Haruomi Hosono & Tadanori Yokoo - 1978 - Cochin Moon

Haruomi Hosono & Tadanori Yokoo 

1978 

Cochin Moon

01. Hotel Malabar: Ground Floor ••• Triangle Circuit On The Sea-Forest ••• 2:36

02. Hotel Malabar: Upper Floor ••• Moving Triangle ••• 8:42

03. Hotel Malabar: Roof Garden ••• Revel Attack ••• 9:00

04. Hepatitis 4:37

05. Hum Ghar Sajan 8:54

06. Madam Consul General Of Madras 8:04

Keyboards – Hiroshi Sato, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Shuka Nishihara

Haruomi Hosono’s 1978 album Cochin Moon, credited to Hosono and illustrator Tadanori Yokoo, is a hallucinatory masterpiece of electronic psychedelia that feels like a fever dream set in a neon-lit Bollywood fantasy. Released on King Records (catalog SKS-28) in Japan, this six-track, roughly 37-minute LP is a fictional soundtrack to an imaginary film, conjured from Hosono’s synth-drenched imagination and inspired by a chaotic trip to India. It’s a record that buzzes with analog mosquitoes, warps vocals into alien chants, and pulses with a delirium that’s as disorienting as it is captivating. Imagine Kraftwerk and Ravi Shankar getting lost in a jungle with a malfunctioning sequencer, and you’re halfway there. Cochin Moon isn’t just an album; it’s a sonic passport to a place that doesn’t exist, delivered with a wink that says, “Buckle up, this is going to get weird.” In this scholarly yet accessible analysis, I’ll dissect the album’s musical structure, review its strengths and weaknesses, provide biographical sketches of the key contributors, and situate Cochin Moon within the cultural and musical landscape of 1978. Expect a sprinkle of irony and sarcasm, as befits a record that seems to chuckle at its own audacity.

Cochin Moon is primarily a Haruomi Hosono project, with Tadanori Yokoo contributing the iconic cover art rather than music, and a trio of synth wizards adding instrumental heft. Here’s a look at the key players:

Haruomi Hosono (synthesizers, production, executive producer): Born in 1947 in Tokyo, Hosono is Japan’s musical polymath, a visionary whose career spans psychedelic rock, folk, exotica, and electronic music. Before Cochin Moon, he played bass in the psychedelic Apryl Fool (1969) and co-founded Happy End (1970–73), a pioneering Japanese folk-rock band that sang in their native tongue, blending Buffalo Springfield with Tokyo coffeehouse vibes. By 1978, Hosono was on the cusp of global fame with Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), but Cochin Moon showcases his weirder, more experimental side. His concept of “sightseeing music”—blending global sounds into a tourist’s sonic scrapbook—permeates the album. One imagines Hosono in the studio, twiddling knobs and giggling like a mad scientist who’s just invented a new species of synth. His later work with YMO and solo albums like Philharmony (1982) solidified his status as a titan of Japanese pop, but here he’s a sonic nomad, high on curry and krautrock.

Tadanori Yokoo (executive producer, cover art): Born in 1936 in Nishiwaki, Yokoo is Japan’s answer to Andy Warhol, a pop artist whose vibrant, surreal designs defined 1960s and ’70s Japanese visual culture. His Cochin Moon cover—a Bollywood-inspired riot of lotus flowers, elephants, and Aum symbols—is a masterpiece of kitschy exotica, perfectly matching the album’s vibe. Initially intended to collaborate musically, Yokoo was sidelined by a severe bout of diarrhea during a 1975 trip to India with Hosono, leaving him to focus on the artwork. One can’t help but smirk at the irony: a man who paints psychedelic dreamscapes brought low by a very real stomach bug. Yokoo’s contribution, while non-musical, is integral, giving the album its visual identity and a dose of high-art cred.

Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards): Born in 1952 in Tokyo, Sakamoto was a young session player in 1978, fresh from Tokyo’s music scene and about to become a global icon with YMO. His keyboard work on Cochin Moon adds melodic finesse to Hosono’s electronic chaos, hinting at the lush, cinematic style he’d later perfect in solo work and film scores (The Last Emperor, 1987). Sakamoto’s presence here is like a guest star in a sci-fi flick—subtle but essential, probably wondering what he’s gotten himself into. His krautrock-inspired flourishes suggest he was already dreaming of YMO’s synth-pop future.

Hiroshi Sato (keyboards): A member of Tin Pan Alley, a Japanese jazz-funk collective, Sato (born c. 1947) brought a soulful, groovy edge to Cochin Moon. His keyboard contributions, particularly on tracks like “Hepatitis,” add a playful, almost pop sensibility to the album’s avant-garde leanings. Sato’s career as a session player and solo artist (e.g., Orient, 1979) shows his knack for blending jazz with electronic textures, but here he’s like the cool uncle who shows up to a weird party and somehow makes it weirder.

