Haruomi Hosono

what's crazy is that i refreshed about 12 seconds after you posted it, so it really was like a pager :D

of course, this is my job

I guess that means I have to get blazed and listen to all his records again. ha ha ha, as if I haven't been doing that anyway

was at The Exclusive Company in Milwaukee and they had 4 of his records - his 3 latest and The Aegean Sea. not gonna pay that much for covers, but still, kind of surreal to see them

We Want Sounds reissuing three Makoto Kubota albums on vinyl. Listening to Dixie Fever rn on their bandcamp and it's lush.

Hosono on NTS right now picking fave records.

first of all, it's his 74th birthday today. I for one have been listening to Hosono records all day, how about you??

secondly, I just discovered this has a video and that indeed Hosono did have a ponytail in the mid-90s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iU6mWac-h4w

Happy Birthday, HH!

I posted this elsewhere and it may not be accessible from certain places, so apologies in advance, but it's a really interesting BBC Radio documentary about Kankyō Ongaku - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000xdwh

Oh nice! I’m gonna give that a shot via VPN

allow me to brag for a moment and show this off. not to get all Steve Hoffman-y but this pressing is totally amazing, lotta stuff I never noticed on my MP3 copy

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

is this the one album of his that doesn't really stick to a particular sound? every track seems to invoke a different locale. honestly I think this might be his very best record. it's so melodically rich and weird. it combines his tropical, ambient, and technopop periods into one. it's one of those rare albums that really is an intersection of everything that makes an artist great at once. like for all the music he made between 82-85 this is like 4 years of ideas in one record. and it has "Pleocene".

Jealous! OSS is one of his best and yeah, it has 'Pleocene', easily my favourite HH song, even if he sounds a little like Kermit the frog :)

Every time he covers a song it comes off like he’s mocking it, in part because of that voice. Like idk if “Caravan” is supposed to be funny but it makes me laugh

I associate Hosono's voice with Levon Helm - I guess they and Kermit The Frog are all contemporaries, lotta mutual influencing happening.

caravan is a cover of like a 40s tin pan alley thing innit? i like it

it's a duke ellington song from the mid 1930s and must be one of thee most covered pieces of music of all time. it became an exotica classic which is possibly what drew hosono to it.

His Funiculì, Funiculà is really beautiful tho'

I really like the drum programming on the F.O.E. stuff

so I've been deep into the Light in the Attic reissues of Omni Sight Seeing and Medicine Compilation lately. I've kind of dismissed these in the past as "later period Hosono" which regardless had some very good parts, now I think they are both in my Top 5. hell, OSS might be #1, I think it's the only album he has that captures nearly everything he's good at

omni sight seeing has "pleiocene" which is pretty much the best song ever

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxgPXw0nbyE

Will
11 months ago
I REMEMBER MAKING OUT WITH MAUDE IN MY BACK SEAT 38 DODGE AFTER THE HIGH SCHOOL HOP BACK IN 1962 AND MEDIUM COMPOSITION 1 WAS PLAYING ON THE RADIO SO GOOD IT NOT LIKE MODERN MUSIC WHICH IS ALL DISCO AND HI NRG>+/- WHY NO ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME FOR HARUOMI HOSONO!!?!!

This thread is hall-of-fame second post wrongness.

I’m finally giving Hosono House a spin and even tho I was prepared for it to sound like some early 70s rock trip, this is wild. The second song sounds like The Band, another sounds like his spin on Van Dyke Parks’ wonderful cover of Allen Toussiant’s Occapella, and yet another sounds like a Clarence White vocal from one of the final Byrds records. Now, there’s a Nilsson homage. Crazy.

folks it has finally arrived, I'm actually excited to actually spin this for the first time

https://i.imgur.com/s1vGDKQ.png

that bit in "La Masto de Tenkirin" where the grandfather clock starts wildly tolling feels so massive rn

Is the bottom third the obi or part of the artwork?

yeah its an obi. its so stuck on there I thought it was part of the artwork too.

it also came with a card sheet with stills from the movie that I think you're supposed to cut up. and a credit sheet. one thing I see now is that most of the piano pieces were in fact written by Miharu Koshi. I thought it might have been him because of his stuff on Coincidental Music, but now I'm looking at that one and she played the piano bits on there as well! I think her contributions to this soundtrack are what put it over the top for me.

whoa good news

https://www.jvcmusic.co.jp/-/News/A019206/57.html

3 new Hosono records (new pressings, not new material)

one is a repress/new mix of Swing Slow
one is a 12" with "talking" with the Vampire Weekend song that sampled it on the flip
one is a comp of his soundtrack work from the last couple of years

dunno if i'll cop all 3 but I absolutely need to get the Swing Slow repress, I've been waiting for that for yeeears

three new tracks on the Swing Slow reissue btw

SO HAPPY! Been praying for a Swing Slow reissue for so long. YES!

do you know when? i can't seem to see. maybe they can be bought from there now?

