RFI: Yellow Magic Orchestra

Solid State Survivor's so outstanding I can't believe I didn't happen upon it earlier, the perfect synthesis of their pop orientalism and mastery of electronic texture -- the "Japanese Kraftwerk" thing really plays here, with "Behind the Mask" (bizarre history notwithstanding) something of an antidote to "The Model" (there's an absolutely hideous YouTube clip of Sakamoto playing this in the 90s that makes me shivver to even think about). "Insomnia," too, with the noirish vocoder melody that appears in the last third.

I'm only digging into BGM now, but Technodelic seems to get seriously short shrift -- the sound develops by leaps and bounds here, with "Taiso" birthing Nick Rhodes perhaps even more than Richard Barbieri ever could. Transitional, but not the worse for it. Shades of the Beatles, which would show up later on with "Lotus Love."

With Service and Naughty Boys, the music becomes extremely...digital, more symphonic. Some great stuff -- "Limbo," "Wild Ambitions" (featuring Bill Nelson's eBow pretty prominently), "Kai-Koh." These records almost sound like a different band, featuring little of the wit or bounce that kind of defines early YMO songs like "Absolute Ego Dance" and "Firecracker," with much more of an opaque Ippu-Do thing going on.

Still digging in, but with such a diverse profile, it's hard to believe these guys were left with such a niche reputation.

It's great! "Epilogue" should reduce many a grown man to sobbing.

with "Taiso" birthing Nick Rhodes perhaps even more than Richard Barbieri ever could

Clearly I meant "Light in Darkness" here.

can someone recommend some other Haruomi Hosono projects aside from YMO (solo or otherwise)?

Haruomi Hosono

Paraiso is really good. Tropical music with a bizarre electronic twist. Very odd and affecting, and quite catchy as well.
Cochin Moon is an early electronic classic. Really neat stuff.
His Nokto de la Galaskia Fervojo soundtrack is chilling, it's minimal (as is a lot of Hosono's stuff) but very cold and moving. Love it.

so glad this was revived. just found a mediafire folder with all the albums and needed some guidance.

really loving these stripped down live versions YMO have been playing this year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NTnIJ61z1w

Love the synth trumpet!

Whoah, YMO doing "Thank You For Talkin' to Me Africa"!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWPbDsPYxZM&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEZ3VxGWwjM

excellent video (if you can ignore the camera effects). kinda weird to see a shorthaired 70's Hosono funking out by himself. they really did keep it tight though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0adjDQyYSI4

amazing find

i think cindy crawford is in one of those!!

hah, she is! I caught her posing dramatically with a piano while randomly skipping around.

Somebody really needs to write me a good, thorough examination on YMO and the Japanese New Wave (400 pages at least). I like the process of rooting around and finding out little bits and pieces of information but I need some cultural CONTEXT dammit!

I'm thinking that Nick Kent (the guy who runs technopop.info) could probably do something like that. YMO are interesting enough to warrant their own book but Japan is such a small country that all that stuff really ran into each other at some point. Like there's 3 degrees of seperation between pretty much every one of those bands. Most of it is probably through Harry Hosono, who seemingly appeared on everything that came out of Japan from 1976 to 1990 or so.

Too true, Hosono is a walking infographic.

a book like that would leapfrogbs to the very top of my reading list, for real

it's weird how popular ymo seem to be when reading about them, but every time i've asked a native japanese if they've heard of them, they haven't. maybe it's a generational thing?

I've experienced this a couple of times with some Japanese aged under thirty or so, although they seem to know Sakamoto for some reason.

What's interesting is that if they are aware of YMO they're often interested that a westerner would be bothered listening to 'old' Japanese music, or even Japanese music period.

yeah it seems like japanese don't have the same retromania that americans do, but i have no idea really

Somebody really needs to write me a good, thorough examination on YMO and the Japanese New Wave (400 pages at least). I like the process of rooting around and finding out little bits and pieces of information but I need some cultural CONTEXT dammit!

