Haruomi Hosono

so thrilling! I’m still a gibbering wreck

poor quality clip here:

YMO再々再?生！！！！！！！！ in London #YMO #yellowmagicorchestra #細野晴臣 #坂本龍一 #高橋幸宏 #barbicancentre #london #hosonoharuomi #ryuichsakamoto #yukihirotakahashi pic.twitter.com/EJxBNkZl8X

— Andrei Tarkovsky (@TarkovskyJP_bot) June 23, 2018

Fuuuuck I’m jealous

Everything NickB said basically, plus we got Keigo Oyamada on guitar for the last song, gotta admit it took me a few seconds to realise it was Absolute Ego Dance, I thought it was Cosmic Surfing at first.

The music was very much in the vein of the last two HH records, fifties rock n' roll, rockabilly feel, with his versions of Sports Men and Radioactivity, a great band indeed, young guys.

I think Light In The Attic saying in the blurb to the concert that he was going to be playing music from throughout his career was somewhat disingenuous, but it was great to see the man and of course, the last song was lush. Watching Yuki walk down the Barbican steps right towards me was a real giddy moment.

Yesterday I saw a pic taken from Instagram of the three of them allegedly in a London restaurant (Sakamoto played here a few days ago with Alvo Noto) so I was hoping that something was gonna go down.

One last thing, my mate's friend that we bumped into works in a record shop, he told us Oyamamda dropped in there and bought loads of Madness 7 inches :)

that's amazing!

finding it hsrd to comprehend how acetone managed to follow on from that!

Hosono: https://i.imgur.com/ydBgTfA.jpg

Couldn't believe it when he asked the house lights to come up, and Takahashi and Cornelius stood up from the audience and starting coming down the steps towards the stage.

That rockabilly / boogie-woogie version of Sportsmen really worked. Not sure if there any of clips on it online. The Kraftwerk cover too.

As others have said, it felt too soon for Acetone to be starting after just a 15 minute break or so. Everyone was very excited after that ending to Hosono. Only about 30 - 40% of the crowd came back in for Acetone unfortunately, and some more left after a song or too. The band commented on how quiet it was on stage. Their performance was great, it's a pity the running order meant the place was less than half full.

Hosono band was:

Haruomi Hosono (vocals, guitar)
Ren Takada (guitar, mandolin, banjo)
Wataru Iga (bass)
Daichi Ito (drums)
Takuji Nomura (keyboards, piano, accordian)

where I was sitting there were quite a few japanese people, including families with kids, and a lot of them didn’t stick around for acetone.

trying to remember some of the things that harry said: ‘I used to make techno music, but now...’ *launches into another boogie-woogie number*; the Kraftwerk cover was introduced by some words about 3/11, 2011, which was of course the date of the tohoku earthquake and tsunami

am immensely lucky to be seeing him again in Brighton tonight btw. headlining this time, but another ymo get together would be way too much to hope for

Maybe he'll bust out some older numbers given that he has a bigger window to play in.

from the running times it looks like he's on for two hours, so i guess it depends on how bad he needs to boogie-woogie-oogie

wow this is amazing!!

Just noticed Takahashi is in Brighton! Did you get a replay of Saturday Nick?

yes, takahashi was in the audience again last night but sadly he didn't join hosono on stage this time round. set was a similar mix of lounge/brazilian/jump blues/boogie woogie type stuff, think i enjoyed it even more this time round though - was nice to see that music being played in a much more intimate setting, i think it suited the scale of the music better. also it was a really lovely warm night by the seaside, made me think of how some of the older songs would have originally been taken round the world by boat, from one noisy port to another. hosono seemed to be enjoying himself despite some minor crackily guitar issues, was joking around saying stuff like 'i'm old... i'm boring...' *crowd make sounds of gentle protestation* '...leave me alone'. 'radio activity' cover was really great, done slowly with this eerie, creeping sense of unease, which got ratcheted up to slint-esque levels of tension towards the end. encore was a version of 'tokio rush' featuring two girls on vocals that apparently he'd only just met earlier that day - they did an amazing job but all the same it was no 'absolute ego dance'. a great night though!

here's the setlist btw:

From aya_bebop on Instagram pic.twitter.com/skgGVMjkDN

— callie magic orchestra (@konchugun) June 26, 2018

Amazing! Tokyo Rush too!

It's been really curious having these legendary old gentlemen, whom I admire so much, in our relative airspace for a few days, to me at least, they seem to exist in another plane the rest of the time. Seeing things like Takahashi wandering around London and Brighton via FB has been lovely.

indeed, a thrill to briefly exchange respiratory gases with them!

that 'house of blue lights' was fire btw, that's the one where the band took solos - a few bars of brilliant splashy fireworks from the drummer, the bass player forced to go deep when hosono pulled up a chair and sat and watched him work. good excuse to revisit this clip:

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

I love that clip, talk about someone who has figured out how to live.

kinda love how Keigo Oyamada has been palling around with these guys for over a decade now. that's one cool thing about Japan, it's such a small country geographically so all these people kinda know each other. I recognize some of those names upthread as having played with YT in a different group.

I've heard that there are some plans for YMO's 40th anniversary year, including perhaps a HH documentary. apparently some of the concertgoers were being interviewed outside the venue. couldn't buy that fast enough.

The Barbican gig was being filmed, very discreetly but there were notices saying so.

Happy 71st Birthday!

