anyone heard philaharmony his 1982 album? 'cos i'm listening to "platonic" for the first time (incredible tripped-out echo chamber electro track) and wanna know if the rest of the album is in the same vein
― a somnambulist in an ambulance (r1o natsume), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:22 (fourteen years ago) link
("platonic" is on this btw: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Electrounique-Vol-5/release/1683109, the only place to get die dominas on vinyl for under 200 euros?)
― a somnambulist in an ambulance (r1o natsume), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 16:27 (fourteen years ago) link
philharmony is excellent btw. a mix of his wacked out symphonic fairlight stuff, BGM style electro, and melodic j-pop.
as for hosono produced lop-sided exotic j-pop, this album is essential: http://www.discogs.com/Miharu-Koshi-Tutu/release/665681
― a somnambulist in an ambulance (r1o natsume), Tuesday, 2 June 2009 08:46 (fourteen years ago) link
[X-post from 9/21/05]
Big feature on Hosono in issue 162 of The Wire from 1997, by Clive Bell. Good thing I'm a pack rat -- I still have that issue! It's sitting open on my couch as I speak (I'm at work right now though, so I haven't finished rereading it). It only took me 8 years to track the damn albums down! I remember thinking it sounded a lot like Discover America era Van Dyke Parks. And as I skimmed the beginning of the article, Hosono mentions how Parks produced one of the albums of his early 70s psychedelic band Happy End.
The albums are:
Tropical Dandy 1975Bon Voyage Co. 1976Paraiso 1978
The last one features the awesome cover of "Fujiyama Mama," and was credited to Haruomi Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band, a Beefheart reference. This evolved into the Yellow Magic Orchestra, which I recommend to anyone who would care to hear a whimsical Japanese Kraftwerk. When the mood strikes I'll dig for some of that Happy End.
― Fastnbulbous, Tuesday, 2 June 2009 13:18 (fourteen years ago) link
Not that anyone is even talking about it in this thread anymore, but 'Cochin Moon' is probably the single best "Japanese import in a faux-LP sleeve" purchase I've ever made. If it were a YMO album, it might be my favorite. Giddy, messy, strange, intoxicating, brilliant stuff.
― Soundslike, Tuesday, 2 June 2009 14:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Sakamoto's pure experimental albums (B-2 Unit & Esperanto) are 1000% more bizarre and advanced than Hosono's, those albums are timeless.
― milton parker (Jon L), Monday, 21 November 2005 23:06 (3 years ago)
having finally heard cochin moon, i'd argue that this and the monad records are way more bizarre and advanced than anything sakamoto has done. hosono is on another level
― a somnambulist in an ambulance (r1o natsume), Tuesday, 2 June 2009 21:41 (fourteen years ago) link
both Cochin Moon and Esperanto do great things with world music collage, one with 70's analog electronics and one with disjointed Fairlight sampling / cut-ups. they're both great, for different tastes. My long interest in sampling music has me partial to Esperanto, but that album is a wild exception for him, in general I'd probably agree with you
need to hear the Monad box. & thanks for waking thread, it got my favorite Miharu Koshi songs back on my iPod
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 2 June 2009 23:09 (fourteen years ago) link
I love the Sakamoto albums you mention, Jon L (three years ago). But 'Cochin Moon' is definitely beyond either of them, and carries amazing themes and sounds through its duration. It feels like a journey.
― Soundslike, Tuesday, 2 June 2009 23:29 (fourteen years ago) link
What else of his sounds like this? seriously dig this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zu8QMgbYhU&feature=related
― dsb, Thursday, 2 July 2009 03:21 (fourteen years ago) link
great song! the album it's taken from, philharmony, is a straight classic imo. a mix of melodic techno pop and very very strange fairlight experiments. i see i said that already but it bears repeating.
includes a deranged (and extremely catchy) cover of "funiculi funicala":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7BhE3yY-7s
the last two classic era ymo albums, naughty boys and service are both pop song orientated. both classics, just don't expect the lounge disco hybrid of early ymo nor the far-out ethno-tronic sound of bgm/technodelic. also check some yukihiro takahashi solo albums for more song orientated ymo sounding stuff
i haven't heard SFX, hosono's next pop record after philharmony, maybe others can recommend.
then start searching his more outwardly pop productions throughout the 80s, miharu koshi and jun togawa being his main collaborators.
the closest he gets to "sportsmen" later on is the single as apogee & perigee, amazing sentimental pop music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0E1N2EJVhg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXaT5bg0YMc
― michael jatas (r1o natsume), Thursday, 2 July 2009 12:20 (fourteen years ago) link
should've proof read that before i posted. anyway, my current favourite hosono jam is 夏なんです by happy end, his early 70s folk rock group. so beautiful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMSfi0CrQL4
― michael jatas (r1o natsume), Thursday, 2 July 2009 12:34 (fourteen years ago) link
this happy end album has some great moments.
