POO: japanese album

broaden my knowledge

Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids

Les Rallizes Dénudés, '77 Live

what genres do you like?

august 1974 - taj mahal travellers

there's about a billion great japanese albums in a zillion different genres. reducing this to one record will not broaden your knowledge but blind you to that possibility.

http://www.qualitythread.com/images/Logo-QualityThread.jpg

"reducing this to one record will not broaden your knowledge"

i'll check everything posted here.

genres: anything with a guitar. specifically psych/acid/noise/garage/metal/hard rock/space rock/experimental

Denudes - know the record, appreciate it, but too much experimental to my taste

taj mahal - thanks but too drone-y

among my favorite japanese acts are: boredoms, shinki chen, acid mother temple, guitar wolf..

Cornelius - Point

i'll check.

used to listen to Fantasma back in the 90's, totally forgot about this dude

Ground Zero - Plays Standards

tough call between Live 77 and the first AMT album

john zorn style?
xpost

XXP...Consume Red too, and the four High Rise records.

Kiyohiko Senba and his Haniwa All Stars

http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/2007/03/kiyohiko-senba-and-his-haniwa-all-stars.html

Shiina Ringo's Karuki Zamen Kuri No Hana, Ground-zero's Revolutionary Pekinese Opera v1.28 & TMT's August 1974 close runner ups in terms of numbers of times played, only one record for an entire country, that's crazy talk

http://www.discogs.com/Kiyohiko-Senba-And-His-Haniwa-All-Stars-Haniwa-%E3%81%AF%E3%81%AB%E3%82%8F/release/2301362

...mmm, Fear...

high rise!
yes i know them! good stuff.

Shiina Ringo's Karuki Zamen Kuri No Hana

(Though I was listening to Shouso Strip this morning and honestly I feel myself drifting away from it more and more. I don't know how much I like 90's style SR at this point, and that's a very 90's album, even if it came out in 2000.)

used to listen to Fantasma back in the 90's, totally forgot about this dude

― nostormo

Point is a very different beast, stripped-back and tranquil. I love it.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_IlsYqVEhf5w/TP98ZV20vYI/AAAAAAAAASM/2lsPYEJFg_Y/s400/takako+minekawa.jpg

^^ great one

Gore Beyond Necropsy ‎– Sounds Like Shit!!! EP
Label:
Blurred Records ‎– BLURRED-23
Format:
Vinyl, 7", EP, Limited Edition
Country:
Japan
Released:
Dec 1999
Genre:
Rock
Style:
Grindcore, Noise
Tracklist
Side Arsehole
A1 Intro～Drowned
A2 Sonic Depression
A3 Burns Blood Red
A4 Dual Vortex Of Rectal Discord
A5 Ignorance
A6 H.A.R.S.H.I.T.
A7 Fetching Noise Filth
Side Butthole
B1 Intro～Play Raw, Filthy & Harsh!
B2 Future Generation Genocide
B3 Shitty Shitty Shake
B4 Noise So Raw
B5 Keep Your Big Arsehole Shut!
B6 Hammer Dick Anal Bomb
B7 Anarchy In The P.C.
B8 Horrendous Stink Festering Sore

genres: anything with a guitar. specifically psych/acid/noise/garage/metal/hard rock/space rock/experimental

Have you heard 'My Girl Friday' by Salon Music? It's sort of 80s indiepop/power pop type stuff.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61XSDJBP2HL.jpg

Shibuya Kei, Nano Pop, City Pop, Pico Pop etc:

Plus Tech Squeeze Box - Cartoom!!
Buffalo Daughter - I
Macdonald Duck Eclair - The Genesis Songbook
Yukari Fresh - Yukari's Perfect
Clammbon - Imagination
Kahime Karie - Trapeziste

Space Streakings - 7-Toku

Excellent noisy band on Skin Graft

Are there any great J-pop albums; all killer, no filler?

YMO's first record pretty much imho.

so much great music out of this scene but i'd have to go with any of the japandroids albums, really

Are there any great J-pop albums; all killer, no filler?

