Yellow Magic Orchestra - 1978 - Yellow Magic Orchestra

Yellow Magic Orchestra

1978 

Yellow Magic Orchestra

01. Computer Game "Theme From The Circus"
02. Firecracker
03. Simoon
04. Cosmic Surfin'
05. Computer Game "Theme From The Invader"
06. Tong Poo
07. La Femme Chinoise
08. Bridge Over Troubled Music
09. Mad Pierrot
10. Acrobat

There are two mixes of this album that have been released and reissued in several countries over the years: the original Japanese version and a remixed US version.

The cover art featuring a woman holding a fan denotes the US mix, and most versions of it end with the song “Mad Pierrot” instead of “Acrobat.”

Drums, Percussion, Electronics, Vocals – Yukihiro Takahashi
Keyboards, Electronics, Percussion, Orchestrated By – Ryuichi Sakamoto
Bass, Electronics, Keyboards – Harry Hosono

This is the story of YMO’s formation in the late 1970s, in brief: Hosono, already a musical force in Japan after leading the influential rock group Happy End, assembles a crew of session players for his next solo album. This group includes a friend from college named Yukihiro Takahashi, as well as an up-and-coming arranger named Ryuichi Sakamoto. The jazzy exotica masterwork Paraiso, credited to Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band, is released in 1978. That same year, Hosono asks Takahashi and Sakamoto if they want to start a new project together. He proposes the new band as a “stepping stone” to greater heights in each of their solo careers. Takahashi agrees; after some initial hesitation, Sakamoto does, too.

Super Nintendo Disco music. Ok review done. But seriously this couldn't sound more like that if it tried! But hey that's not just a goofy pop culture reference, in fact it partly states the immense influence these dudes have had in their homeland of Japan. If you've like partook at all in Japanese pop culture products, namely stuff from the 80's or 90's ...listening to this will be a bizarre revelation. All those fighting robot cartoon show themes? All those Nintendo soundtracks? You will HEAR them here! This isn't just some random nerd talk, this is very very apparent! The influence of YMO over Japan is audible as fuck to the point of it being a bit scary. Also it's really really good. That too is a thing. So I've discussed a lot on the unique personality of early electronically driven acts, how personality often separates the titans from the smaller acts. Kraftwerk's personality as precise robots is famed, Gary Numan's organic rhythm sections backing his cybernetic moodscapes is his claim to fame, Japan are the ones who basically embodied the New Romantic concept most perfectly and wholly...so that brings us here to Yellow Magic Orchestra. Do they stand out amid this international crowd? The answer is....EXTREMELY. In fact if the whole of these groups is placed together YMO stands the most out! How? Well they decided that as much as they admired the cold works of Kraftwerk that influenced them? Ultimately they couldn't abide by the cold dark aspect. Japan and Germany often get talked up as these very efficient professional cultures, taking that to it's extreme you can start seeing YMO as Japan's natural equivalent of Kraftwerk. Which works until you actually hear them, and if Japan and Germany share that precision of culture....well Japan's natural tendency to cut loose and have strange fun explains the difference. Germany lacks this very much so! YMO is fun with a capital F and then some, I mentioned disco in the opening sentence right? Well shit, these are very very dance oriented songs! Strong disco beats underly the self-consciously cliche asiatic music above. The comparisons can actually be drawn perhaps more strongly to early Italo-Disco at points (Europe stores all it's fun having along the Mediterranean sadly for Germany), but it's much more interesting than just that. The arrangements involve lots of video gamey sounding (think Pong) sound effects and characteristics, early chiptunes work being a major influence. Mixed in is what I can only describe as a sort of jazzy lounge like attitude buried somewhere deep but central in things, giving everything a more swanky feel even at it's most blippity bleepity silliness. Oh! And asiatic! Right! The best song (and most famous here) Firecracker is a sort of interpolation partly of an old orientalist track by famed musical orientalist Martin Denny. The guy who made all those old 50's sounding "ethnic" musics that sound like cheesy white bread takes on exotic musics. There's a sort of genius post-modern comedy in an actual Japanese act taking that cliche "asian" melody and using it as a backbone for a futuristic pop masterpiece like their version of Firecracker. Could write a whole essay on it! Oh and the best part of the song isn't Martin Denny's melody, it's the repetitive din-din-din dindindin-din-din electro melody coursing through the whole song. Your brain will not be free of it, so beware. And yes yes, all of this sounds like it was made by Super Nintendos. Probably because Koji Kondo and those guys were so clearly indebted to YMO. Tons and tons of fun here, the product of endless directioned influence to so it's super interesting on top of that. What a wonderful electronic stew this is.

Their first record as YMO, they had worked together on Haruomi Hosono's record Paraiso previously. Charming and bouncy vintage electronic music with lots of undertones. Not unlike a more playful Mensch-Maschine era Kraftwerk had they been on ZE Records and heavy on computer game fx sounds. It sounds like a one-off effort, they would develope their group identity on the more assured "Solid State Survivor". But it is exactly this otherworldly quality and quirkiness (also featured on the early ZE records) that i like.

The rereleased CD features the original and the american version, which is remixed and has a slightly different tracklist. The american remix sounds more punchy, maybe to appeal to the Paradise Garage crowd. The original sounds a bit more atmospheric, and thus is my favourite.