Haruomi Hosono

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

Oh fantastic, thanks for this!

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...

― bamboohouses

Seems warranted. RA have been repping yet another J-reissue today: Yutaka Hirose's "ambient cult classic", Soundscape 2: Nova

I'd be up for a Japanese reissue thread!

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywyx9x/haruomi-hosono-interview-hochono-house?utM_source=noiseyfbus&fbclid=IwAR2nE789niYK0st5S5kZEQEwIyv4VFowTWSj2HvRfDXkkHs357XtsQPBQoI

Are you still interested in experimenting with new technology? It does seem like this new album manages to inject these old-fashioned songs with a more modern edge.
Yeah, there are all kinds of things I want to do. With boogie-woogie now, I've been doing it for about 10 years. But I want to do something new again now, and I'm currently lining up the equipment for it.

Looking back on all the different kinds of music you’ve worked on over the years, what do you think you’re the most proud of?
Let's see, among my solo albums, I like Philharmony and omni Sight Seeing, and...let's see…I forgot the rest [laughs]. I've done too many things. I've been doing this for 50 years, so I don't think about my own work that much.

"doing something new again" is a pretty exciting phrase isn't it

Very exciting indeed!!

Thirded! Nice interview, he comes across as such a sweet man.

I clicked through on the YT link for 'Pacific' in that interview, and it's got more than 1m views! That's quite a lot isn't it? How did that one get to these numbers? (Philharmony is at 390.000-ish, Omni not even 200.000)

Japanese views, I guess, they were huge weren't they?

Well, yeah :) Suppose it's probably just that, was wondering it it had been used for something or other.

Sorry yeah, stating the obvious really :) I'd bet there are millions of middle-aged, natsukashii salarymen for whom YMO and its components are still completely beloved.

Pacific has 1100+ ratings on RYM, far more than any other album he was involved with. I think its sort of a "Plastic Love" situation (one comment even calls it "YouTube-core").

I'm surprised that Pacific wasn't one of the albums that Light In The Attic chose to reissue last year. It does seem to be his most well known album.

well, its a split LP - Hosono only wrote 3 tracks for it. from the interview:

I have no recollection of it [laughs]. It was an album project by Sony that gathered a bunch of different people—I was only called in to do it. But I've never listened to it much after making it.

I really hope LITA gets around to reissuing Tropical Dandy, imo the best of his exotica-era records.

I prefer Bon Voyage Co., if only for the ending of "Tokyo Shyness Boy" - Hosono's scat singing is one of the most (unintentionally?) hilarious things I've ever heard on an LP

https://youtu.be/F4bQLRO7WF4?t=1m50s

https://i.imgur.com/HOYCUSG.jpg

finally got my hands on this guy

they must've remastered it. it's louder and crisper. sounds great on the hi-fi. cranked it up and let the synth craziness on the title track rattle the walls...totally worth the most-I've-ever-paid-for-an-LP price

beautiful cover too

72 years old today

I uh "celebrated" by getting the second disc of the Nokto de la Galaskia Fervojo soundtrack on Japan iTunes. mostly remixes of the first disc but whatever, I love it anyway

Is it weird I prefer Hochono House to Hosono House?

nah, that was kind of the point of him making it

I do too

Alternative 3 is quite something isn't it. This guy!

The main theme of Nokto de la Galaskia Fervojo is so wonderful.