RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

Rei Harakami's own records are all pretty great too, particularly 'Lust'

anyone familiar with her stuff from the 90s on? I caught her live a few years ago and it was she was def in jazzy singer songwriter mode. it was fun but I for sure gravitate towards her electronic records & I get the sense that's the style for much of her later material. but I'd be interested in some highlights if anyone knows this stuff.

I love 2004's Honto No Kimochi, a really great mixture of styles even getting close to some raucous Number Girl style guitar pop, also featuring Harakami on a couple of tracks.

that sounds great. will check it out soon, thank you!

how is the new denki groove? they're all p good, so I imagine that it's at least p good

XP - Welcome, ping an mail to my profile address (not the webmail link) and I'll send it to you.

I'm saving it for a bit later :) but the samples I've heard have been good. the album title seems to give away the album's overall sound

I'm probably not the guy to ask though since I love pretty much everything they've done, so I'm just gonna say that yes, it's excellent.

cool :)

and xp - appreciate that but I have a copy. gave it a cursory listen yesterday. 行かないで is beautiful. will need to spend some more time w/it.

also randomly tried out yano's elephant hotel, and wow, some really great songs on here. super eclectic; working in a large variety of styles & sounds. sounds like a lot of session players to me. very nice.

here's something I happened across - a cover of Hosono's "Sports Men" by Kimonos, a duo featuring Leo Imai. covering Hosono's stuff is tough but I think they nailed it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gi8futLRbM

Sports Men is one of my favourite Hosono solo tracks and that's a really fantastic cover

just want to say that I totally love the two yanokami albums & thanks for the rec frogbs

no problem - they're definitely very cool albums

by the way I've been really digging the new Denki Groove...it's longer and less refined than anything they've done since their comeback, with a number of extended tracks and a lot of great melodies (as usual). definitely going on my year end list.

Another great member of the YMO family is Masayoshi Takanaka:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv_YC56zq4c

He was the guitarist on YMO's first (and best, I think) album. The song above has Sakamoto on keys, and while discogs doesn't credit him for writing or arrangement, it's clear he co-wrote the song. Compare it to Tong Poo and Sakamoto's influence is unmistakable.

Here's another with Sakamoto on keys.

Here's a rare example of all four YMO members coming together on a non-YMO album. Even Matsutake is on this one:

Rajie - Giraffe Landscapes (1979) -- you can hear Tong Poo again, Behind the Mask, the elements are there. Unmistakably YMO.

just snagged this during last night shopping spree

http://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/g/ijcAAOSwo3pWctwE/s-l200.jpg
http://www.ebay.com/itm/YELLOW-MAGIC-ORCHESTRA-YMO-YMO-USA-YELLOW-MAGIC-ORCHESTRA-2-VINYL-LP-NEW-/332158065189

Lucky you, that's the best YMO album. That pre-Jpop YMO is so embedded in every anime and NES soundtrack. Japanese to the core.

YMO user's guide in Wire issue 404

Cool, I might keep an eye out for that.

Me too, I bought an old Wire mag from Ebay with a really nice Hosono interview recently.

I think I hit the motherlode today.

Kamiya - Mu (1980) The whole album is amazing.

Osamu Shoji - Night Flight (1979) Also amazing all the way through.

Himekami - 年 全辑 (1981) This album is great and the one after is pretty good too.

None of these are in the YMO family but the sound is exactly right for what I want. Hope you enjoy.

wow @ the Kamiya one, I can't figure out which tune from the YMO s/t that's modeled after because it basically sounds like every one of them

the other ones sound a lot better to me, will definitely be checking both those out

Good to see this thread being revived again. I've been obsessively listening to Sakamoto's Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia this week. Such a wonderful album.

i started listening to a youtube playlist after the Kamiya song, and it eventually led to this, which i think is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRza12FLW4

especially the part after the breakdown, around 2 minutes in. siiiiick
1983, i think.

Right on, 3x5!

love Night Flight.

<3 been on a major YMO kick this year too. i want to hear "Simoon" on a constant loop for the rest of my life

awesome will check those recs.

These days, my main YMO jam is Technodelic, which some seems more fun to me than BGM, and the songs are a little less obscured by the recording/technology. It's weird that a lot of people lump YMO into the "sounds like Kraftwerk" bucket, because they were really a different thing altogether. I almost want to look at them as a (fairly radical) extension of exotica composers like Les Baxter and Martin Denny, but using modern technology.

totally and the reclaiming of "Firecracker" is the gateway.

id also put The Ventures in that list.

posting here bc i think y'all will enjoy it + the production is v honoso i(y)mo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17OeCznSm5I

xxp yea I think a comparison like that makes more sense if you consider them to be an offshoot of what Hosono was doing from 76-78, though they quickly evolved into their own thing. it's nuts that the self-titled and Technodelic were only three years apart.

