Madonna – You Can Dance Single Edits

April 25th, 2019

Madonna – You Can Dance Single Edits
Spotlight
Holiday
Everybody
Physical Attraction
Over and Over
Into The Groove
Where’s The Party
I’ve been obsessed with hunting down Madonna remixes for about as long as I’ve been collecting vinyl, so for about 15 years now. Learning that there were exclusive (and often very good) remixes of Madonna songs that were on vinyl were one of the reasons why I got into the format in the first place. According to Discogs, I own 101 releases that feature Madonna, and I assume that a good chunk of those are 12″ singles. I think that the only artists for whom I own more 12″ singles are probably Depeche Mode and Erasure, but to be honest I like Madonna more than both of those artists.

And while both those artists have some remixes or edits that are pretty hard to find, neither can hold a candle to level of rarity that some Madonna remixes hold. For example, did you know that there’s a mix of “This Used To Be My Playground” that’s only on a special Olympics-themed compilation called Barcelona Gold? Or that there’s a unique mix of “Human Nature” that was only included on a promo CDr that was never intended for commercial release? Madonna remixes are the Pokemon of music; there’s a million of them and I want to catch them all, regardless of quality.

If I knew the slightest about Pokemon, I would continue that metaphor to express the rarity/demand of these particular remixes. Instead I’ll just fall back on a crutch of a comparison and call them my holy grails. These mixes are from the You Can Dance promo LP, which was released solely to radio stations to promote the 1987 remix compilation You Can Dance.

You Can Dance is a bit of a footnote in Madonna’s discography, but the album was something of a big deal when it came out. It was one of the first remix albums released by a major artist, and featured mixes of many of her biggest dance-friendly hits, as well as an exclusive track, “Spotlight.” One thing that made the album stand out even among current remix compilations is that most of the songs are mixed together to create the feeling of a live DJ set. The only concrete break in the album is halfway through, as it was still primarily an LP release and such a break was needed to flip sides.

It’s a great concept and works great at parties, but didn’t lend itself to radio play. Hence, the creation of this special radio-only promo. It served as as a way for listeners to hear the newly remixed versions, while at the same time fitting them to into a more radio-friendly format.

The songs on You Can Dance weren’t the first Madonna songs to get radio-friendly single remixes. Hell, most of her singles from the era have separate, often radically different, single remixes. However, it’s the only album that locked those mixes behind a promo release (and an obscenely rare one at that). While many rarer Madonna 7″ singles would be released on commercially available singles, or make their way to a greatest hits compilation, all of the single edits for You Can Dance remain ultra-obscure rarities secluded to this release to this very day.

Some of the remixes aren’t very different to ones that are more widely available, to be honest. The version of “Spotlight” that was included on Celebration is pretty similar to this mix, with only a slightly different opening. Most of them, though feature some pretty notable deviations, especially in the breakdowns and instrumental sections, which are often heavily re-worked to be more dance friendly and use a lot of techniques that were common at the time, like vocal looping and reverb.

Discovering this record has re-kindled my interest in tracking down the remaining Madonna rarities I have yet to acquire. As such, I will hopefully update/finish my Guide To Madonna Remixes that I started on my other site eons ago. While a lot of people seemed to like that, to be honest I mostly did it for myself so I would know which remixes I still needed to get!

One final quick note about these rips; this record is absolutely flawless, with nary a scratch on it. I also gave it a good clean just to be sure before I played it. The resulting rip was nearly perfect, and once I ran it through my digital scrubbing I think I was able to remove damn near any imperfections, save for some incredibly minor sibilance. When “mastering” the recording, I made these tracks just a smidge louder than usual. If you ran them through a visualizer, you’d probably notice some slight clipping. However, you probably won’t actually hear said clipping, I didn’t. And making them just a tiny bit louder than usual gave them a much brighter sound in my opinion. They’re still far quieter and less compressed than the album versions, trust me.

Now that I got this one properly ripped and secured in my stacks, I don’t know what else I need to find in terms of obscenely rare Madonna remixes. Maybe the It’s That Girl cassette tape? Although the prospect of spending over $100 on a tape kind of makes me wanna throw up.

Tape is the devil’s format.

Posted in Complete Albums, Madonna, remixes | 5 Comments »

Jingo Jango Morning

April 22nd, 2019

Jellybean
Jingo (Fun House Mix)
Jingo (West 26th Street Mix)
Mirage (Dancers Dream) Part II
Yeah, you know this song even if you think you don’t. It’s one of those numbers that’s been covered by a thousand people, sampled by millions, and referenced by billions. The original is by a Nigerian musician by the name of Babatunde Olatunji. That version came out in the 50s. Notable artists that have covered the tune include Santana, Gong (holy shit what) and Fatboy Slim, which is probably the version that I’m most familiar with. Jellybean’s version first appeared on his 1987 Just Visiting This Planet. That album was re-issued at some point with some bonus tracks and remixes thrown in, but for some reason none of these mixes made that cut.

I have to imagine that this was a dance hit back in the 80s. Like all of Jellybean’s work, it is immaculately produced, seemingly created in a lab to get you off your ass and onto the dance floor and/or jazzercise workout (god, this had to be a part of a Fitness-style workout routine you just know it was).