― arctic mindbath (President of the People's Republic of Antarctica), Monday, September 30, 2013 3:30 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

YMO's first record pretty much imho.

― many machines on ilx (MaresNest), Monday, September 30, 2013 3:35 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

+ Solid State Survivor, BGM, Technodelic, and Naughty Boys :)

(in fact that last one probably suits the definition of J-Pop you're most likely looking for)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c9shb_7sBpw/UATgBNLDg_I/AAAAAAAAIKg/meG9n3pfIGw/s1600/03_Boris_Flood.jpg

XP - Well yep, I was too reserved to lay out most of their catalog as 'all killer no filler' but it is a pretty redoubtable body of music

m-flo's astromantic is basically a perfect album

thanks, I'll check them all out (and any more that might be named in future)! :)

you should check out P-Model - Karkador as well :)

Capsule's More! More! More! is fucking enormous and great.

Big fan of Copter4016882's 2D2D, 800 Cherries' Romantico, and everything ever by Sugar Plant.

Lotsa good stuff recommended already.

I second the recomendation for Plus-tech Squeeze Box's Cartooom!
Their first album, Fakevox, is good as well.

Hartfield - True Color, True Lie
Pina - Ephemeral

Are there any great J-pop albums; all killer, no filler?

don't like one of the ballads but momoiro clover z's battle and romance is really close and super awesome. still hearing new things on some of the denser tracks on it.

also, mosaic.wav's ginyu planet akiba-pop. love it so much. has the big pop choruses for sure but I should mention that it's on an even more hyper/proggy tip than the last one. tread lightly!

Cartoom is awesome, but really insane. Imagine all of "Fantasma" crammed into one song, and an album full of these songs.

metalheads, especially my power metal friends, the ginyu planet recommendation goes double for you

j3ff t to thread for dodgy music from japan

7 toku is dope, I like Flood a lot too.

If you are in for a 90s sampledelic slightly surreal audio collage type of thing then track down Dthe Doopees - Doopee Time

It can be listened to here - http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/01/yann_tomitas_do.html

today my choice is tujiko noriko's "blurred in my mirror".

Childisc is a worthy rabbit-hole too - NobukazuTakemura/Childisc S&D

i'm forever spinning "10th", "animate" & "songbook", but he hasn't been as fecund recently and i think people don't remember him well. he has a wicked robert wyatty achey melodic sense & programs noodly fusionisms & moody non resolving morton feldman chord cycles better than most, but i think people only remember the (with hindsight) claustrophobically 90's steve reich-y toytown aspect.

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

wow, this plus-tech squeeze box album is really something. kinda like a mashup of Max Tundra and Cornelius

I like Togawa but her catalogue is relatively small. She didn't do many solo albums and the ones she did do were rather brief. The one you mentioned is good. Guernica - of course classic, but not much there. Yapoos kinda petered out after a couple of albums. Apparently she hasn't done much since 92. I think at one point she even tried to hang herself.

― frogbs, Friday, October 4, 2013 8:35 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, I was considering her work with groups as well as solo stuff, so I don't think of her catalogue as small at all, really. It's a pretty great body of work. Post-92 there's the covers album, which I don't have but the stuff I know is great (in fact it's the version of 'Casablanca Moon' on this that got me into her in the first place). Didn't know about the suicide attempt, very sad if true.

As for more dreamy, I mentioned up thread the album 'Ephermeral' by Piana.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvT0km2mz8Y

xp - I guess it all really depends what exactly you count. Do you like those later Yapoos albums? (personally I think they're fine but they aren't as unique or colorful; she seems restrained on those)

yeah, that's true about togawa's suicide attempts. she's tried twice and her sister succeeded :-/

more info on that and her move away from music post-80s here:
http://www.generasia.com/wiki/Togawa_Jun

not to end on a downer note, here's a great one from the apogee & perigee album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpTCgD4TGeY

cosign asa-chang and junray, and susumu yokota.

p ambient japanese house: the works of kaito, esp his 'beatless' albums.

that Portable Rock track way up there is exactly what I'm looking for. It's great!