― figuratively, but in a very real way (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 November 2009 03:09 (fourteen years ago) link
such as the entirety of kaze wo atsumete
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Tuesday, 10 November 2009 03:43 (fourteen years ago) link
is it just hosono, or maybe just me, or are japanese pop artists allowed (or allow themselves) a great lassitude...? he seems to range across so many genres, without any compunctions. the idea of switching modes so frequently doesn't seem to trouble him in the slightest.
― figuratively, but in a very real way (amateurist), Tuesday, 10 November 2009 19:42 (fourteen years ago) link
My favorite current Hosono album is Paraiso, however I have discovered one that I have been quite impressed with. It's called "Nokto de la Galaskia Fervojo", a soundtrack to some abstract animated film from the mid-80's. As far as I know his soundtrack wasn't even used (I wouldn't know as I've never seen the movie) but the soundtrack album is very good. It's not really outwardly scary or anything, just very harrowing and cold. Really portrays a feeling of loneliness and uses some really creepy keyboard noises. At the same time it's playful and kind of cheery. It's the sort of thing that only Hosono could have pulled off. There is one absolutely gorgeous piano piece on it ("La Travida Malgojo de Giovanni") that IMO tops any of Sakamoto's similar efforts. I get chills just thinking about it.
― frogbs, Monday, 4 October 2010 20:51 (thirteen years ago) link
^ crazy, i was just about to revive this thread. recently heard 'cochin moon' and 'philharmonic' for the first time and i'm kinda floored tbh
― a lagoon par la mer (psychgawsple), Monday, 4 October 2010 21:30 (thirteen years ago) link
All YMO related threads are seriously some of my favorite on ILM.
― Zooster vs. The Slapp (Capitaine Jay Vee), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 03:33 (thirteen years ago) link
^^^
here's where r1o natsume would have been chiming in had he not gone batshit and got his ass banned.
― third-strongest mole (corey), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 03:42 (thirteen years ago) link
weird, that happened? would not have predicted that.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Tuesday, 5 October 2010 04:27 (thirteen years ago) link
and yeah, hosono is the best. medicine compilation, NDE, and philharmonic are my faves.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Tuesday, 5 October 2010 04:28 (thirteen years ago) link
What happened with r1o?
― That Blippity Bloop Music (Capitaine Jay Vee), Tuesday, 5 October 2010 19:04 (thirteen years ago) link
this is what my investigation turned up:
he image bombed the wdyll thread with various types of porn & got bant
― J0rdan S., Thursday, September 30, 2010 11:24 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
also made homophobic slurs
― Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile (dayo), Thursday, September 30, 2010 11:25 PM (5 days ago) Bookmark
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Wednesday, 6 October 2010 03:16 (thirteen years ago) link
i guess r1o had some tricks up his sleeve
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Wednesday, 6 October 2010 03:17 (thirteen years ago) link
yipes!
― That Blippity Bloop Music (Capitaine Jay Vee), Wednesday, 6 October 2010 04:37 (thirteen years ago) link
Going through the Monad albums now; this is what I always hoped Brian Eno's ambient stuff sounded like. Very oddly sentimental, has parts that sort of hint at pop melodies and parts where a chord sounds intentionally "off". Great stuff!!!
― frogbs, Tuesday, 26 October 2010 15:44 (thirteen years ago) link
Hey guy, r1o messaged me to let you know that he's fine, he just needed a permaban so he could quit ILX cold turkey and finish schoolwork, and also that he's not a homophobe.
He also wanted me to post the rest of the Monad box he had meant to post:
mercuric dance
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xiuhge
coincidental music
http://www.sendspace.com/file/agijq6
paradise view
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hr6alw
Also: Sakamoto/Robin Scott - The Arrangement
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pj0ddj
― corey, Thursday, 28 October 2010 03:54 (thirteen years ago) link
hey *guys, I mean
― corey, Thursday, 28 October 2010 03:55 (thirteen years ago) link
r10 is a homophobe fwiw.
― i love you but i have chosen snarkness (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 28 October 2010 04:09 (thirteen years ago) link
I don't know, I'm only saying what he told me.
― corey, Thursday, 28 October 2010 04:23 (thirteen years ago) link
somehow i'm both a huge fan of hosono but wholly clueless about this monad box. which disc should i download first?
― beta blog, Thursday, 28 October 2010 14:01 (thirteen years ago) link
Coincidental Music is great — little short character pieces he did for TV ads IIRC. Highly melodic and memorable.
Mercuric Dance is his ambient album. His sort of gauzy, hazy sleepiness seems to take off from the last track of Music for Airports (even Eno never really did anything else like that track).
Paradise View is a soundtrack to an obscure Japanese film set in Okinawa (I think). Lots of Fairlights and tropical moods (like Sakamoto's Esperanto) with some Okinawan-sounding vocals.