Lookit!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QtNpj_n82o

Haha that's even shonkier than I remember it

Not sure which is the best thread to post this on as there's a few YMO ones to choose from. Anyway, I just listened to Parallelisme by Miharu Koshi for the first time and I am blown away. One of the best albums I've heard with a connection to the YMO family. My heart is breaking checking the prices for it on Discogs.

From time to time copies of the Dutch version surface at a less painful price. It's an incredible album; some of the synth sounds still sound like they come from the future. IMO, one of thee greatest techno pop albums of all time. "Tutu" is eternal too.

I'll keep an eye out for it. I bought Tutu a long time ago and really enjoyed it, but weirdly I never listened to any of her other albums until a few days ago.

I think Boy Soprano is the best of those. The version of Ave Maria gives me chills.

Just sold all my Koshi stuff on Discogs. I hope the person(s) who get them will appreciate how amazing those records are.

Her cover of "l'amour toujours" is one of my favorite tracks ever. Pretty sure the telex guys guest on it too!

Y'all probably know Good Morning Mr Echo, but the whole record is lovely.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06HcFuiHWZ4

Toop piece on Hosono:

https://thevinylfactory.com/features/david-toop-on-haruomi-hosono/

great interview. I don't think I've ever read one with him. he seems like a very thoughtful person, not that I would expect anything less. really looking forward to those vinyl reissues - there's not a whole lot of artists where I feel I *have* to own something on vinyl by them but Hosono is definitely one of them

Speaking of the Swing Slow album, anyone heard this '95 one-off by a group called LOVE, PEACE, & TRANCE? its a group consisting of Hosono, a member of dip in the pool, one from Wha-Ha-Ha, and another I haven't heard of. It sounds to me like Quiet Lodge, but with singing of course. It's very ethereal and otherworldly in a way that only Hosono can really pull off. The whole thing is worth listening to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQEX3E_VJQc

also I must point out that their visual aesthetic is the sort of thing that someone on the Orange Milk roster would kill for, these days. ahead of their time I guess ;)

love that record, it's so new age. I wish they did more!

the artwork has each member represented by "love," "peace," and so on. hosono is "&" lol

there's a red bull music academy video interview from a few years ago out there. it's def kinda awkward tho.

https://litapodcast.simplecast.fm/haruomi-hosono

LITA Podcast with a short interview with the man during his UK visit, it bothers me that one of the guys who is putting so much time and effort and money into reissuing his catalogue in the west hasn't yet taken two minutes to figure out how to say his name correctly.

When asked if he had any personal favourites from his back catalogue he replied Philharmony and Omni Sight Seeing, yes!

...it bothers me that one of the guys who is putting so much time and effort and money into reissuing his catalogue in the west hasn't yet taken two minutes to figure out how to say his name correctly.

Typical.

That's awesome he chose those two.

Looking forward to reading this piece by Andy B
https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/3287

Not sure when this happened, but the Monad albums plus SFX and Nokto have just popped up on Spotify in the UK. As far as I can tell, they're not on any of the other streaming services, at least not outside Japan. Everyone in this thread probably has them, but thought it was worth noting!

Also, on the reissues, it looks like only Hosono House and Cochin Moon are getting released internationally. Paraiso, Philharmony and Omni-Sightseeing are all US only. Any leads as to where I can get Paraiso and Omni in the UK without paying eye-watering postage fees from the US most welcome!

Quick heads up - Juno have the US-only titles available in the UK. Nowhere else over here seems to yet!
https://www.juno.co.uk/labels/LITA

if only that had gone up the other day before i splurged $50 on vinyl of omni sight seeing from US!

as i type this the coffee shop i am in is playing swing slow!

actually, with current exchange rate it is probably more or less the same amount buying plus postage from juno. i'd have it much quicker though!

Loads more Hosono on Spotify in the UK this week. Naga, that Good Sport album (which I've never actually listened to), Archives vol 1: Beyond Good And Evil, along with Swing Slow, all the F.O.E. stuff, the HAT DSP Holiday album and the first two Sketch Show records. Someone's finally cottoned onto the fact that there's an international demand for this stuff.

hell yes, that's all good stuff

the sudden international popularity of Hosono is encouraging...I wonder what's contributing to that? or was it there all along?

I think it's a lot of trends intersecting. There's been a real slow-burn of interest in Japanese music from that period ever since Spencer Doran did his Fairlights/Mallets/Bamboo mixes at the start of the decade. I think it's reissue culture + Japanese pop culture being v on-trend at the minute + the vaporwave set all taking us to this point. (And the fact that that the music really holds up to scrutiny.)

hah, that could be. I remember an interview where Vektroid said that Ryuichi Sakamoto invented vaporwave on Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia and immediately checking r/vaporwave to see people posting YouTubes of that album like, "uhh guys, have you HEARD this?"

I have noticed a bunch of people messaging me on Slsk with a bunch of interest in groups like Moonriders or P-Model or Denki Groove. never really saw that 5-6 years ago. feels like the Cardiacs thing all over again. better late than never!!

Perhaps some of the renewed interest can be contributed to Light in the Attic, starting with their 'Even A Tree Can Shed Tears' comp? That one went down really well.

I love that quote about Vektroid! Vaporwave has to do with some of it for sure.

(the comp didn't include Hosono obv but it may have kickstarted the new reissues of Hosono House and Cochin Moon)