Haruomi Hosono

ah, nice to hear they were played out in the 80s. those muji tracks are almost too perfect to be ambient music to shop to... but them being ambient music to shop to makes them even more perfect. I picture supermarket aisles myself. (muji started as a supermarket or something, right?)

no mention of the US shows? NY and LA! I'm keeping my expectations grounded in the boogie woogie zone but sakamoto joining for the NY set seems within the realm of possibility...

why does ryuchi trend in the indie art miasma but not hosono. Is it the hair?

Much less obvious connections to western artists, tended towards nurturing and collaborating with Japanese artists.

Is this the place to discuss this new LITA comp?

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Pacific-Breeze-Japanese-City-Pop-AOR-Boogie-1976-1986/master/1539822

The city pop thread doesn't seem to get a lot of traffic.

Sounds fantastic so far. If nothing else I'm very happy to finally have an affordable copy of Hiroshi Sato's "Say Goodbye" (though I still wish someone would reissue that This Boy comp)

Revelation for me so far: Minako Yoshida's "Midnight Driver." Such a jam!

yoshida's monochrome album is really great.

Just ordered this last night. I only know Drip Dry Eyes and Sports Men which are both absolutely perfect. Very excited to hear the rest.

Excited for this

been wanting a copy of LA Night for ages, best song ever

yea I'm in the same boat as KP, if anything on the comp is as good as either of those I'll consider it money well spent

I'm familiar with maybe half that compilation, agree that Sports Men is perfect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9M-F2WB6nI

the Seaside Lovers album that "Sun Bathing" is from is really lovely - it's cheesy but i adore this sort of smooth beach music

oh 'i thought it was you' is on it too - love that one as well, those drums kill me

oh wait i'm getting confused by the LITA 'Pacific Breeze' spotify playlist which has a bunch of different tracks on it
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1MuAHiy0n7158rCXN2hHjm

FYI - LITA actually is pressing more copies of Paraiso, remastered by Yoshinori Sunahara (of Denki Groove fame)

https://lightintheattic.net/releases/4913-paraiso

the price is steep but as they say, "fuck it"

oh shit i'd forgotten just how majestic the drums vs. vocoder blaze-up is at the end of 'i thought it was you'. godlike!

that thing that funk records do where they just jam on for 3-4 minutes after the song's over is the coolest thing, I wish more genres would try stuff like that

ha yes!

i really need to get on those friends of earth records don't i?

At $45 it's stretching what I'd normally pay for a single lp, but I had to order the 'Seaside Lovers' LP as well ;_;

it's one of the three or so albums I'd actually pay that much for

https://www.forcedexposure.com/App_Themes/Default/Images/product_images/close_up/w/WWSCD018CD_CU.jpg

Akiko Yano's brilliant 'Irohani-Konpeitou' is being reissued! Always think of this record - though not her debut - as her 'The Kick Inside'. It's so brazen and playful, with melodies to melt away to.

And speaking of: that article mentioned the reissue of 'Tadaima' last year, and that completely passed me by. Anyone bought it? Is it good?

This album, Tadaima, Gohan Ga Deki Tayo and Ai Ga Nakuchane are all of them great, Great records. Buy 'em all.

there's some merit to that LBI - as far as I know, the songs on I-K were written before those on Japanese Girl

always felt this one was a bit weaker than the surrounding albums (though I love track 5 "Ike Yanagida"), still will probably buy it for the sleeve alone, one of my favorite album covers ever

btw Oesu Oesu is another good one - it took a bit to sink in but I've come to see it as one of her best and most representative albums. after that she kinda got mired in that cycle of dated production/back-to-basics, though shes always a joy to listen to

I actually like this album from 1986 best: https://www.discogs.com/Akiko-Yano-峠のわが家/master/254757

Definitely slick mid 80s rock production there. Steve Ferrone on drums!

I bought the Tadaima reissue. I'm really happy with it as the artwork and sound quality are spot on. I saw they did Japanese Girl a couple of months ago. I should pick that up.

I still have hope that someone will reissue some of the Miharu Koshi albums at some point. I saw a copy of Parallelisme come up on Discogs for $75 and I really was tempted.

particularly Boy Soprano, which I think is about as good as anything else mentioned in this thread. the version of "Ave Maria" is such a stunner, I can't do anything while it's playing

I'm a huge fan of 'Honto No Kimochi', a latter-day Akiko Yano rekkid, very beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHDUZMjnvs8

there's some merit to that LBI - as far as I know, the songs on I-K were written before those on Japanese Girl

I did not know that.