Cdjapan has them for preorder. I’m gonna see if Light in the Attic will carry them bc I’d assume it’s right in their wheelhouse

My favorite YMO stuff is the BGM / Technodelic period and the associated solo albums from 1981-82, so I'm down with "Philharmony" too.

I wanna know from the experts here what are the critical albums from Hosono, Takahashi and Sakamoto. Their catalogs are quite vast.

thanks frogbs. i thinjk i'll try to get them from jeset as japan to uk shipping is way cheaper.

short answer, this is easily the most critical from any of them:

https://www.discogs.com/release/2545732-Yukihiro-Takahashi-Yukihiro-Takahashis-Sexual-Voice-Message

long answer I actually have a list on RYM about this

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/JAMOOL/yellow-magic-orchestra-solo-and-related-albums/

ooh that's a great overview, thanks. haven't heard that akiko yano album among others

like i feel like the akiko yano albums people always talk about are tadaima and maybe iroha ni konpeitou?

what are the critical albums from Hosono, Takahashi and Sakamoto. Their catalogs are quite vast.

i'll give you a real amateurish, off the cuff, i've only listened to 1/10th of the catalogs kind of answer, "don't blame me!" THSTHS kind of list:

Neuromantic (T)
Cochin Moon (H)
Ongaku Zukan (S)
What Me Worry? (T)
Philharmony (H)
Thousand Knives (S)

no, those aren't their very best of the best or most representative probably, but all of these rule so much

re: akiko yano, to my mind everything up to and including welcome back (her "jazz" album ft metheny, haden, et al) are worth a listen (i actually think she was a more consistent solo artist than any of the core ymo members in the 80s) but my personal favs are japanese girl (sleek 70s jazz pop w/ heavy japanese folk inflections, she was only like 20 or something ridiculous when she made this), ai ga nakuchane (recorded in london w/ ymo and members of japan) and brooch (beautiful interpretations of schubert, debussy, stravinsky et al songs as well as some originals, performed alongside classical pianist yuji takahashi, really highlights the exceptional range of her unconventional vocal style)

worth noting that many of the lyrics on her albums throughout the 80s and into the 90s were written by shigesato itoi, best known in the west as creator of the mother/earthbound series

that's a great list karl! i would only add sakamoto's esperanto which for me is not only among sakamoto's best but one of the most special and confounding and inimitable records ever made

oh yeah also also also this is maybe better for another thread but don't sleep on sakamoto's notated instrumental works from the 90s/00s, discord in particular is a stunner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig-7opc1AWE

It hit me in the face this week that Paraiso is one of the best albums ever. I used to prefer Tropical Dandy and Bon Voyage Co. from his pan-Pacific exotica era, but Paraiso really feels like the musical and conceptual culmination of that era, with an eye toward a spaced-out electronic future (“Simoon” from the first YMO record takes it even further in this direction). It’s also just good-time party music, the most fun you can possibly have on record. Plus some of the most perfect album artwork. Need to procure a vinyl copy of this ASAP

Yeah I’ve made no secret of my fondness for that album. It hit me the same way, I thought it was cool but nothing special and then one day I could not stop looping “Asatoya Yunta” because there was something really strange and fascinating about it. Then I realized the whole album is like that. The second track is so incredible - I’ve had it on some playlists for parties and it’s one that someone always asks about.

Gerald - would also highly recommend Omni Sight Seeing from 1989. I think it may actually be his best record. While he may have spread himself a little thin from 82-85 putting out like 10 different albums in various guises this one is like a “best of” of the next 4 years. It’s also his only album that doesn’t stick to a theme, every track is very different from the previous one. Maybe that is the theme. Pretty much everything he does well is on here.

Yeah that's exactly what happened to me with Paraiso this time around, except it was "Worry Beads" that was my "gateway."

I'll second the OSS recommendation... It's the one album I've suggest to anyone who wants to get a good overview of Hosono's work.

what are the top two sakamotos?

that's the one i struggled with the most

and OSS only recently made it on spotify (well, it maybe have been years. i am still in the year 2020, in some ways), i haven't really listened it all the way through yet! i should do that this afternoon

that's a great list karl! i would only add sakamoto's esperanto which for me is not only among sakamoto's best but one of the most special and confounding and inimitable records ever made

― missingNO

and likewise, thank you missingNO and i have only listened to esperanto once! so i will put that on the playlist after OSS

Ongaku Zukan (S)

fuck, yet again i'm an idiot. i meant Hidariude no Yume (Left Handed Dream) from 1981. this one:

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