Hideki Matsutake (computer programming): The unsung hero of Cochin Moon, Matsutake (born c. 1951) was a synth programmer whose work with Roland’s early computers and sequencers shaped YMO’s sound. His programming on Cochin Moon creates the album’s buzzing, pulsating textures, like a swarm of digital insects. Matsutake’s role is technical but crucial, turning Hosono’s feverish ideas into sonic reality. Picture him hunched over a computer, muttering about MIDI while Hosono dreams of Bollywood.

The album was recorded in Tokyo in 1978, with Hosono using the pseudonym “Shuka Nishihara” for the second half’s tracks, a playful nod to poet Hakushū Kitahara. Yokoo’s executive producer credit and cover art aside, this is Hosono’s show, with Sakamoto, Sato, and Matsutake as his sonic co-conspirators. Their collective talent makes Cochin Moon a bridge between Hosono’s exotica past and YMO’s electronic future, with a detour through a feverish Indian dreamscape.

The late 1970s were a transformative period for music, with electronic sounds reshaping genres from pop to avant-garde. In Japan, 1978 was a pivotal year: punk was bubbling, disco was booming, and electronic music was gaining traction, thanks to pioneers like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. Haruomi Hosono, already a veteran of Japan’s rock and folk scenes, was at the forefront of this shift, with Cochin Moon released just months before YMO’s debut. The album’s synth-heavy sound reflects the era’s fascination with technology, while its Indian influences tap into a broader cultural obsession with “exotica” and global sounds, from Martin Denny’s tiki lounge to the Beatles’ sitar experiments.

Hosono and Yokoo’s 1975 trip to India, intended as inspiration for an ethnographic project, was a chaotic affair, marked by illness (Yokoo’s infamous diarrhea) and exposure to Bollywood’s colorful excess. India in the 1970s was a land of contrasts—post-colonial vibrancy, spiritual allure for Western seekers, and a booming film industry. Hosono’s encounter with Kraftwerk’s Autobahn and krautrock via Yokoo during the trip shifted Cochin Moon from field recordings to a synthetic fever dream, reflecting Japan’s growing interest in Western electronic music. Culturally, Japan was embracing its post-war identity, blending tradition with modernity, and Hosono’s “sightseeing music” concept—exploring foreign cultures through sound—mirrored this openness. Cochin Moon is thus a product of its time: a Japanese artist’s warped take on India, filtered through German electronics and a touch of ironic detachment.

Cochin Moon is a six-track, 37-minute journey divided into two halves: Side A’s “Malabar Hotel” trilogy and Side B’s three standalone tracks, credited to Hosono’s alter ego “Shuka Nishihara.” Conceived as the soundtrack to a non-existent Bollywood film, the album is a dense, maximalist tapestry of synthesizers, sequencers, and vocoder-warped vocals, with nods to Indian music, krautrock, and exotica. Recorded with Roland and Yamaha gear, it’s Hosono’s first fully electronic album, predating YMO’s debut and showcasing his experimental audacity. The production, overseen by Hosono with engineers Seiichi Chiba and Kunio Tsukamoto, is a marvel of analog wizardry, creating a soundscape that’s both alien and immersive.

The album’s sonic palette is dominated by Hosono’s synthesizers (Yamaha CS-80, ARP Odyssey), with Sakamoto and Sato’s keyboards adding melodic and textural depth. Matsutake’s computer programming creates pulsating rhythms and buzzing effects, evoking everything from tropical insects to sci-fi machinery. The “Malabar Hotel” trilogy—named after the Indian hotel where Hosono stayed—forms a conceptual suite, with each track representing a floor of the hotel. Side B’s tracks, under the “Shuka Nishihara” pseudonym, lean more explicitly into Indian influences, though filtered through a synthetic lens. The album’s style is progressive electronic, with elements of Berlin School (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze), krautrock (Kraftwerk, Cluster), and Indian classical music, all wrapped in Hosono’s exotica aesthetic.

Vocals, when present, are heavily processed, with vocoder chants and warped Japanese and Hindi phrases adding to the surreal vibe. The album’s structure is episodic, like a film score, with tracks flowing into each other to create a narrative arc. As Pitchfork’s Andy Beta noted, it’s a “hallucinatory listen,” embodying Hosono’s illness-induced delirium and his fascination with India’s “exotic, luxurious” cinemas. The cover art by Yokoo, with its lotus flowers and Aum symbols, reinforces the album’s Bollywood-inspired fantasy, making Cochin Moon a multisensory experience.

Let’s explore the tracks to capture the album’s strange beauty:

“Malabar Hotel: Ground Floor…Triangle Circuit on the Sea-Forest” (2:33): The opener is a brief, eerie prelude, with high-pitched synths mimicking crickets and waves crashing in the distance. It’s like stepping into a jungle at dusk, only to realize the jungle is made of circuits. Hosono’s subtle bass synths and spoken Japanese fragments set a disorienting tone, as if you’ve checked into a hotel where the staff are robots. It’s short but sets the stage perfectly, like a cinematic establishing shot.