― Late night with Amazing Bo (MaresNest), Monday, April 1, 2013 5:42 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've not felt the urge to write about music much over the last few years, but I *really really* want to write a longform piece on Jun Togawa. Never going to happen without a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese, though.

If you want to blow the mind of a 40+ Japanese person, tell 'em you love Ippu-Do or Guernica.

I know a lot of big music nerds who have no idea who Kraftwerk are, for instance...some people just don't really care about anything older than they are

You know, I heard an phone interview on Resonance last week with Akiko Yano (interspersed with some of her music), it was a show called Clear Spot. Maybe you could speak directly to Jun herself? If she speaks Eigo of course.

emily - have you read this?
http://www.groundzeromongkok.com/2010/12/memory-and-gender-in-music-of-jun.html

oops, XP

Frogs, yeah, it's a good piece (and I love the toilet ad it links to), but I want more! I guess really I want something book-length, with a really good biographical content as well as analysis.

basically, a book version of this would be the most amazing thing:
http://park10.wakwak.com/~techno/jgenealogy.html

and yeah, togawa is really fascinating. would read all of these imaginary books.

Wow - I need to hear that Akiko Yano Resonance show.

CJV - I imagine it'll turn up in the Resonance 104 Soundcloud page if you check there in the next few days.

found it!
http://www.mixcloud.com/alberto-umbridge/akiko-yano-broadcast-on-resonancefm-25th-march2013/

Japan is such a small country

It is?

Not in terms of population, but in size - like in the US, in the 70's you had the Detroit scene, and the New York scene, and the Nashville scene, and the Chicago sound...in Japan it kinda feels like everybody knew each other and played on each others' records.

Of course theres no book about any of this so I'm just guessing here. Didn't Takahashi and Hosono produce or otherwise appear on all the YEN records stuff, which made up a large portion of Japan's new wave scene?

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8sc3sC5F91qz9lsso1_500.jpg
(sakamoto being cool)

http://chinmai.net/~ichiyanagi/img/060403/ymo.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YjYEJ9WHt4

awesome!

(cuts off halfway through, but you get the idea)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkPeDQKRpEk

The syndrum break in that BBC version is proper!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GncUycY9N34&list=PL2D3C508F366E5AD3&index=3

Confession, I have gone since about 1998 thinking that the record is called 'X∞Multiples' but it's *not* it is 'X∞Multiplies' what the fuck? I have a tour poster and everything, I feel so stupid.

For your ignorance you must relinquish your tour poster to me!

I completely love that CM 1 comp, the melodies are astounding. catchiest song about diapers ever.

Yano sings the diaper one, right?

Just the fact that two musicians as unique and ambitious and as different from each other as Akiko and Ryuichi were collaborating closely for a few years there, is one of those miracles Japanese music history is ludicrously full of.

She does sing that.

they did collaborate on a child as well

Technodelic, then.

This song has absolutely captured my heart:

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

Minna genki ~

Service may be titled Service, but the ultimate YMO fanservice is clearly Naughty Boys Instrumental.

"So we heard you like our synth tones, do you..."

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

When I relax, I like to think about robot camels hanging around the desert. This is why Simoon is my personal ultimate chill-out anthem.

theres nothing relaxing about that thought actually

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EA49S3hCtc

I hadn't clocked until just now that there's a bunch of 1979 live recordings being released to streaming. There's 5 released since late 2025 - the fifth (a London set) appeared yesterday.

several released on vinyl too, prob will pick one up when I find a good price. hopefully more live sets from other YMO eras are coming, would love a pressing of Winter Live and perhaps the 93 Tokyo Dome show?? how about those 2007 HASYMO shows?

anyway, the 79 recordings are great. I think Wantanabe is on all of these. they didn't have a whole lot of material back then so they get real jammy. it's nice.

The HASYMO shows are on CD (LondonYMO and GijonYMO) and they're fantastic - very highly recommended. I'd love to see a bit of vault-emptying; I have no idea what exists beyond the canonical releases.

Just had a look at those vinyl releases - prices are crazy, like most new Japanese vinyl at the moment...