RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

Easy for you to say, I'm staring a four hour night max in the eye here! Stick to it, and I'm sure it will surface somewhere. But it sounds like something that's hard to come by for relatively illiterate YMG and related stuff peoples like me.

good news, it looks like it'll all be archived on NTS either monday or tuesday!

Aw yes!

The NTS Hosono Day shows are now all up on Mixcloud (where NTS archive everything) - I've made a playlist here:
https://www.mixcloud.com/mnida/playlists/nts-hosono-day/

(I *think* this was the broadcast order - I can't seem to find the schedule online - but do let me know if there's any corrections!)

oh man, that's great, thank you! the only thing i might suggest is adding the artists/tracktitles for each show, at least the ones that were made available (unless you already did and i didn't see them?).

the playlists for each show are at https://www.nts.live/recently-added
some of the shows didn't include a playlist (like the japan blues set: https://www.nts.live/shows/haruomi-hosono-ymo-day/episodes/japan-blues-hosono-26th-november-2017)
but others did, like the visible clouds set (https://www.nts.live/shows/haruomi-hosono-ymo-day/episodes/visible-cloaks-hosono-26th-november-2017)

No worries - although I didn’t actually upload these to Mixcloud, NTS use it to archive everything, I just assembled the playlist so everything’s in one place. So am afraid I can’t add track lists to the uploads - although doesn’t Mixcloud sometimes attempt to auto identify tracks?

The Visible Cloaks mix is terrific, as you’d expect.

I had a listen to that imaginary 1980 YMO album linked upthread and it's terrific - flows really nicely and all the tracks feel of a piece, which does make you realise how the later YMO albums were effectively collections of solo tracks.

Also interesting how closely Takahashi's solo stuff tracks whatever YMO were doing at the time. His work is less routinely praised than Hosono or Sakamoto, but you get the impression he was a seriously dominant force in YMO sessions.

Takahashi's solo stuff is all really well done, though perhaps a bit too much in the new romantic vein for me a lot of times. I don't see him as any less of a force in that band than the others, especially after the first album or two

good time to mention that one of my favorite YT tracks is finally on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4vBXABbsFE&feature=youtu.be&t=25m26s

pretty easy to figure out what "influenced" this but I still love it

I do buy the idea that Takahashi was the dominant force in the group - despite his many diversions into AOR and Burt Bacharach-inspired schmaltz he's always had the technopop thing in his back pocket

which track is it? (the youtube video is down, at least for me)

"00" from The Dearest Fool

oh cool, thanks! i haven't heard anything from that album. there is a lot to go through.

while googling for dearest fool i ran across a feature on solo material (http://mostly-retro.com/2017/01/22/ymo-101-the-solo-records/), which has probably been linked here before. part of a 6-part YMO series

oh man, that looks like a fun read. I think he nails it with Takahashi's discography - every single YT album I've heard has at least one killer track but as a whole those mid-80's/early 90's discs were pretty bad. from '95 on I think everything he did is worth hearing. there's a live album from '98 that I'm particularly fond of.

Ah no --- THIS is the site for info on YMO and YMO related musics. Hasn't been updated in almost a decade but I think it's still essential information. http://artcontext.com/artskool/jem/index.html

oh yeah, that's definitely the source! it's much comprehensive, and i've browsed through there many a time. i just linked to the mostly-retro set of pieces for a different angle on it.

I came to that site a long time ago for information on the group and had no clue about any of the artists on the sidebar, outside of Polysics. A decade later I think I know nearly all of them, outside of some of the *real* obscure ones. Awesome website.

xp wow thanks bamboohouses for putting that together

Not sure when this happened, but the YMO back catalogue has popped up on both Spotify and Apple Music here in the UK - they’ve never been on any streaming services over here previously.

!!!! Same in the us!!!

It happened about two/three weeks back.

why was i not notified?