Thanks for that vid MaresNest, I'm still to discover her latter day records, this sounds great.

yeah this is really nice. I'm currently digging her '92 solo piano record "Super Folk Song", though I think a lot of those songs are covers. at least one of 'em I swear is a Moonriders tune, though Akiko sorta makes everything her own so it's hard to tell

poking around YT...she definitely returned to weirdo technopop at some point. I think is from 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlYe-p_XChU&list=RDXAbjxBtESs0

Listen, I like creative design and all, but LITA can fuck right off with this:

http://i.imgur.com/IND19Uj.jpg

Trying to read that circle one is anger inducing.

I frequently realize that what I love about YMO+ is slightly adjacent to what you all love. You might find this record interesting:

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

I ran the description through Google Translate and it says that Hosono was an 'advisor' (mistranslation?) on this album. It has the mark of Hosono.

Hideki Matsutake, the 'unofficial' (crucial) 4th member of YMO, deserves his own S&D thread. That's a DEEP rabbit hole.

BTW the above record is from '82, not '84, putting it closer to YMO's glory days.

I frequently realize that what I love about YMO+ is slightly adjacent to what you all love

would be curious for your elaboration on this!

also, i really like that last track

I bought the first YMO record, on yellow vinyl, 25 years ago. I was 14 and that record changed my life. I knew, right away, the impact YMO had on Japanese music because I could hear it in SNES and Sega soundtracks.

Part of they key to that early YMO sound is extensive programming of the Roland Microcomposer, the first digital, programmable sequencer. So while YMO weren't the first electronic pop band, they were the first to release computer-programmed pop. They're not 'loopy' or repetitive like Kraftwerk or other contemporaries.

The YMO sound I love is loungy, self-referentially Japanese, and predates MIDI and sample-based drum machines. When ILX goes into YMO deep-dives, they tend to go further into the 80s, but all the great material, YMO and related, happens from '77 to '81.

A couple of years back some friends and myself made a little internet radio show of Japanese Music for a little internet station for a few years, we did almost 70 editions, went pretty deep down some rabbit holes during that period and I'm pretty sure there wasn't one episode that passed without having a member of YMO (including Yanno and Matsutake) having a hand in some track, particularly Hosono, it fast became a running joke.

A couple of years back some friends and myself made a little internet radio show of Japanese Music for a little internet station for a few years

there are no little internet radio shows, only little internet people

Yep, lol, Maresnest + Monkey 47 Gin + ILM access = redundancy

that show was pretty great...discovered a lot of neat stuff through there

I remember a question on some message board about who would be the "Kevin Bacon" in the music biz, the one person you could connect to virtually any artist via a few steps...my answer was Ryuichi Sakamoto

amusingly, P-Model (Japan's OTHER great technopop band) appears to have no connection whatsoever

No connection to YMO, at all? Hmmm damn

unless you wanna get really tenuous - the producer of In a Model Room was the keyboard player for Plastics, which later splintered into Melon, who did an album with Snakeman Show, which appeared on Xoo Multiplies

what have I been doing with my life

I remember a question on some message board about who would be the "Kevin Bacon" in the music biz, the one person you could connect to virtually any artist via a few steps...my answer was Ryuichi Sakamoto

i always thought this might be brian eno. in sakamoto's case it would be

eno ----> bowie <---- sakamoto

A couple of years back some friends and myself made a little internet radio show of Japanese Music for a little internet station for a few years

The interview you did with Chris Mosdell (YMO lyricist) was most revealing iirc.

I'm the dummy here probably but I need to ask: what show was it?!

Matt it was Peter Barakan! I should have tracked down Mosdell too actually

Not at all LBI, it's all here - https://www.mixcloud.com/japanalternativesessions/

Oh yeah sorry, anyway I enjoyed his YMO-arguing-in-the-studio stories very much!

Thanks MaresNest, that looks amazing! I've got 69 episodes to enjoy :)

Ah, yr welcome, if there's anything in there you like but have trouble tracking down hmu.

Not sure if this has been mentioned previously, but Hosono still has a weekly radio show called Daisy Holiday every Sunday on Tokyo's InterFM. It's quite chatty (not so good for non-Japanese speakers like me) but it's pretty cheerful.

I've finally managed to jump through the various VPN hoops needed to stream Japanese radio outside Japan (most of the big stations stream through one site, Radiko, which is locked down unbelievably strongly) and have started recorded episodes and putting them into a Google Drive folder. I'm also recording Towa Tei's show on J-Wave, and will be recording Sakamoto's bi-monthly show there too.

If anyone wants access, send me an email through the board and I'll add you to the folder.

Also, would it be worth starting a new thread specifically for reissues of Japanese records and compilations? There's been a ton of them in the last year or so, with a load more on the way...

daisy holiday playlists