“Malabar Hotel: Upper Floor…Moving Triangle” (8:43): The trilogy’s centerpiece is a hypnotic, krautrock-infused journey, with a lopsided beat split between stereo channels and fluttering synths that sound like a robotic frog convention. Matsutake’s programming creates a pulsating rhythm, while Sakamoto’s keyboards add melodic flickers. The track’s tropical, feverish vibe—complete with a fly that won’t buzz off—is pure Hosono, blending humor and menace. It’s as if Kraftwerk got stranded in a monsoon and decided to jam anyway.

“Malabar Hotel: Roof Garden…Revel Attack” (8:59): The trilogy’s climax is a chaotic, celebratory affair, with vocoder chants and swirling synths evoking a rooftop party gone haywire. The track’s “revel attack” feels like a psychedelic riot, with Hosono’s spoken Japanese adding a surreal narrative. It’s the most cinematic moment, like the finale of a Bollywood epic where the hero defeats the villain in a blaze of neon. A bit overlong, but gloriously unhinged.

“Hepatitis” (4:41): Side B kicks off with a bouncy, almost cartoonish track that Beta called “a shiny piece of computer pop” fit for a Pixar sci-fi short. Sato’s keyboards shine, with bubbling effects and a melody that’s equal parts goofy and futuristic. The title, presumably a nod to the illnesses Hosono and Yokoo endured, is darkly funny—naming a peppy track after a liver disease is peak Hosono irony. It’s the album’s most accessible moment, though still weird as hell.

“Hum Ghar Sajan” (8:52): The album’s Indian heart, this track is a synth raga inspired by a Guru Granth Sahib phrase and popularized by Bhai Pyara Singh Ji. Hosono’s vocoder chants and Sakamoto’s high-pitched solos mimic Indian classical music, while the rhythm pulses like a digital sitar. It’s a stunning blend of Kraftwerk and Ravi Shankar, with a mystical edge that’s both reverent and playful. As Beta noted, it “accurately predicts Asa Chang & Junray’s electro-exotica,” proving Hosono’s prescience.

“Madam Consul General of Madras” (9:03): The closer is a tribal, gamelan-inspired epic, with pulsing synths and warped vocals evoking a ritualistic trance. Legend has it the titular consul served Hosono and Yokoo Japanese food, curing their ailments, and the track feels like a grateful, if bizarre, tribute. It’s dense and immersive, like Wendy Carlos scoring a jungle ceremony, though its length can feel indulgent. A fitting end to the album’s strange journey.

Cochin Moon is a triumph of imagination and innovation. Hosono’s ability to blend Indian exotica, krautrock, and electronic psychedelia into a cohesive whole is nothing short of genius. The album’s textures—swarming synths, vocoder chants, buzzing effects—are a masterclass in analog synthesis, predating YMO’s polished sound and rivaling the best of Tangerine Dream or Cluster. Sakamoto and Sato’s keyboards add melodic depth, while Matsutake’s programming grounds the chaos in rhythm. The concept—a fictional Bollywood soundtrack—is executed with wit and flair, and Yokoo’s cover art seals the deal, making the album a total art package. As Rate Your Music users praise, it’s “dense, lush, layered, maximalist,” a “soul-consuming work” that’s “proto-cyberpunk” in feel.

However, the album isn’t flawless. Its relentless weirdness can be exhausting, particularly on longer tracks like “Roof Garden” and “Madam Consul General,” which stretch ideas past their peak. The lack of traditional song structures may alienate listeners expecting Hosono’s earlier folk or YMO’s pop. The Indian influences, while evocative, are more impressionistic than authentic, risking accusations of cultural tourism—though Hosono’s tongue-in-cheek approach mitigates this. As a Pitchfork review noted, the album embodies Hosono’s illness-induced “disorientation,” which can feel alienating for casual listeners. And let’s be honest: titling a track “Hepatitis” is either a stroke of dark humor or a marketing misfire.

Cochin Moon is a landmark in electronic music, bridging Hosono’s exotica past with YMO’s synth-pop future. Released just before YMO’s debut, it’s a precursor to their groundbreaking sound, showcasing Hosono’s pioneering use of synthesizers and sequencers. Its blend of Indian and electronic elements anticipates the “fourth world” music of Jon Hassell and Brian Eno, while its conceptual ambition aligns it with krautrock’s experimental ethos. The album’s influence can be heard in later Japanese acts like Asa Chang & Junray and in global electronic genres from ambient to techno.

