Haruomi Hosono

yes, i too would love reissues of the Monad releaes for notes / insights into what he was thinking when making them. i was lucky to pick up the originals when they were still affordable but would happily replace them with reissues.

The Tale of Genji is my favourite.

Apogee & Perigee isn't a Hosono release is it? I thought it was Jun Togawa, though my favourite track, Hope is by the mighty Testpattern.

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There's two Hosono compositions on Apogee & Perigee (both sung by Jun), I don't know whether he actually plays on anything -- but surely the arrangements are 90% his own? And it must have been him picking the people involved. Who else do Jun Togawa, Miharu Koshi, and Takashi Matsumoto have in common? (Hosono as puppetmaster!)

The lack of context is bewildering, yes, and sometimes I get really curious... but other times, it can feel liberating too. When music so amazing seems to rise up out of absolutely nowhere, it makes me feel like anything is possible.

I'll have to give that one another listen - I do think HH's production style is pretty easy to identify. when "Scandal Night" came up on Pacific Breeze 3 I could instantly tell there was Hosono involvement despite not actually knowing what the track was

Coincidental Music is a huge favorite too. I'm not sure any other Hosono record has quite so many catchy things in one place. And even though everything on there was commissioned, and spans four years, I find it goes down real smooth as a start-to-finish listen. I guess when your creative spirit is burning as bright as Hosono's was at the time, it doesn't matter what you're doing stylistically, everything you do will sound of a piece.

God that's weird, I could've sworn I saw the production credit for Apogee & Perigee go to Hosono, but now that I actually look it up again, I'm wrong, it's Kazusuke Obi (who was apparently involved with EVERYTHING YMO-family from BGM on to Wild and Moody... after which he crossed over into the VGM world and was involved with, for example, the soundtrack to Super Marip Brothers 3?! Who is this guy?!

Apogee & Perigee seems to be shrouded in even more mystery than most YMO-adjacent stuff. Discogs notes that the releases had no songwriting credits until some many-decades-later reissue identified *some* of them. So it could still be that Hosono did arrangements for everything but Queen Glacier. It sounds to me exactly like a sister record to Parallelisme, just poppier.

Oh yeah, there it is!

https://galapagos-rec0rds.com/products/apogee-perigee-アポジー-ペリジー-超時空コロダスタン旅行記?variant=33050887553127

Other Japanese-language sites/blogs credit Hosono as producer too, and mention he drafted the storyline.

I don't think that link came out right. Here's the English-language blurb on that site:

"Nikka Whisky's commercial project by YEN all-star lineup including Yuji Miyake, Test Pattern, Yoichiro Yoshikawa, Miharu Koshi, Jun Togawa, under Haruomi Hosono's production. A gorgeous techno-pop album consisting of an A-side incorporated into a story that goes to the moon. It is a total conceptual album including inserts."

And "細野晴臣 プロデュース" comes up a lot. Seems only Discogs has Obi credited with the production.

‘Translation changes the original meaning’: how 70s psych rockers Happy End ended the ‘Japanese rock controversy’

In 1969, Takasshi Matsumoto and Haruomi Hosono opted to defy rock trends by singing in Japanese, not English – paving the way for ‘city pop’ and J-pop

Thanks! Great detail about Hosono jotting down new band names on his commute. Somewhere I read/watched Hosono say that breaking up bands is a hobby of his.

And: "...and at 76 he continues to create, saying he’s hoping to start work on a new solo collection soon." Good news, but hasn't he been saying he's about to start work on a new solo collection for years now? Hosono, you magical old man, write us some new songs dammit!

Man, I'm seriously digging Eating Pleasure, the 1980 Sandii (and Makoto Kubota) record produced by Hosono. It's got five Hosono originals and a version of Drip Dry Eyes that predates Neuromantic. On first however many listens it sounded like there was too much bland of-the-era pop between the summits of Hosono's Idol Era and Zoot Kook. I am here to tell you this is NOT TRUE. They wove the atmosphere real thick on this one. A much weirder and vibey-er record than it pretends to be!

It's one of those sneaky actually-it's-YMO albums, with YT on drums and Sakamoto credited with keyboards, Matsutake on computer...

that Drip Dry Eyes is so smooth. I didn't realize it predated Takahashi's own.

surprised it hasn't been repressed yet. admittedly I haven't heard the whole thing but I will have to rectify that soon.

Its a real favourite of mine. I managed to pick up a cheap copy of the 2nd edition in Tokyo about 10 years ago.

okay I've got it on now, definitely wilder than I was expecting. "Alive" is such a cool song

Artists with similar names that you get mixed up

Sandii & the Sunsetz
Sheena & the Rokkets

so good. 'zoot kook' still sounds like it was beamed in from the future.

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

apparently this is getting a reissue? never heard of this, apparently it's just a demo album but with songs written by a bunch of familiar names. Hosono produced it, apparently there are just a couple test pressings out there (one of which sold for 2 grand!)

https://www.discogs.com/release/9974042-Linda-Carriere-Haruomi-Hosono-Produced-%E7%B4%B0%E9%87%8E%E6%99%B4%E8%87%A3-%E8%A3%BD%E4%BD%9C-%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%82%AB%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A8%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB

some of the tracks are available on YouTube, but not the Hosono-penned ones (unless I just can't find it). here's one...sounds great

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

oh, that's funny that this is getting a reissue. I listened to some of the stuff on YT a while ago and thought, "pretty cool, guess I'll never hear it all tho." guess again!