― corey, Thursday, 28 October 2010 14:16 (thirteen years ago) link
I liked this description:
"An album of very interesting, sampled and re-assembled Okinawan music with an emphasis on gamelan-like sounds. I got a chuckle when a Village Voice film critic commented on the wonderful, authentic Okinawan score ("authentic" Hosono and his K250 that is). In the film, Hosono plays a supporting role as a sensitive, but out of his element Japanese grade school teacher transplanted to Okinawa. The big in-joke is that one of the teenage girls in the story has a YMO shrine in her room and seems quite infatuated, yet has no apparent interest in her school teacher and his resembalance to a YMO member. This was the first Okinawan language feature film and according to the IMDB co-stars Jun Togawa though when I saw the film quite some time ago I didn't know what she looked like or had a translation of the cast list."
― frogbs, Tuesday, 2 November 2010 21:28 (thirteen years ago) link
New album "HoSoNoVa" due April 20th? Anyone have any idea what this is? It appears to be a new solo album (his first in a long time) with guests and a few covers, but that's all I could discern through Google translate
― frogbs, Monday, 7 March 2011 16:39 (thirteen years ago) link
http://lottapieces.com/images/products/jayz/hova.jpg
― jaxon, Monday, 7 March 2011 17:03 (thirteen years ago) link
so not a lot of info overall
― your LiveJournal experience (schlump), Monday, 7 March 2011 18:58 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah hopefully we get something on this in the coming days/weeks
I'm thinking of doing a Hosono albums poll but honestly I have no idea where to draw the line...plus you can't exactly compare Tropical Dandy to Coincidental Music
― frogbs, Monday, 7 March 2011 19:23 (thirteen years ago) link
Speaking of - if you have Coincidental Music, go listen to the last track (the 11+ minute one); it's such a gorgeous piece of music that I think does a good job representing what Hosono was really all about. I love how it gradually segues into a Philharmony-type vocal experiment track for a while. Could easily be longer. Can't believe I never have it a fair shake until now.
― frogbs, Thursday, 24 March 2011 20:08 (thirteen years ago) link
damn, the last song on "Omni Sight Seeing" is so beautiful, how I wish he made more albums that were just straightforward techno-pop
― frogbs, Wednesday, 19 October 2011 19:48 (twelve years ago) link
been listening to tropical dandy a lot recently, liking it a lot
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, 19 October 2011 19:48 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, that lullaby-type instrumental at the end is amazing. but really Bon Voyage Co. and ESPECIALLY Paraiso are even better.
― frogbs, Wednesday, 19 October 2011 20:23 (twelve years ago) link
Man, 'Cochin Moon.' It's astonishing that they were using the relatively new musical form (electronic pop music) with such total control, making it sound effortless and alive in ways electronic pop made with a further couple decades rarely match. I'd say it almost makes 'E=MC2' sound a little clunky. And the production is just unbelievable--not sure what method is employed, but it has moments that create a surround-sound effect--beyond stereo, sounds around the listening point, or moving far away or nearby in front of you.
― Soundslike, Saturday, 12 November 2011 04:20 (twelve years ago) link
It's like Dockstader or Parmegianni or Henry--making fully-realized, emotional electronic and electro-acoustic music a decade or two earlier, while most people were just barely managing to twiddle knobs and make "UFO sound effects". So far ahead of the game, I'd be bowled over if it were released today--because it's just so good, it's decidedly secondary that it's visionary.
― Soundslike, Saturday, 12 November 2011 04:22 (twelve years ago) link
good description, just wanted to point out that "Hum Ghar Sajan" blows me away every damn time, I wish there were more songs like that one
I'm starting to get into his Omni Sight Seeing/Medicine Comp/NDE period and it's pretty good; essentially a mix of the different styles he's attempted, plus some very Indian-style techno, again ahead of its time. Strongly recommended, it turns out there is life after YMO
― frogbs, Tuesday, 8 May 2012 19:57 (eleven years ago) link
"birthday" is so cool
― blank, Thursday, 13 September 2012 07:33 (eleven years ago) link
"happy birthday", i mean. sounds so far ahead of its time.
― blank, Thursday, 13 September 2012 07:34 (eleven years ago) link
One last time. "birthday party"
only song i've ever uploaded to youtube is a killer cover of "sports man"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gi8futLRbM
― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Thursday, 13 September 2012 08:39 (eleven years ago) link
hey that's neat! love the different vocals that occur midway through.
― blank, Thursday, 13 September 2012 09:03 (eleven years ago) link
I always wondered what Sportsmen was about...my guess was it's about being from a family of athletes, but kind of sucking at everything?
I don't know if I can call "Birthday Party" ahead of its time; who else makes music like that??
― frogbs, Thursday, 13 September 2012 14:39 (eleven years ago) link
i love how Sportsmen has this endearingly outsider/emasculated point of view as he considers fitness, it always makes me think of retro illustrations of athletes as a sort of utopian ideal.
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Thursday, 13 September 2012 15:06 (eleven years ago) link