Culturally, Cochin Moon reflects Japan’s 1970s fascination with global cultures, filtered through a post-modern lens. Hosono’s “sightseeing music” concept—exploring foreign sounds as a curious outsider—challenges Western exoticism while embracing it, creating a dialogue between East and West. The album’s rarity—original vinyl copies fetch hundreds of dollars—has made it a collector’s grail, with reissues by Light in the Attic (2018) and Japan’s Record Store Day (2018) fueling its cult status. For scholars, it’s a case study in how illness, travel, and cultural collision can birth something wholly original, even if it’s too strange for the mainstream.

Contemporary reviews of Cochin Moon are scarce, as it was a niche release overshadowed by YMO’s imminent rise. Retrospective reviews, however, are rapturous. Pitchfork’s Andy Beta called it a “stunning piece of electronic psychedelia,” praising its “hallucinatory” quality and forward-thinking sound. Rate Your Music rates it 3.87/5, ranking it #331 for 1978, with users lauding its “textural work of art” and “sweet analog synth goodness.” Soundohm hails it as a “holy grail of avant-ambient synthesis,” comparing it to Manuel Göttsching and Aphex Twin. Discogs users call it “timeless and brilliant,” urging listeners to grab a copy.

The album’s legacy lies in its pioneering spirit and enduring influence. It laid the groundwork for YMO’s electronic innovations and Hosono’s genre-defying career, from city pop to ambient. Its reissues—CDs in 1989, 1992, and 2018, and vinyl in 2018—have introduced it to new audiences, with Light in the Attic’s release including a translated Hosono interview. Cochin Moon remains a touchstone for electronic and experimental music, a reminder that the strangest journeys often yield the most rewarding destinations.

Cochin Moon is a wild, visionary ride, a synth-soaked fever dream that transforms a disastrous India trip into a sonic masterpiece. Haruomi Hosono, with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Hiroshi Sato, and Hideki Matsutake, crafts a fictional Bollywood soundtrack that’s equal parts krautrock, exotica, and proto-cyberpunk, all wrapped in Tadanori Yokoo’s psychedelic artwork. It’s not an easy listen—its relentless weirdness and lack of pop hooks demand commitment—but for those willing to dive in, it’s a transcendent experience, like wandering a neon jungle where the trees hum with electricity. Sure, it’s a bit indulgent, and the “Hepatitis” title is a head-scratcher, but these quirks only add to its charm.

So, hunt down that reissue, dim the lights, and let Cochin Moon whisk you to its imaginary Malabar Hotel. Just don’t be surprised if you find yourself humming “Hum Ghar Sajan” while dodging synthetic mosquitoes and wondering how Hosono made diarrhea sound so damn cool. This is music for nomads, dreamers, and those who believe the best films are the ones you invent in your head.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - 1980 - B-2 Unit

Ryuichi Sakamoto

1980

B-2 Unit

01. Differencia (2:06)
02. Thatness and Thereness (3:27)
03. Participation Mystique (6:40)
04. E-3A (4:46)
05. Iconic Storage (4:43)
06. Riot in Lagos (5:40)
07. Not the 6 O'Clock News (5:04)
08. The End of Europe (4:56)

Andy Partridge, Tadashi Kumihara, Kenji Omura, Ryuichi Sakamoto - musicians

All tunes composed and arranged by Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Words written by Yoshitaka Goto and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Recorded at Studio "A" in Tokyo, Studio 80 and Air Studios in London.

A perfect, dark companion to Yellow Magic Orchestra's own fantastic Technodelic, B-2 Unit finds Sakamoto exploring a decidedly more experimental side of electronic music.

When listening to this now, it's important to recall how much painstaking programming went into creating this music. There were no DAW's, no Pro-Tools or Ableton, no modeling synthesizers and the only commercially available sampler was the 8-bit, insanely expensive and difficult Fairlight CMI. To sequence the synth / drum machine parts to get that 'precise' sound meant countless hours sitting at the Roland MC 8, a sequencer where every note and chord needed to be punched in manually. Having done something similar myself recently I can attest: as great as the end result is, the process is maddening.

When so much work goes into a record, you can guarantee the artist believes deeply in every track. Thusly, there are no weak tracks on B-2 Unit, only wild, expressive, experimental electronic pop music.

A huge criticism levied at electronic music, especially at the time, was that it was cold and soulless, lacking in emotional depth. Those things could definitely be true, plenty of artists certainly used this aspect to define their sound. Not so, Ryuichi Sakamoto. "Thatness and Thereness", for all it's melting electronic washes, is anchored by Sakamoto's excellent melodic chops, as pretty as any smooth jazz number.

But that's not the most on offer in B-2U. Opener "Differencia" must have shocked the shit out of the YMO faithful with it's dark aura and skewered drum machine hiccuping all over the place. "Participation Mystique" continues this after the false comfort of "Thatness and Thereness" with pounding drums, distorted drone figure and a mutilated vocal that sounds like a whispering spectre.

