Haruomi Hosono

yea its kind of funny b/c the first time I heard that album I thought "oh it's like Weather Channel music, but it's actually pretty good". little did I know that would become an entire genre...

and of course Hosono is sort of a godfather to the whole Orange Milk vibe - something like Bataille Solaire or Giant Claw sounds like the sort of music Hosono would be making if he was born in say, 1986

To be honest my question would be more why it's taken so long - global digger culture has lead to plenty of career renaissances for far more obscure artists from around the globe, and Japanese pop culture has been wildly popular for decades.

Kanji is pretty much the answer to that question, I would venture.

I'm sure it contributes, though if you take a look at anime and video games fandoms ppl have become very adept at not considering that a stumbling block.

There's also a sort of obliviousness in Japan about international demand for Japanese music - I think it was one of the LITA dudes who talked about having to convince Japanese record execs that comps of Japanese music could sell at all.

Japan, like France, looks inward culturally, seeks to engage the outside world on its own terms, and its music has enough of an internal market that little need is felt to promote outward. If you want to get to know its culture, as an outsider, you will have to go to it yourself.

Anime and Gaming are hugely popular by comparison, with scores of people willing to back-translate or write detailed threads/articles about any technical or creative aspect of those spheres, there are next to no people writing in English about the history and nuances of Japanese music and what does exist is largely speculation (like Cope's book, which is bit of a joke)

Not being able to properly translate Kanji yet by automated means, pretty much precludes any occidental person from going from back over it's written history, unless they are prepared to pay or spend years learning it.

You're totally right about Japanese not believing or understanding that Westerners may appreciate their music, even Hosono kinda apologised from the Barbican stage before he sung a song in Japanese.

I once asked the guy behind the counter at Disk Union's bookstore if he knew of any books about Japanese Music in Eigo, he shook his head sadly and looked at me as if I was the biggest, sorriest nerd in the universe.

Is Quit Your Band by Ian Martin any good? I leafed through it in a Kinokuniya in Shibuya earlier this year and it seemed interesting but not in enough depth to be worth a purchase, but that was a quick impression from someone worried about how heavy a suitcase I'd have to bring back.

Ian is a really strong writer yeah, he has good taste, lives for the minutiae of the live house scene in Kichijoji and writes really well about Japanese music, you can get it on kindle I think.

i am pretty shocked that moonriders are as unknown as they are considering the tremendous love people (including people here!) have for the earthbound soundtrack.

Yeah definitely, or the Beatniks, or P-Model or a bunch of others.

my japanese teachers were mostly amused that i knew so much old japanese music but one of my professors introduced me to rc succession which was her favorite band back in the day and thought it was cool i was interested

https://pitchfork.com/news/mac-demarco-covers-haruomi-hosonos-honey-moon-listen/

i can't figure out what people love about Pacific. apart from the closing track, i just can't get into it at all. it's muzak lounge exotica, something that sounds interesting to me, conceptually. but in practice it sounds like generic background music for old advertisements? i keep re-listening to it every few months, thinking i'm missing a buried gem. i want to believe

I like it, but I'm sated with the mp3s I downloaded off slsk years ago, it's one of the two reissues I've decided I don't need to buy (House is the other). I also like muzak lounge exotica, and also Pat Metheny, so ymmv

On a more positive note, I had forgotten until listening earlier this week how utterly amazing Omni Sight Seeing is and I think it may replace Cochin Moon as my favorite. Always remembered it as "'Pleocene' and some other cool songs," but "Laugh-Gas," holy shit

I actually love all of Pacific except for the closing track which sounds like it should belong on the Austin Powers soundtrack. It took me a while but amidst the cheese there are some great songs on there... plus the musicianship is sublime. My wife still remains unconvinced however.

I really like his cover of "Caravan". I know this is a dumb cliché but his music really does sound wrong in all the right ways.

It's too bad his solo career effectively ended in '96. I mean hard to fault the dude for spending the last 20 years reconnecting with old friends and covering songs from his childhood but I can't help but wonder what would happen if he'd kept active and up to date the way the other YMO guys did.

We got a couple of those Light In The Attic reissues at work last week. They look fantastic. They also sent us a few promo CDs to check out. For some reason I'd never got round to Cochin Moon before. What a great album. I'll definitely be picking that one up when it comes in later this month.

I adore Pacific but Cosmic Surfin is certainly out of place and I definitely prefer the YMO version of it. the album is advertisement background music, but really great background music! Passion Flower is just filled with hook upon hook upon hook

http://4columns.org/dayal-geeta/haruomi-hosono

'Cochin Moon' is probably my favorite thing from the extended YMO oeuvre, and one of my very favorite electronic records of all time. Given its total mastery in 1978 of electronics into a distinctively electronic but nearly organic in depth/texture worth (and yet completely purposeful whole, i.e. not just weird bleeps and blorps a la earlier electronic experimentation) I'm surprised it doesn't get more love. The addition of Hosono's enduring trans/pan-cultural exchange--which seeming has a near mainstream currency today--would seem to make it ripe for rediscovery on a slightly scale than whoever bought it at the time + geeks like me who shelled out for Japanese imports over the ensuing decades. To me, it's a really ageless record, and I don't think many would necessarily date it to its point of origin.