I agree that Kraftwerk comparisons are mostly bogus, if only because these guys were actual musicians and the stuff they wrote was a lot more melodically complex than anything Kraftwerk could do. That said I don't really mind the label, it gets people interested

right now one of my favorite YMO things is this tune from Akiko Yano from when YMO was essentially her backing band. it's 8 minutes long and feels a bit like a showtune medley. there's an amazing electronic drum freakout about halfway through. I feel like this album is up there with anything YMO did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk8NScB_R7Q&t=2675s

there's such a richness/depth to their compositions, they obviously know a lot about classical and tin pan alley (ha) type stuff

xpost One of my absolute favorite albums. Pretty much perfect straight through. Was listening to this and Tadaima before bed last night.

Love the "choir" vocals (throughout both those albums) and tonal shifts in that tune.

I've somehow ignored YMO until recently (maybe because I confused them with ELO, who I also don't listen to?), but finally ended up here after going down a Youtube hole of Haruomi Hosono stuff, all of which is just insanely ahead of its time.

ya Tadaima is maybe even better, though it's just a single instead of a double. gotta love when a skilled and generally tasteful musician just goes off the deep end.

I think it's pretty difficult, and rare, to get the YMO sound right. Honestly, I think YMO stopped getting YMO right towards the end of their careers, and all the solo and Yen records stuff that came after misses the mark and goes into the generic J-pop bin, for me.

For me, the YMO sound is their early sound: self-consciously electronic, self-consciously Japanese, informed by their disco/fusion/lounge sensibilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE2DQQhGam4

Jazzy chord progressions with a pentatonic melody over the top. Perfect.

hell yeah

Ehhh see I disagree. I think they began losing it after Technodelic. The earlier stuff is kitschier and has Hosono's sensibilities reigning heavily over everything. I think BGM and Technodelic sound like no one else at that time.

But it's all great and I don't want to come across like Turrican or something lol.

I agree that Kraftwerk comparisons are mostly bogus, if only because these guys were actual musicians and the stuff they wrote was a lot more melodically complex than anything Kraftwerk could do.

This is unfair. Hütter, Schneider and Bartos were all classically trained. Kraftwerk's minimalistic style was a deliberate aesthetic choice.

brimstead knows what I'm talking about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLUgH6ztFes

84 maxell commericial, music by sakamoto. there is a longer version available on two different comps of his commericial/tv work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ25BzokNNU

i love the wireless headsets they used in this performance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4JwpaTnz2U

This doesn't sound much like YMO, though it's also from the same time, also from Japan, also weird electronic pop. Basically I just came across it, love it, wanted to share.

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

It's weird that a lot of people lump YMO into the "sounds like Kraftwerk" bucket, because they were really a different thing altogether.

It's not weird at all - I mean, I can see why people have a tendency to lump YMO in with Kraftwerk, even though at the same time I can see why they shouldn't be lumped together.

I agree that Kraftwerk comparisons are mostly bogus, if only because these guys were actual musicians and the stuff they wrote was a lot more melodically complex than anything Kraftwerk could do.

Kraftwerk were also "actual musicians" and were indeed more than capable of writing melodically complex music, but they made a conscious decision to simplify and limit themselves.

I don't want to come across like Turrican or something

I don't think you've got anything to worry about.

Guess I was unaware of Kraftwerks musical prowess...haven't really heard them play

The prog/fusion musicianly aspect of YMO is the part that interests me least.

Kraftwerk being able to play makes sense and seems evident in a lot of their earlier jammy stuff. "Autobahn" is a 22 minute long song. you can't really sustain a single song for that long if you don't know how to play.

melodic complexity is overrated. it's fine if you have it but it's entirely unnecessary compared to rhythmic invention at least in the modern/pop sphere imo.

YMO seems born out of Japan studio pros, almost more like a synth Led Zeppelin

Yeah I don't know I always thought kraftwerk came from the academy whereas the ymo guys had been woodshedding in bands and jazz combos or something

Not that a group can't do/be both

Hosono was in Happy End who were very successful, kinda like Japan's answer to The Band or CSNY, Takahasi was the drummer for Sadistic Mika Band who had a fair amount of reach into the west, only Sakamoto came from an academic background, studying music composition.

https://image.ibb.co/ccnaLm/22853297_10155371537889877_6830628044043759678_n_1_2.jpg