"Iconic Storage" posits industrial instructional film music as dark pop while "Not the 6 O'Clock News" is just straight up industrial music, as uncompromising as anything coming out of England at the time. "E-3A" pits Sakamoto's synth prowess against dub producer Dennis "Blackbeard" Bovell. Bovell, no stranger to non reggae musics, having produced post-punk noise funksters The Pop Group's debut Y and The Slits Cut, approaches the track with a fine tuned sense of rhythm, weaving seemlessly in and out of the hi-q bass squirts and clicks.

"Riot in Lagos" is the closest B-2U gets to YMO's electro pop but still a bit "off", though it certainly clues the listener to the general direction that that band would take less than a year later on Technodelic.

Still sounds fresh!

Ryuichi Sakamoto & The Kakutougi Session - 1979 - Summer Nerves

Ryuichi Sakamoto & The Kakutougi Session

1979

Summer Nerves

01. Summer Nerves (4:12)
02. You're Friend to Me (5:03)
03. Sleep on My Baby (5:12)
04. Theme for "Kakutougi" (6:23)
05. Gonna Go to I Colony (4:42)
06. Time Trip (4:17)
07. Sweet Illusion (6:34)
08. Neuronian Network (4:09)

Ryuichi Sakamoto - keyboards
Yukihiro Takahashi - drums
Kazumi Watanabe (#3,7) - guitar
Kenji Omura (#3,7) - guitar
Masaki Matsubara (#4,5) - guitar
Shigeru Suzuki (#1,2,4,6) - guitar
Ray Ohara - bass (#1-4,6,7) - guitar
Motoya Hamaguchi (#1,2,4,6) - percussion
Pecker (#3,5,7) - percussion
Mabumi Yamaguchi - saxophone (#1)
Akiko Yano - backing vocals (#3)

Recorded at CBS/Sony studio, Tokyo.

A set that's maybe a bit more straightforward than some of the other work from Ryuichi Sakamoto from the time -- warmly crafted with lots of jazzy touches, thanks to work on the record from Katuougi Session! The approach is almost city pop, but there's still some of the quirkier touches we love in Sakamoto's music -- as you might guess from the cover -- including a bit of vocoder, and a relatively understated way that often has the lyrics stepping around right down in the grooves!

A distinct departure from the rest of Sakamoto's solo career and a fun one at that. On this release he delves into a mix of reggae, disco and a little bit of jazz fusion as well as his usual brand of weird electronic music. All of it comes together here to make 8 tracks of zany city pop songs that aren't very memorable but are entertaining enough to keep me engaged while listening. Overall the album has a nice summery/tropical feel.

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.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - 1978 - Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto

Ryuichi Sakamoto

1978

Thousand Knives of Ryuichi Sakamoto

01. Thousand Knives (9:35)
02. Island of Woods (9:51)
03. Grasshoppers (5:16)
04. Das Neue Japanische Elektronische Volkslied (8:06)
05. Plastic Bamboo (6:31)
06. The End of Asia (06:23)

Recorded at Nippon Columbia Studios 1, 2 & 4, Tokyo on April 10 - July 27, 1978.

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Synthesizers, Drums, acoustic piano, marimba
Hideki Matsutake - computer operation, synthesizer programming assistance
Harry Hosono - finger cymbals (#1 )
Kazumi Watanabe - Alembic guitar solo (#1,6) & rhythm (#6)
Motoya Hamaguchi - Syn-Drum solo (#1), Brazilian bird whistles (#2)
Yuji Takahashi - acoustic piano duo w. RS (#3)
Tatsuro Yamashita - castanets (#4)
Pecker - Syn-Drum solo (#5)

Ryuichi Sakamoto's first solo album appeared before he formed Yellow Magic Orchestra in late 1978, after the young keyboardist had earned his MA in music from Tokyo University. Six long instrumentals make up this CD, but apart from a taste for Asian-sounding synth lines, they hint at very little of what was to come in YMO. "Thousand Knives" is a long disco-lite jazzy workout with a very un-synthesized guitar solo by Kazumi Watanabe (who would later join YMO on tour and have his solo album produced by Sakamoto). Side two's "Da Neue Japanische Electronische Volkslied" and "The End of Asia" (later revamped in YMO) are closest to the new wave of Japanese electronic music that he would spawn. "Island of Woods" and "Grasshoppers" trade in rhythm for sound landscapes, and the sort of cheeriness that would pop up later in Sakamoto's childrens movie scores. Harry Hosono turns up on one track, and generally the album is a pleasant, if unadventurous, listen.