Hopefully Pitchfork or some such with large cachet does an ecstatic breathless write-up and gets it a lot more ears ; )

the pictures on this instagram post <3<3<3

https://www.instagram.com/p/BphN6rigS2i/

What are these for, a new TV special?

i wish i knew!

Some context!

Haruomi Hosono new album out in January also when Yellow Magic Show 2 will be broadcast on NHK.. https://t.co/eoY1JxnmEo

— Far Side Music (@farsidemusic) October 30, 2018

(apparently, Hosono has a new album in January and the pics are from a TV special broadcasting in Japan on 2nd January)

Thanks, been trying to figure this out as well, you'd think YMO (and related) FB pages would have some sort of an English translation also.

the Light in the Attic vinyls look to be all sold out, damn. wonder if they'll repress them.

the cds are plentiful and cheap and have pretty extensive booklets

lol what the hell is this

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/mac-demarco-haruomi-hosono/honey-moon/

https://thevinylfactory.com/news/mac-demarco-haruomi-hosono-honey-moon-cover/

this is the context

ah - was thinking of the '93 track from Medicine Lodge

Hochono House (a new re-recording of Hosono House) is out 6th March:
https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/international/8493278/haruomi-hosono-classic-1973-new-album-Hochono-House

A Hosono TV special was broadcast 2nd Jan on NHK in Japan - a few clips have surfaced on Youtube of the YMO performances (see below - with Gen Hoshino!). Anyone got any clues / invites to Asian TV t0rr3nt trackers / links to where one might be able to watch the whole thing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpf0uehEJlM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_EnF3xN3CA

Bless yer! I just checked Jpopsuki, nothing come up as yet, will keep an eye out.

Awesome.

lmao those clips rule. amazing how in line this is with YMO's sense of humor circa Xoo Multiplies or "Kimi ni Mune Kyun"

just took out Nokto de la Galaksia Fervojo (something about exceptionally cold days makes me want to listen to it) and holy hell, this music is absolutely haunted. it's got to be the loneliest-sounding record I've ever heard.

I like the version of Pleocene, it's so beautiful

hah incredible, I remember thinking "he's used this melody before" but didn't catch what it was, obviously the clue was in the title

this track gets me every time, it's quite simply one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard. I've never thought of him as a solo piano composer but this is just amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDoOSJnNxn4

You can watch the whole thing here too, dubbed obviously...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_3SvpTH_pk

The main title theme is also astoundingly beautiful, I even like the crunchy 8-bit percussion samples.

btw I have been listening to his latest album (Vu Ja De) and it's pretty cool. first disc is more boogie-woogie covers (fun, but whatever), while the second is a pretty interesting trawl through the archives, taking a lot of his old stuff and re-doing them in this new/old style. most of it is from collabs and commercials, some of it is either new or just stuff that was in the vaults ("Pecora" sounds like a Endless Talking track). there's a version of "Retort" from Omni Sight Seeing with vocals, you almost don't recognize it at first.

I'm kind of lukewarm on this latest stuff, but this one is very nice. I wonder if he's going to write new music again soon?

Have we talked about the Shoplifters soundtrack? It's on Spotify. It's brief (18 mins) but there's shades of his Monad era sound palette. (And the film is an absolute blinder.)

I was a little resistant to the boogie-woogie stuff at first, but it all clicks into place when you start thinking of it as an anthropological study on a non-native music. It's exactly what he was doing with folk music in the 70s - breaking apart trad American forms to study how they work.

Judging by the single, the new Hosono House re-recording sounds like it'll be quite electronic?

Also, the new two disc version of Nokto de la Galaksia Fervojo is now on Spotify - CD2 is I believe unreleased stuff from the period?

Disc 1: https://open.spotify.com/album/0jonjaeaCQqbwtDXM8T4v3?si=oZg8uRGAQqiM7JmEOSWmFw
Disc 2: https://open.spotify.com/album/7d9h6mAPGTNp8VJrAoDMc7?si=YbnKg1XNQJCZnaY9P31gXQ

re: the boogie-woogie stuff, yeah i see it as part of their overarching omnivorous stylistic synthesis.. in the same way that many of their tunes (sakamoto's especially) bring to mind actual early 20th century tin pan alley stuff

just by browsing the 30 sec samples the second disc sounds like a bunch of alternate versions of pieces from the original soundtrack, plus some Endless Talking remixes (track 10 is "Birdoj")

obviously, I have to have it (I don't use Spotify), but I'm not really sure how

Not sure where you're based, frogbs, but Farside are selling the CDs in the UK:
http://www.farsidemusic.com/cgi-bin/sh000001.pl?WD=hosono%20nokto&PN=CD%2ehtml#SID=257?a1_21FSD7454

Hey thanks! My search for the 2cd turned up empty yesterday.

I'm seeing something about a new album and US dates too?

Oh, a re-recording of Hosono House? Weird!

https://pitchfork.com/news/haruomi-hosono-announces-us-tour-dates-new-hochono-house-album/?fbclid=IwAR1NyUe_UB3bgRAXCI-tM93_000RrWaw1gFNyVx0arjq4dYYR9nsGE0CA74

Ha yeah that is pretty odd. That new version of 薔薇と野獣 sounds pretty neat though. So clean and loungy.

are those the original vocals?