I did actually post it up in the 'bands absent from Spotify' thread, should have done here too, sry :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aH501zC0qk

i'm once again listening to the NTS mixes of hosono and YMO-related material that were discussed upthread. i really liked this one, written by Hosono, which comes in about half of the way through Light in the Attic's mix:

https://www.nts.live/shows/haruomi-hosono-ymo-day

it's fairly pleasant but run of the mill Buggles style new wave until the chorus kicks in, which is just heavenly

oops, wrong link. meant to post this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD3J6NIe3-k

probably a weird comp but it reminds me of the giddy feeling i would have a kid when listening to manic monday

as a kid. i haven't had any given birth to any children via the bangles (yet)

https://i.imgur.com/Iz2XAHV.png

"Technopolis"really is a masterful piece of music. Packed with melodies, funky, weird, tense, exciting, elegant...

And I guess really it's very "triumphant" sounding, overall

this Akiko Yano tune is so gorgeous - I apparently 5-starred it on iTunes long ago but never gave it another listen. oops!!

https://soundcloud.com/technopop2000/akiko-yano-assembly-1984-2016-remaster

while fruitlessly searching for it on Youtube I came across this, a duet with her and Hiromi Uehara - never seen Hiromi live, she's such a beast - amazing that Akiko can keep up with her at all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKQ3Hr5INTA

wow, she puts the percussion into the piano. she's amazing!

whoa that duet is great thanks... gonna have to check out their albums.

"assembly" isn't very representative of the album it comes from.

Things you find out from YouTube comments threads: Haruomi Hosono's grandfather was the only surviving Japanese passenger of the Titanic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masabumi_Hosono

Hosono's story remained a source of shame for his family for decades. He never spoke of it himself, though his letter to his wife was published at least twice, after his death and in 1980 when an unsuccessful bid was mounted to find the wreck of Titanic.[1] In the late 1990s, the Hosono family released the letter to the media[2] in the wake of James Cameron's hugely successful 1997 film Titanic. Haruomi Hosono, Masabumi's grandson and leading member of the band Yellow Magic Orchestra, declared that he was "extremely relieved. Honour has been restored to the Hosonos." As Julian Stringer puts it, the letter "enables Haruomi to build a 'bridge' back to his father's emotional life, and so reverse years of social disgrace, through the symbolic properties encrusted in its patina."

i just learned about this:

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

Yeah, a poll of all the versions would be interesting.

new kate nv album alert. haven't listened to it, but i look forward to doing so tomorrow

hah, good thread to put that in. I had no idea

https://preview.ibb.co/hVq178/ytrs.jpg

xpost

ha, yeah i think this is the only thread she's mentioned in. i have to admit i'm bummed there's (almost) no singing on her new one. most of the album plays out like a more chilled out version of the instrumental tracks on Binasu. i always liked those tracks, but her ability to channel that vibe into pop songs was what made Binasu one of the best albums of 2016 (imo)

yup, it's very good but it's no Binasu.

listening now, this is kind of like her Monad album huh? not sure what to think of it yet

I met with a piece of legend at Yukimasa Okumura’s studio last night...
昨日は久しぶりに奥村靫正さんの事務所へ。いつも通りの軽やかな感じで「こんなの出てきたんだよ〜」って、こ、これは…(！)#YMO#BGM#TECHNODELIC pic.twitter.com/aA4lbZgRKn

— 古平正義 Masayoshi Kodaira (@KodairaFLAME) April 17, 2018

Ugh, sorry for huge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFCZ0GYpZnM

this version of Cue performed by Metafive is maybe even better than the original with the added horns

one of my favourite songs ever

New compilation of YMO and some solo tracks coming out as part of the 40th Anniversary of the band, curated by Towa Tei, remastered etc:

Seems a little redundant as we all know there are a shit load of YMO comps available.

http://www.110107.com/s/oto/page/YMO40?ima=3555

Yeah not sure what the point of that is exactly. I think the idea of mixing in the solo stuff is good but who needs another comp at this point. Especially given that all three musicians are still plenty active....

That version of Cue is excellent. Even though Metafive probably isn’t gonna record another album it’s pretty cool that they’re all constantly working together still. I could put together a great comp of tracks that are like...half of that group at a time.

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

a great performance of one of my favorite songs of theirs

wow I love the feeling the piano gives it, fantastic

http://www.110107.com/s/oto/page/YMO40
Standard LP, 2x45rpm LP, and SACD reissues forthcoming. At least in Japan, I assume they'll be available globally, too