This is the definition of progressive electronic. Predicts just about everything that's going to go on in the next 40 years of the genre before it even got started. Great melodies too. This is a must listen in my world

Harry Hosono and The Yellow Magic Band - 1978 - Paraiso

Harry Hosono and The Yellow Magic Band

1978

Paraiso

01. Tokio Rush (3:31)
02. Shimendoka (4:44)
03. Japanese Rhumba (3:34)
04. Asatoya Yunta (2:14)
05. Fujiyama Mama (2:49)
06. Femme Fatale (5:00)
07. Shambhala Signal (instrumental) (3:36)
08. Worry Beads (4:28)
09. Paraiso (Haraiso) (4:39)

Haruomi Hosono - bass, vocals, steelpan, marimba, percussion, synthesizer (Roland, Yamaha CP-30), electric piano, gong, whistle, electric guitar 

Shigeru Suzuki (#2,4) - electric guitar

Hirofumi Tokutake (#6) - electric guitar
Tatsuo Hayashi (#1-4,8,9) - drums

Yukihiro Takahashi (#6) - drums
Hiroshi Sato (#1-4,8,9) - synthesizer

Ryuichi Sakamoto (#1,6,9) - synthesizer, piano
Motoya Hamaguchi (#4,6) - percussion

Nobu Saito (#1-3,8,9) - percussion
Masahiro Takekawa - violin (#8)
Teave Kamayatsu - vocals (#3 )
Taeko Onuki - backing vocals/choir (#1,8)
Tokyo Shyness Boys - backing vocals/choir (#1,3)
Hiroshi Kamayatsu - backing vocals/choir (#3)
Tomako Kawada - backing vocals/choir (#3, 4)

All songs written and composed by Haruomi Hosono, except "Japanese Rhumba" by Glenn Miller; "Asatoya Yunta", a traditional Okinawan song and "Fujiyama Mama", written by Earl Burrows with lyrics translated by Seiichi Ida and additional lyrics written by Hosono.

Recorded at Studio "A", Shibaura, Tokyo, December 1977 to January 1978.

An absolutely perfect–if bizzare–summer album. The first track, “Tokyo Rush”, plunks you right into a ripping blues piano and harmonica riff (not to mention a honking clown horn) which results in a cartoony anthem perfect for driving your friends through the city on the way to the beach. It’s hard not to imagine a gorgeous cloudless day, with your feet up on the dash and the wind in your hair–a mood which pops up throughout this album’s inescapable sunniness (especially on tracks like the steel drum-heavy “Shimendoka” and the beachily syncopated “Worry Beads”). Hosono sings in both English and Japanese throughout the album, and on “Fujiyama Mama” comically falsettos his way through a swingin’ sixties-style duet with himself.

For all its silliness, however, there’s an undeniable oddity to these songs that reveals itself the more you get to know them. This record is a remarkable blend of styles, characteristic of Hosono’s musical omnivorousness. He takes Western influences and runs with them, blending funk, jazz, folk, reggae and blues with distinctly Japanese musical tradition (more overt on tracks such as the traditional Okinawan song “Asatoya Yunta”). There is a tongue-in-cheek attitude to Paraiso, especially considering its release in the decade following the rise of the island fantasy sound of lounge exotica. On tracks such as “Femme Fatale”, Hosono distinctly nods to the lounge tradition, but with a twist–the tropical bird sounds in the background are overly compressed, hinting at a canned kind of paradise. On other tracks, however, he leans into real “island” music, flipping the appropriative exotica stereotype on its head. “Shambhala Signal” demonstrates Hosono’s pioneering electronica sound as applied to the ancient Indonesian tradition of Gamelan music, an influence that sticks with him and the rest of Yellow Magic Orchestra throughout their career. It’s interesting to note that this record marks the first time Hosono recorded a track with a synthesizer since he began his career in 1969, especially considering he was later known as a pioneer of electronica.

Only on the final title track does the record give in to the psychedelia bleeding at the edges of the album’s vision–but only for a minute. Soon, Harry Hosono and The Yellow Magic Band are back at the perfectly tropical pop that makes this record so indelibly listenable. This record’s wonkiness and odd melange of styles are nothing short of charming, and there is a subversive peculiarity to it that only grows the more you listen. It makes for a casually genius album that seems effortless in its inventiveness, and begs to be the soundtrack of your summer.

Following Tropical Dandy (1975) and Bon Voyage Co. (1976), Paraiso is the concluding saga in his "Tropical Trilogy." The album can be seen as a turning point in Haruomi Hosono's career, having been newly signed to Alfa Records by label head Kunihiko Murai. Hosono expands on the Van Dyke Parks-inspired tropical funk styles explored in the previous albums, and arrives at a captivating fusion sound that's at times equally earthy and exotic. Hinting at the breakthrough sounds he would perfect with Yellow Magic Orchestra, Hosono uses synthesizers to provide otherworldly textures and a spiritual undertone to songs like "Femme Fatale" and the title track. On his Caribbean-style take on the Okinawan folk song "Asatoya Yunta" and the synth/gamelan workout of "Shambhala Signal," Hosono takes traditional melodies and mixes them into his own inimitable stew. Featuring a host of well-known musicians like Taeko Ohnuki, Hiroshi Sato and his future bandmates Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto, Paraiso perfectly encapsulates Hosono's eccentric worldview that has shaped his solo career, right before his techno-pop project would blast him into the stratosphere.