1977! That's the year of Our Connection, isn't it? -- for me, one of the peaks of Hosono's songwriting discography. I had no idea he'd done another five songs for someone else that year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIyZn2UbU4I

popped up in my feed - not sure exactly what it is but John Carroll Kirby is involved

must be from this?

https://fruitandgroovescollective.com/2024/02/21/stones-throw-records-announce-haruomi-hosono-tribute-album/

The World Standard record that Harry produced in 1985 is melodic bliss. Tonally it reminds me of Memphis, Milano but with the landscape covered in snow. At first everything just sounds like the same bright, major-chord, new-agey song. Then I find myself blissing out to some riff that only appears right before a fade-out. Or I notice the crazy celestial section in the back half of the opener. Or I realize that there is a long, sad, dramatic song (like an ambient Mass!) tucked away towards the end of the album. There's even a sermon in Esperanto! And this came out in 1985, the height of Hosono's Monad period.

and it's recently been reissued! pricey though. I kinda forgot about it until now, I love Hosono lending his weird touch to other musicians like this, you can tell his production style right off the bat. track #8 pops into my head a lot, its like one of those upbeat Penguin Cafe Orchestra tunes that always lifts your mood up

Country Gazette is also worth a listen, I don't think Hosono is involved but the concept of it (ambient musician who's never been to America makes an instrumental country album based on 50's Americana) very much sounds like something he would do

I was just reading about the other World Standard records today and, he was! Country Gazette is one of the three with Hosono production. He even put a new original song on it.

Are the Interior and Inoyama Land records this good?

It's one of the relentlessly fun things about the Hosono catalogue: every time I get wise to one of these epic production jobs, I think, "The hell! My idea of his body of work has been woefully insufficient!! And I call him my favorite artist?!"

I really like both those Interior and Inoyama Land albums. They're up on YT if curious.

yeah both are great, as good as the World Standard album in my view. if you like those I'd also get the album re.sort by Sora - this time I know for a fact that Hosono wasn't involved, but it's exactly the sort of thing he would've produced in 2003 I think

here are, in my view, the best tracks from each:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cONpVBAv8E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwRKd9-m1YM

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

all those yen records box sets have lots of cool stuff in them, highly recommended

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LwA7I6Vs8M

i've got that on my phone, along with the six disc set of songs he wrote/produced for others, such an incredible amount of good shit in there, always fun when something you haven't heard yet comes up on shuffle

BIG rec for inoyamaland if you're into that cluster/harmonia sound

yeah mr nununu might as well do yourself a favor now and get both those Harmonia albums, you're bound to stumble on them eventually

I love the Cluster & Eno record -- I gather the Harmonia stuff is along those lines? Will look into that soon. (Incidentally, I was reading a recent Inoyama Land interview and one of the guys says Cluster & Eno is his favorite album of all time.) (And another by the way, I appreciate all the Kraftwerk suggestions above. Got three songs lined up to hear when the time is right.) (Also ripped all four YT videos above and slotted them onto my almost-broken walkman, so those'll get heard real soon.) (A Japanese comment on the Hosono song: "If you're from abroad and listening to this... you're some enthusiast!")

its better

Who is the "G.Miller" that wrote "Japanese Rhumba" according to the Paraiso liner notes?

Gerald
https://voices.pitt.edu/TeachersGuide/Unit8/JapaneseRumba.htm

Cool, thanks! I'd figured it was Hosono having fun with a piece of orientalism but the Japanese lyrics threw me.

Would listen to a comp of japanese GI songs.

Harry didn't write Fujiyama Mama either :)

Yeah i wonder if there is a comp around

Yah I knew that from that awesome Rhino 50's Rock & Roll box :)

Rhino should have made a GI songs box too.

But the Japanese verse in Fujiyama Mama IS Hosono's own, I think. The raunchiest of them all, as it happens.

I loved all the tracks linked just above, by the way (the other mid-'80s ambient productions, and that gloriously weird and edgy Hosono solo instrumental version of the Three Kingdoms song I knew as a vocal song from the 20th Century Pops box). Lately I'm busy being blown away by Medicine Compilation...

spiritual New Age is one of those things that's probably never coming back but yes HH was very good at it

still love to revisit this video every once in a while, very amused by the fact that once upon a time something like this could be a hit. can't question HH's dedication to it either I mean check out that ponytail. hopefully a reissue of this album isn't out of the question

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2safm8

also "Asatoya Yunta" is a traditional Okinawan folk song, so that's actually 3 covers on Paraiso. given 1978 was also the year of Cochin Moon, Pacific, and the YMO debut I guess he may not have had a whole lot of time for songwriting :) I actually have a few versions of that tune, I think if you compare it to Sakamoto's on Beauty you can hear the difference in how these guys think. RS's is really pretty and immaculately arranged of course, but HH is the one who really extracts the magic from it, doing it in a way that I'm guessing hadn't really been done before