Haruomi Hosono

going over his discog again today as i have to resort it on a new computer. i know this thread isn't a formal S/D, but just for fun....remarkably, it seems like if i ever had Cochin Moon, i don't have it now. if anyone notices other glaring omissions, do lmk...

Search: NDE, the Paraiso collab album (!), Bon Voyage Co. (!), Good Sport, Hosono House (! i remember perusing some LITA-type compilation of '70s 'country funk' from the american south; this album negotiates that blend so much more naturally), HoSoNoVa (! similar deal, but folk fit to early 20th century pop templates), Medicine Compilation (!), Mercuric Dance (! a few of the best ambient pieces i've ever heard), Naga: Music for Monsoon (! despite titles like "Sherpa" and "Taj-mahal," it's not silly in the way Sakamoto's 'Indian'/'Himalayan"-inspired music occasionally was), Omni Sight Seeing ("Korendor" and especially "Pleocene" are essential, though I do think the rest is among his least coherent work), Pacific (! great exotica/muzak), Philharmony (! first couplet tracks are a bit goofy even for my tastes, but rest is great and "Sports Men" is easily a top ten track for the entire YMO universe), Tale of Genji (like a darker, more sustained Naga), The Aegean Sea (a really nice, more upbeat/fusion companion to Pacific), The Endless Talking (! his starkest, least sociable album that i've heard, but amazing sounds and composition), Tropical Dandy (down the tracklist more and more of a Randy Newman influence shines through, which refracts really nicely through Haruomi's lens)
Consider: Making of Non-Standard Music (neat but inessential), Nokto de la Galaksia Fervojo (ditto), Paradise View (totally solid, but he has so much music in this vein and a lot of it is better)
Destroy: Video Game Music compilation (interesting that he did so many early games soundtracks -- Pac-Man included! -- but as standalone music, it's mostly insufferable)

his work as a songwriter is so distinctive that it can be easy to forget he's a god-tier ambient artist, up there with eno.

anyone else appreciate the not-quite-on-the-beat cymbal work buried deep in the mix of "sports men?" goes a long way in counterbalancing all the song's repetition.

any clear precursors/influences one might name for "Pleocene?" might just be a blindspot in my listening, but i really don't think i've ever heard another song like this one.

reading a thoughtful amazon review for Philharmony, and it notes, "Keep in mind that this album was originally recorded all the way back in 1982 (coincidentally the same year compact disc technology began revolutionizing the recording industry), and represents the first time digital sampling was ever used to construct an entire musical album." anyone know if there is truth to this claim? first ever?

lastly, i wouldn't have guessed it, but given i've yet to find any truly crap (or even sub-good) albums in his discography, i might say i prefer his body of solo work to ryuichi's. ryuichi may have better highs, or at least more of them, but he's definitely got some real blunder albums under his belt (and more than his share of so-so).

ALSO noticed upthread many references to YMO/ryuichi/haruomi bootlegs, rehearsal recordings, etc. where/how can i hear???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMhUfASCW4g

http://i60.tinypic.com/2qa1vkj.jpg

rad

If I could somehow live inside a song, it would be Pleocene

^^ pretty much, so fucking beautiful

Is it because of the cats?

Peacocks, silly

singing "ooh la la la"

Hey? Did you know that Hosono’s grandpa was the only Japanese passenger on the Titanic? And that he survived?

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/masabumi-hosono.html

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20125020,00.html

Amazing! Thanks for that!

He made a record with Steely Dan at some point, in the vein of Steely Dan almost. A quite random record.

https://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/prins-thomas-dug-deep-into-his-crates-and-found-his-7-favorite-ambient-records-of-all-time?utm_Soruce=thumptwitterus

um, any idea what he's talking about here? can't imagine this is true.

lol yeah i don't think that's true

prins thomas would get roasted alive on ilm!!

hahaha yea I can't even think of a hosono record that even kinda sounds like the dan

a hosono + dan collab would make me piss my pants

Me too, there's a few JP bands that are Dan like (Kirinji or Tomita Lab) but I can't think of any Hosono tracks that sound like them either.

