Paradise View

The Endless Talking
1986 Monad cd: 30CH-159, TECN-18040, TECN-15340

If you can't stand repetition, then "Endless" is the operating word here. This was for an Italian art installation. 13 bright, quirky and repetetive synth pieces. Recorded 25 April 1985.

1. Mercuryfall
2. The Animal's Opinion
3. Insects Insists Insecurity
4. The Long Story of a Humankind
5. The First One in Heaven
6. Sequential Opera Circuit
7. Trembling #1
8. The Endless Talking
9. Scratched
10. Szymanowsky Bird
11. Digitally Sampled Etnography
12. La Pliocena/Birdoj
13. Trembling #2

If you enjoy Hosono's SFX album, seek out the F.O.E. (Friends of Earth) "Friend or Foe" 12" or the CD "The World of F.O.E." which feature remixes of SFX album tracks plus two other tracks which are completely killer and even floor-friendly. The Exterminated Mix of "Body Snatchers" in particular has a devastating razor-blade edit ending that's almost Apparat-like, or at least as good as Cab Voltaire stuff of similar vintage.

i'm making my way through the monad box tonight. so far paradise view (soundtrack from a film of the same name) sounded great, lots of unusual (dx7?) synth-bell melodies and some looped gamelan samples. very pristine and atmospheric

anyone heard philaharmony his 1982 album? 'cos i'm listening to "platonic" for the first time (incredible tripped-out echo chamber electro track) and wanna know if the rest of the album is in the same vein

("platonic" is on this btw: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Electrounique-Vol-5/release/1683109, the only place to get die dominas on vinyl for under 200 euros?)

philharmony is excellent btw. a mix of his wacked out symphonic fairlight stuff, BGM style electro, and melodic j-pop.

as for hosono produced lop-sided exotic j-pop, this album is essential: http://www.discogs.com/Miharu-Koshi-Tutu/release/665681

[X-post from 9/21/05]

Big feature on Hosono in issue 162 of The Wire from 1997, by Clive Bell. Good thing I'm a pack rat -- I still have that issue! It's sitting open on my couch as I speak (I'm at work right now though, so I haven't finished rereading it). It only took me 8 years to track the damn albums down! I remember thinking it sounded a lot like Discover America era Van Dyke Parks. And as I skimmed the beginning of the article, Hosono mentions how Parks produced one of the albums of his early 70s psychedelic band Happy End.

The albums are:

Tropical Dandy 1975
Bon Voyage Co. 1976
Paraiso 1978

The last one features the awesome cover of "Fujiyama Mama," and was credited to Haruomi Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band, a Beefheart reference. This evolved into the Yellow Magic Orchestra, which I recommend to anyone who would care to hear a whimsical Japanese Kraftwerk. When the mood strikes I'll dig for some of that Happy End.

Not that anyone is even talking about it in this thread anymore, but 'Cochin Moon' is probably the single best "Japanese import in a faux-LP sleeve" purchase I've ever made. If it were a YMO album, it might be my favorite. Giddy, messy, strange, intoxicating, brilliant stuff.

Sakamoto's pure experimental albums (B-2 Unit & Esperanto) are 1000% more bizarre and advanced than Hosono's, those albums are timeless.

― milton parker (Jon L), Monday, 21 November 2005 23:06 (3 years ago)

having finally heard cochin moon, i'd argue that this and the monad records are way more bizarre and advanced than anything sakamoto has done. hosono is on another level

both Cochin Moon and Esperanto do great things with world music collage, one with 70's analog electronics and one with disjointed Fairlight sampling / cut-ups. they're both great, for different tastes. My long interest in sampling music has me partial to Esperanto, but that album is a wild exception for him, in general I'd probably agree with you

need to hear the Monad box. & thanks for waking thread, it got my favorite Miharu Koshi songs back on my iPod

I love the Sakamoto albums you mention, Jon L (three years ago). But 'Cochin Moon' is definitely beyond either of them, and carries amazing themes and sounds through its duration. It feels like a journey.

What else of his sounds like this? seriously dig this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zu8QMgbYhU&feature=related

great song! the album it's taken from, philharmony, is a straight classic imo. a mix of melodic techno pop and very very strange fairlight experiments. i see i said that already but it bears repeating.

includes a deranged (and extremely catchy) cover of "funiculi funicala":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7BhE3yY-7s

the last two classic era ymo albums, naughty boys and service are both pop song orientated. both classics, just don't expect the lounge disco hybrid of early ymo nor the far-out ethno-tronic sound of bgm/technodelic. also check some yukihiro takahashi solo albums for more song orientated ymo sounding stuff

i haven't heard SFX, hosono's next pop record after philharmony, maybe others can recommend.

then start searching his more outwardly pop productions throughout the 80s, miharu koshi and jun togawa being his main collaborators.

the closest he gets to "sportsmen" later on is the single as apogee & perigee, amazing sentimental pop music:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0E1N2EJVhg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXaT5bg0YMc

should've proof read that before i posted. anyway, my current favourite hosono jam is 夏なんです by happy end, his early 70s folk rock group. so beautiful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMSfi0CrQL4

this happy end album has some great moments.

such as the entirety of kaze wo atsumete

is it just hosono, or maybe just me, or are japanese pop artists allowed (or allow themselves) a great lassitude...? he seems to range across so many genres, without any compunctions. the idea of switching modes so frequently doesn't seem to trouble him in the slightest.