I've checked out the others and they're all very good too; will have to check the ones without links very soon. Thanks for those suggestions and please keep them coming if you have any more (doubly so for Portable Rock-type music!).

Arctic, there is probably some Akiko Yano that you would like, esp the early 80s records and have a listen to some Ippu Do too.

today i choose masami tsuchiya's "rice music" which is the main ippo du dude doing glossy 80's glam funk. percy jones at his most kev-hoppery. ebows & occidental pentatonic melodies. dreamy. trevor horn only wishes he ever got close.

hippo doo

ippu do

cross posting from the nishioka thread, but...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0doNdT34L8

august 1974 - taj mahal travellers

― Ward Fowler, Monday, September 30, 2013 7:35 AM (5 days ago)

otm

on the 6th october i pick tatsuya yoshida & eiko ishibashi's "slip beneath the distant tree"

many x-posts to arctic - glad you dug portable rock! altho it's a modern release, felt like the last frenesi album was a nice take on that sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw9HnBvdgHQ

also really like this meg track; think it might be a good fit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozrUAZXR9AI

but she doesn't have too many others like that one, unfortunately. anyone know who produced?

According to wiki, these guys http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Restoration_Project

well, duh, guess I should've looked there. thanks!

np, thanks for the rec, never heard of Meg before

Yasutaka Nakata (one half of Capsule) produced all of the Meg material I'm aware of (along with the more recent Perfume albums). Just check out his Wikipedia and sample any/everything he's had a hand in. It's pretty much all good-to-amazing.

I was under the impression that Yasutaka Nakata had produced all of MEG's stuff, but it looks like he was only the sole producer on a few of her albums.

thanks for the Eel rec MaresNest - this has been really good so far, kinda like Yukari Fresh but maybe a bit better

toru takemitsu's "film music vol.2" (JVC/ victor)

The four vols of Takemitsu's film music have great music, they sort of mesh in my mind. I'll try and play "2" on its own sometime.

Takayanagi/Abe - Mass and Gradual Projection, is my first thought.

Wait I just read the beginning of the thread. So Taj mahal Travellers are too droney and Boredoms are just experimental enough for you?!

this one splits modern, buzzy, digital j-pop and idm style ambient pretty much riiiight down the middle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kffQxXj-tUg

very nice. prob my favorite of the tujiko noriko releases I've heard but I'm hardly a completist. released on mego, hah!

Does anybody here like Clammbon?

I found a song "Lightning Scarlet" by a band called The Willard accidentally and really like it, I've listened to a few others but none really struck me like this. I've seen them listed as punk but they sound more like hard rock to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QXDVQpQX2A

Thanks to C sharp major, I had a look in Deluxe Cleaners, they have a nice selection (probably nicer if I could read kanji)

http://i43.tinypic.com/9se5ix.jpg

Bottom one is Denki Groove

Found some "YMO" (US Multiplies LP) at a flea market in north GA this weekend. Looking forward to playing it!

nice one MaresNest, that's "Singles and Strikes" isn't it? the single edits of many of these tunes can be very different.

i recently got the 2-disc "Tour Panda" CD+DVD combo, excellent stuff, may upload that here sometime

yellow magic orchestra - bgm

XP - Hey frogbs, yes indeed, haven't listened to it yet, I don't know very much Denki Groove but I'm looking forward to digging in.

The Ulfuls best-of, well I listened to a couple of tracks and feel kinda meh, I was hoping for a Flipper's Guitar type of thing but it is pretty standard J Rock so far. Nay just sell it back to them.

Glad you are liking Eel btw.

Solid State Survivor is a great Autumnal record.

The bangers on it though are mixed differently from the more relaxed Sakamoto numbers, much bolder, they really jump out when you listen to the whole thing through.

Are there any great J-pop albums; all killer, no filler?

I think Ayumi Hamasaki's Rock 'n' Roll Circus is a really underrated album; I wrote about it here. Also second any/all recommendations of stuff produced by Nakata; the last couple of Perfume albums are amazing, as is Capsule's World of Fantasy.