Toshiyuki Tsuchitori & Ryuichi Sakamoto - 1975 - Disappointment - Hateruma

Toshiyuki Tsuchitori & Ryuichi Sakamoto

1975

Disappointment - Hateruma

01. Aya (Tsuchitori-Sakamoto) - 20:16
02. Utsuwa no Naka (Tsuchitori-Sakamoto) - 6:30
03. Musique Differencielle 1° (Tsuchitori-Sakamoto) - 14:07
04. Musique Differencielle 2° ( Sakamoto - 6:11

Recorded at Lisrec Studio and Gyoen Music Studio, Tokyo, August and September 1975

Toshiyuki Tsuchitori, Ryuichi Sakamoto - drums, gong, grand piano, cymbal, bells, wood block, marimba, glockenspiel, thumb piano, bongos, EMS synthesizer, voice, temple block, bamboo clutters

Ryuichi Sakamoto was not a man cut out to be a pop star. As a teenager, he liked the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but his abiding passion was New York’s underground avant garde art scene – Joseph Beuys, Fluxus, Andy Warhol – and its accompanying experimental music: he was fond of pointing out to interviewers that he was born the year that John Cage composed 4’33. At university, he studied the work of modern composers Boulez, Stockhausen and Ligeti; he had a particular interest in the challenging electronic compositions of Iannis Xenakis. The first album to bear Sakamoto’s name, 1975’s Disappointment/Hateruma, was a collaboration with percussionist Toshiyuki Tsuchitori that consisted entirely of free improv. If he was going to have a role in the Japanese pop world at all, it was in the background, using his keyboard skills and interest in the fast-developing world of synthesisers to find employment as a session musician.

But a pop star was exactly what Sakamoto became, at least for a time. A 1978 session for singer Haruomi Hosono led to the suggestion that they should form a band with drummer Yukihiro Takahashi. Yellow Magic Orchestra went on to become both the biggest band in Japan – inspiring a degree of paparazzi attention and screaming fervour among fans that Sakamoto seems to have loathed every minute of – and the first Japanese artists to find more than novelty or cult status in the west.

Yellow Magic Orchestra were successful, but they were groundbreaking too. The convenient shorthand was that they were the Japanese Kraftwerk, although in truth, YMO didn’t really sound like Kraftwerk at all. Alongside the synthesizers, they used guitars, bass and acoustic drums. They were more straightforwardly aligned to disco: their debut album even featured an electronic version of the deathless “ooah ooah” whoop from the Michael Zager Band’s Let’s All Chant. You could detect the influence of jazz fusion and, later, the UK’s ongoing ska revival. Like Throbbing Gristle, they appeared fascinated by the kitschy 1950s exotica of Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman, which had featured traditional Japanese instruments and quasi-“oriental” melodies; Yellow Magic Orchestra’s biggest international hit was a version of Denny’s 1959 track Firecracker.

Equally, you could see why the Kraftwerk comparison stuck. Both bands shared an obsession with technology – Yellow Magic Orchestra were pioneering in their use of sequencers and samplers and they introduced the world to the sound of the Roland TR-808 drum machine – and a belief that being cutting-edge experimentalists didn’t preclude them from writing fantastic pop songs. The Sakamoto-penned Behind the Mask, from 1979’s Solid State Survivor, was covered by Michael Jackson, ostensibly for inclusion on Thriller, although it was dropped from the final tracklisting; it was eventually turned into a UK hit by, of all people, Eric Clapton.

Both YMO and Kraftwerk were interested in the detournement of Anglo-American pop: just as Kraftwerk borrowed from the Beach Boys on Autobahn, so YMO covered the Beatles’ Day Tripper and Archie Bell and the Drells’ Tighten Up, the latter in cartoonish Japanese accents. They also shared a dry sense of humour, which in Yellow Magic Orchestra’s case usually fixated on western prejudices and fears about east Asians. On the cover of Solid State Survivor, they dressed in red Mao suits, enjoying a drink with an effigy of the late dictator. While the US fretted about an influx of Japanese cars and technology damaging their economy, 1980’s X∞Multiplies featured a series of sketches, one featuring a sinister Japanese businessman signing a contract, another featuring an American who realises his Japanese host can’t understand English and lets rip with a torrent of racist abuse: “The Japanese are pigs, yellow monkeys, they have small cocks and short legs.” As a moral panic erupted over the deleterious and addictive effect of the Taito Corporation’s Space Invaders games, Yellow Magic Orchestra’s records literally sounded like arcade games: their eponymous debut album was packed with interludes featuring their bleeping noises and tinny Game Over death marches.

