Haruomi Hosono

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

In case anybody doubts my level of nerdy dedication to the Yellow Magic Orchestra cosmos, here's some actual math I did the other week. I was wondering whether, considering all those Paraiso covers, HoSoNoVa might not be a songwriting statement equal to Paraiso. Turns out, it isn't. But it's not *that* far off either. Okay and here's the math:

PARAISO
Tracklist space: 33% covers, 67% originals
Runtime: 25% covers, 75% originals

HOSONOVA
Tracklist space: 42% covers, 58% originals
Runtime: 40% covers, 60% originals

hah, I actually didn't know there were any originals on Hosonova. dunno if I've listened to that more than once though.

The video of Love, Peace & Trance is so good! I had no idea *that's* what that album would sound like. Really excited to explore Hosono's '90s now.

Are people here aware that he wrote and recorded a whole album for Chisato Moritaka in 1998? Basically everything but the actual vocals is him. And whatever instrumentation isn't him, is Miharu Koshi helping out. I've only let myself try the last two tracks so far but they both kick ass.

I love HoSoNoVa, frogbs (I let myself break with chronology because I was so curious what all the rearrangements on Flying Saucer 1947 would be like, and so fell in love with that album, and instantly needed more of that era...) It feels like he's come back full circle to his Happy End sound -- which I know is not what most people here love Hosono for, though. The covers are charming (if delivered very straight... probably too straight... but then again, I say that without having investigated the originals) but the originals are just great pieces of work. Catchy, atmospheric, sweet, heartfelt.