My favorite current Hosono album is Paraiso, however I have discovered one that I have been quite impressed with. It's called "Nokto de la Galaskia Fervojo", a soundtrack to some abstract animated film from the mid-80's. As far as I know his soundtrack wasn't even used (I wouldn't know as I've never seen the movie) but the soundtrack album is very good. It's not really outwardly scary or anything, just very harrowing and cold. Really portrays a feeling of loneliness and uses some really creepy keyboard noises. At the same time it's playful and kind of cheery. It's the sort of thing that only Hosono could have pulled off. There is one absolutely gorgeous piano piece on it ("La Travida Malgojo de Giovanni") that IMO tops any of Sakamoto's similar efforts. I get chills just thinking about it.

^ crazy, i was just about to revive this thread. recently heard 'cochin moon' and 'philharmonic' for the first time and i'm kinda floored tbh

All YMO related threads are seriously some of my favorite on ILM.

^^^

here's where r1o natsume would have been chiming in had he not gone batshit and got his ass banned.

weird, that happened? would not have predicted that.

and yeah, hosono is the best. medicine compilation, NDE, and philharmonic are my faves.

What happened with r1o?

this is what my investigation turned up:

he image bombed the wdyll thread with various types of porn & got bant

― J0rdan S., Thursday, September 30, 2010 11:24 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

also made homophobic slurs

― Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile (dayo), Thursday, September 30, 2010 11:25 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark

i guess r1o had some tricks up his sleeve

yipes!

Going through the Monad albums now; this is what I always hoped Brian Eno's ambient stuff sounded like. Very oddly sentimental, has parts that sort of hint at pop melodies and parts where a chord sounds intentionally "off". Great stuff!!!

Hey guy, r1o messaged me to let you know that he's fine, he just needed a permaban so he could quit ILX cold turkey and finish schoolwork, and also that he's not a homophobe.

He also wanted me to post the rest of the Monad box he had meant to post:

mercuric dance

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

coincidental music

http://www.sendspace.com/file/agijq6

paradise view

http://www.sendspace.com/file/hr6alw

Also: Sakamoto/Robin Scott - The Arrangement

http://www.sendspace.com/file/pj0ddj

hey *guys, I mean

r10 is a homophobe fwiw.

I don't know, I'm only saying what he told me.

somehow i'm both a huge fan of hosono but wholly clueless about this monad box. which disc should i download first?

Coincidental Music is great — little short character pieces he did for TV ads IIRC. Highly melodic and memorable.

Mercuric Dance is his ambient album. His sort of gauzy, hazy sleepiness seems to take off from the last track of Music for Airports (even Eno never really did anything else like that track).

Paradise View is a soundtrack to an obscure Japanese film set in Okinawa (I think). Lots of Fairlights and tropical moods (like Sakamoto's Esperanto) with some Okinawan-sounding vocals.

I liked this description:

"An album of very interesting, sampled and re-assembled Okinawan music with an emphasis on gamelan-like sounds. I got a chuckle when a Village Voice film critic commented on the wonderful, authentic Okinawan score ("authentic" Hosono and his K250 that is). In the film, Hosono plays a supporting role as a sensitive, but out of his element Japanese grade school teacher transplanted to Okinawa. The big in-joke is that one of the teenage girls in the story has a YMO shrine in her room and seems quite infatuated, yet has no apparent interest in her school teacher and his resembalance to a YMO member. This was the first Okinawan language feature film and according to the IMDB co-stars Jun Togawa though when I saw the film quite some time ago I didn't know what she looked like or had a translation of the cast list."

New album "HoSoNoVa" due April 20th? Anyone have any idea what this is? It appears to be a new solo album (his first in a long time) with guests and a few covers, but that's all I could discern through Google translate

http://lottapieces.com/images/products/jayz/hova.jpg

so not a lot of info overall

yeah hopefully we get something on this in the coming days/weeks

I'm thinking of doing a Hosono albums poll but honestly I have no idea where to draw the line...plus you can't exactly compare Tropical Dandy to Coincidental Music

Speaking of - if you have Coincidental Music, go listen to the last track (the 11+ minute one); it's such a gorgeous piece of music that I think does a good job representing what Hosono was really all about. I love how it gradually segues into a Philharmony-type vocal experiment track for a while. Could easily be longer. Can't believe I never have it a fair shake until now.

damn, the last song on "Omni Sight Seeing" is so beautiful, how I wish he made more albums that were just straightforward techno-pop

Zoot Kook feels like it launched a whole genre -- Yoko Kanno did a lot more good work within it in the '00s (and specifically sought out Chris Mosdell to help). Alive is wonderful.

mmmm, that's awesome -- not the greatest cover art, but I'm all for great albums in unassuming sleeves.

the thing about the cover art is it just looks like all those 50s and 60 exotica albums with a hot girl on the sleeve. its not like say the Miharu Koshi albums which hint at the oddness of the music. wonder how many people bought it for that reason, put it on and were like what the hell am I listening to.

zoot kook: song of the week

i haven't heard Yoko Kanno - will be checking that out today i hope

damn, there's too much music. artists should only release one album, preferably just one song