And, like Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra proved vastly influential – or rather, it took the rest of the world a little while to catch up: there was something telling about the fact that Solid State Survivor wasn’t released in the UK until 1982, at the height of the synth-pop wave that YMO had presaged. By then, their music had found its way into the collections of DJs and producers in New York’s burgeoning hip-hop scene – they were apparently astonished when the audience on Soul Train began breakdancing when they performed Computer Games – although it was a track from one of the solo albums Sakamoto had begun releasing concurrent with his career in YMO that had the biggest long-term impact. Riot in Lagos, from 1980’s B-2 Unit, had been recorded in London with reggae producer Dennis Bovell, and was apparently inspired by the Afrobeat of Fela Kuti. It remains an astonishingly timeless and effervescent piece of electronica: if you didn’t know it and were told it was released last month, rather than 42 years ago, you’d believe it. Abstract but funky, it cast a considerable shadow over dance music: it was big club hit on release, helped shape the sound of electro and turned the head of hip-hop producers including Kurtis Mantronik. Drum n’ bass producers Foul Play sampled it, and you can hear its influence in the music of 90s electronic luminaries Aphex Twin and Autechre.

Yellow Magic Orchestra split in 1983. If Sakamoto had left it at that and returned to modern classical music, he would already have earned himself a place among the era’s greatest pop innovators. But with the release of Nagisa Ōshima’s film Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence, in which he also starred, he began a career as a soundtrack composer that clearly suited his temperament far better than the Beatlemania-like scenes Yellow Magic Orchestra had provoked at home. It would lead him to work with Bernardo Bertolucci, Pedro Almodóvar, Brian De Palma and Oliver Stone, among others, and be showered with awards, including an Oscar and a Golden Globe.

But the vocal version of Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’s haunting main theme, retitled Forbidden Colours, also cemented a partnership with former Japan vocalist David Sylvian that had begun with the 1982 single Bamboo Houses/Bamboo Music. Along with Can’s Holger Czukay and experimental trumpeter Jon Hassell, he became part of Sylvian’s repertory company for a series of extraordinary albums that attempted to reimagine 80s pop in a more expansive, exploratory and pensive way.

They seemed to reflect Sakamoto’s own position within pop after Yellow Magic Orchestra. Sakamoto’s solo albums largely contained music that existed at one remove from whatever else was happening, in a space where he could follow his own path. On 1989’s Beauty and 1991’s Heartbeat, it sometimes seemed as if he was constructing his own brand of the exotica that had entranced YMO, blending eastern, western and African influences together, assembling eclectic and improbable guest lists that, on Beauty alone, included Youssou N’Dour, Robbie Robertson, Robert Wyatt, Brian Wilson and Prince protege Jill Jones.

It wasn’t as if Ryuichi Sakamoto needed to be at the centre of pop culture in person: thanks to sampling, the centre of pop culture was never that far from his music. In recent years, it’s been borrowed by the Weeknd, Justice, Burial, the Beastie Boys, Jennifer Lopez, Brandy and Freddie Gibbs.

In the late 70s, the other members of Yellow Magic Orchestra had called him the Professor, a jokey nickname that contrasted Sakamoto’s intellectual bearing with his unwanted role as the group’s main heart-throb. It was a title Sakamoto seemed to grow into more and more in his later years: recording minimalist albums with German artist Alva Noto, providing ambient scores for art installations, releasing live orchestral and solo piano recordings of his compositions. There are clips of Yellow Magic Orchestra in the 2017 documentary Coda, which showed Sakamoto returning to work following a diagnosis of throat cancer, but it’s still hard to square the young pop star who stares imperiously down from his apartment wall in a portrait by Andy Warhol with the man in his late 60s, learnedly discussing classical organ chorales, the purity of the sounds he recorded during a trip to the North Pole and whether a piano going out of tune represented “matter struggling to return to a natural state”.

The album Coda depicted him working on, async, was released in 2017. It combined Bach-inspired piano pieces with monumental drones, distorted synthesisers and ambient field recordings. The artists who lined up to remix its tracks came from the leftfield cutting-edge of electronic music: if you wanted evidence of how widespread Ryuichi Sakamoto’s influence was, the fact that his work was clearly an inspiration for the likes of Arca and Oneohtrix Point Never and had been sampled by Jennifer Lopez on a US No 1 single seems a reasonable place to start. Contemplating his mortality in 2017, Sakamoto said he wanted to make “music I won’t be ashamed to leave behind – meaningful work”. By any metric, he already had.

This is the most experimental and dissonant Sakamoto I've heard. Very Cage/Conlon Nancarrow influenced, wild piano and percussion. Challenging, but Sakamoto seems incapable of making an unpleasant album, so still fun to listen to. Not the best place to start, but a fascinating album for fans...