Sambomaster - "Boku to Kimi no Subete o Rock n' Roll to Yobe." The music these guys make now is embarrassing, but I will rep for this album until I die.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P32IQm21af0

puzzle punks - puzzoo

man, "starship.6" off the plus-tech album is amazing. fidgety afx drum programming, big evil bassline, sweet jpop vocal melodies, and a steely dan sample! no way I'm not gonna like that.

thing is, rest of the album doesn't sound too much like that track. can anyone suggest anything that does??

Incase one anybody is interested I made a mixtape for a friend who was asking about Japanese music and Shibuya-Kei, so I knocked this together, there's more than just SK stuff and it goes back quite a ways here and there.

http://we.tl/DdECsHQbsD

Japanology Vol 1

1. Clammbon - Rock Climbing
2. Kahime Karie - Mike Alway's Diary
3. Comoesta Yaegashi - Bossa With Madam Rosa
4. Ikuko Harada - Kodama
5. Fantastic Plastic Machine - L'Aventure Fantastique
6. Akiko Yano - Ikanaide
7. Cubismo Grafico - Obrigado Obrigada
8. Hikashu - The Model
9. Our Hour - Panda Riot
10. Shione Yukawa - 風よ吹かないで
11. Mariah - そこから
12. Capsule - Sweet Time Replay (feat. Dahlia)
13. Midori Hirano - Ancient Story In The Room
14. Nagisa Cosmetic - Cosmetic Happy
15. Macdonald Duck Eclair - Many Many Sweets
16. Hazel Nuts Chocolate - Kaze Hiite Batankyuu
17. Buffalo Daughter - Ivory
18. Happy End - Ghosts Of Flying Squirrels At Kuriyamizaka
19. Harco - Winter Sports Rainbow
20. The Folk Crusaders - Harenchi

Incase one ?? thats what I get for typing with my rubbery ProTools shortcuts cover mat on me keyboard I suppose

Are there any great J-pop albums; all killer, no filler?

perfume's game

can someone tell me more about eiko ishibashi? imitation of life is fantastic.

I know nothing about Eiko other than I'm Armed and Imitation Of Life are totally kicking my butt right now.

Akiko Yano - Gohan Ga Dekitayo

been kinda obsessed with BiS "Idol Is Dead" for the last couple of weeks, weird mixture of their earlier JPop songs like Nerve http://youtu.be/mqONWOKFK90 and later on tracks which are full of staccato metal riffing, blast beats and ravey keyboard eg ASH http://youtu.be/PKue58e1A38 There's even a song that sounds v much like MBV! There should be a new album this year, although they are supposedly stopping at some point soon.

eiko's "works for everything" is super burmese-style piano meets home techno / toytown steve-reichism (without the po-faced coattailsing that usually brings to mind) but with some weird atonalist stuff going on, & what i would assume are love songs. "drifting devil" is more live-band-y, still kinda wayward toytown kitchen sink thing but less experimental / sketchy with a proggy intro & proper catchy songs.
she did a cd with "achiko" which is pretty vocal / piano ballads. kinda nice but i'm guessing i'm missing a lot not understanding a word of japanese apart from "watashi".
"carapace" was very grown up, proggy bacharach & keening ballads. o'rourke's shoehorned french horn production fits, remarkably (i know, how boreder-than-thou, exactly?)
haven't heard the new one, but i imagine it's a pretty spiffy soft shoe shuffle.

Thanks MG, I'm looking forward to tracking down the rest of her output.

Does anybody know anything about a band called Spank Happy? (terrible name I know) There's a couple of records on Spotify and they are kinda interesting, no info in Eigo anywhere and no CDs popping up on Ebay.

super burmese-style piano

what does this sound like?

also what does "toytown" mean?

traditional burmese piano music (theres' only a wee hint of it on that one of eiko's albums) i.e. piano music from Myanmar (sorry i'm old fashioned like that).
toytown - plinky plonky xylophones music boxes etc. children instruments. faux-naive, perhaps?

wakarimashita

I posted about this in the jpop thread last year and campaigned for it pre ilxor year/end poll, so in this most relevant of threads I'll do my final bit of promotion. tricot - THE, favorite album 2013. The most amazing debut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDwMxdFxe2o