Still alive. Good.

could he be thinking of World Standard? man, I have no clue

Still alive. Good.

I'm gonna start rip threads for live dudes if you knuckleheads keep this up

Bet he meant Little Feat

He meant Little Feat.

who played with Happy End right? that's probably it

Got it.

And they were the backing band for the first Akiko Yano record too.

ah yes, that must be what he meant

how did hosono hook up w/ little feat btw? there must be a good story there.

Maybe happy end opened up for them in Japan? Wasn't' happy end the early 70s folky group hosono was in?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_End_(1973_album)#Background_and_recording

World Standard

going through big Hosono kick right now, and just discovered this band. I kind of can't believe I like it, but this first record is really nice

their 3rd record (confusing called "world standard 2") is even better - on hosono's FOA label & also produced by him. 2nd record "allo" lacks hosono involvement and is kind of a outliner in their catalog (as there's not much of the minimalist francophile vibes / overt nina rota references / etc) but there's a couple really amazing abstracted pop songs. also the everything play albums (which was another alias sohichiro suzuki used) are worth checking out - especially "posh" from '91...

suzuki can at times come off a little precious or maudlin but there's a certain kind of precision in his approach (very japanese, of course) that i can always appreciate. the inverted gaze of his pan-culturalism (itself present in a bunch of hosono's work as well) is also quite fascinating

pacific is so relaxing atm

this blog has a post on (with download link) music hosono did for the housewares brand muji in the early 80s -- it sounds most like mercuric dance but the tracks are more longform and minimalistic. had no idea this even existed.

http://glob.daniel-letson.com/posts/haruomi-hosono-watering-a-flower/

yes! also featured on the first muji bgm disc:
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUJI_BGM1980-2000

so beautiful & so addictive. I listen to this almost every day. it's a part of my life's routine at this point, making coffee, feeding my cats, listening to hosono's bgm.

ps the 'found muji' store in shibuya plays this stuff on loop!

Heaven is Hosono's first Muji BGM track on infinite loop.

this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW6XDU96KI0

excellent revive, this is great!

Yup, that's the one. *chills down the spine*

<3

Fantastic.

(Is that a Juno 60 we're here?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN7UE4uGIwE

This didn't seem to be on Youtube so I ripped it from vinyl and stuck it up there. I really like this micro-edit era of his work, shame there's not a little more of it out there.

superb.
hey, it's got the John McLaughlin opening guitar note sample from 'Miles Runs the Voodoo Down' that Jon Hassell used too (on 'Mati' from 'Dressing for Pleasure')!

Happy Birthday!!! (well for yesterday, gomenasai)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_93SrREKkE

New album out in Japan this week, and sound samples up here: http://www.jvcmusic.co.jp/hosono/

Still in his folk/lounge phase, but sounds great...

I kinda love that he's going back to the start of his career, in a way. I'm assuming these are mostly covers, correct?

mentioned this in the vaporwave thread but Internet Club's Vanishing Vision album has a very distinct and deliberate Hosono vibe - this track feels like it could have been directly lifted from Coincidental Music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26vJlGSUDnU&feature=youtu.be&t=15m53s

it was probably directly lifted from Shenmue

hah, right...maybe not the guy himself but whatever he lifted it from

New album is two discs - covers on disc 1, originals on disc 2 (including I think some reworkings of earlier Hosono songs?).

I love how is approaches this period of American music from an almost anthropological perspective - far from just assuming it's the default mode of rock and roll and replicating it, he treats it to the same kind of ethnographic/exotic study as, say, Hassell was doing with non-Western music.

* how HE approaches

huh I never thought of it that way

after some research it looks like the songs on Disc 2 span from 84 to the present day, though much of it re-recorded.

Of all the places where I expected to see an English-language review of the new album, the Economist homepage was not one of them.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2017/12/story-synthesiser