As “classic tunes transformed into electro cuts by Jellybean” go, “Jingo” is no “The Mexican,” and that’s probably the worst thing I have to say about it. Whenever I listen to it, I think “this is good, but I should probably just be listening to “The Mexican'” and then I go ahead and listen to “The Mexican.” You know what’s one of the greatest tunes of all time? “The Mexican.”

Also, the song doesn’t really have much song to it. It’s more or less two 30 second bits looped over and over again. This is fine when you’re on the dancefloor (or working out) but when you’re sitting in front of your computer, looking over job listings for teaching gigs in the greater Tokyo area, it sort of wears out its welcome. Even more so when you’re listening to not one, but three remixes of it back-to-back-to-back (the 12″ also has the UK House Mix, which I’m not including here because it’s on the CD you can buy legally). After listening to these remixes a few times each, I think I’ve gotten my lifetime fill.

The b-side “Mirage (Dancers Dream) Part II” has even less to it, but I strangely enjoy it more. It’s minimal in a way that works. As if the title wasn’t a clue, this was obviously intended to be a dance track, and from the sound of it, a breakdance track at that. I’m not popping and locking it all that much these days, unless you count my joints popping in and out, but I still dig this one quite a bit. It has that hard-to-define electro sound that’s timeless. Drums machines on drum machines on drum machines (with drum machines).

Rad.

Posted in Jellybean, remixes | No Comments »

A song you won’t like and some remixes by Holly Johnson

April 12th, 2019

I’d like to take a moment to say thanks to some of the more thoughtful and interesting comments left on my past few posts. It was interesting for me to read some viewpoints on music ownership, MP3, blogs and so on.

One comment about my blog in particular brought up a point that I’d like to talk about: the idea that my blog has changed in some way since I moved to Japan, and that’s why my readership has dwindled in the past few years. It was a good, well-written opinion and thanks to who wrote it. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I want to elaborate on it once more.

To a certain extent, yes, I agree with this. When I started this blog eons ago I focused primarily on dance remixes of popular pop songs (usually from the 80s and early 90s) with the occasional dip into the obscure worlds of soundtracks, offbeat old records, and imports. More recently, that’s flipped. Now, most of what I write about and share is from records very few people have heard of, leftfield releases from Japan or other countries, prog oddities and so on.

Again, I’d like to point out that a lot of that to do with the fact that, in 2019, it is very, very hard to find out-of-print tracks by popular artists. I would like to remind everyone, that is a good thing! When I was sharing Dead or Alive, Erasure and Depeche Mode remixes, it was almost out of spite over the fact that the record companies were blowing it by not making these releases available for the die-hards who would buy them. But, hey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, that’s not the case anymore. Depeche Mode is currently going through the process of re-releasing the majority of their 12″ singles, complete with download codes. Dead Or Alive put out that massive box set that literally has nearly their entire musical output on CD. The same goes for many other acts.

For me personally, I am very much against sharing music that people can listen to legally. I feel that people should support artists anytime it’s possible. That’s one of my many problems with Burning The Ground, another Mp3 blog that deals predominately in 80s music that I know a lot of my readers visit. Checking out that dude’s site, I see that he’s recently shared remixes of Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For a Hero,” Sheena Easton’s “Strut,” and Cory Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night.” Yo, check it, all of those songs are available for purchase on iTunes! Or on re-released deluxe edition CDs if you favor a physical format. If you like Cory Hart that much, buy his music for real. I’m sure he’d appreciate the extra dough.

(Also, Burning The Ground often plagiarizes its copy wholesale from Wikipedia or AllMusic without proper attribution, so as a writer – fuck that dude.)

Basically, it is literally impossible for me to predominately focus on remixes of 80s pop acts. You can get almost all of them legally and the few you can’t, I rarely care writing about. Of course, that’s not to say I’ll never write about or share that stuff again. If I somehow stumble across an out-of-print Pet Shop Boys single again, bet you’re ass I’ll share it here. Just don’t hold your breathe.

One thing that perplexes me though; to the people say stuff like “I used to like your blog but now you post weird shit,” have you tried listening to the weird shit? I mean, our musical tastes obviously overlap to some degree. I reckon most people that come here like synth-pop and other forms of electronic music. You’ll probably like Steve Hillage, I bet you’d dig on some electronic-focused prog rock, and you’ll most definitely love Shojo-Tai. There’s nothing I love more than discovering new music. I wish I had more friends or read more blogs that shared my musical tastes so it would be easier for me to track down shit I never heard before. The music I share here is free, we all like Erasure, why not trust me and give it a shot?

Anyway, here’s some weird shit that you’ve never heard of. If you like it, share it with a friend. If you don’t come back in a week or so, I might share some other weird shit that you have a chance of liking! It’s exciting.

Harue Momoyama w/Ryuichi Sakamoto
虚空の舟唄
Stoked for the five people who will like this one.

Momoyama was a well-known shamisen player in Japan who recorded music for over 30 years, before her death in 2008. She was the very definition of NOT a crossover artist, focusing solely on classical compositions, folk songs, and other traditional music. This piece, which was originally released in 1979, seems to be the closest thing she ever came to “modern” music, thanks to the guest appearance by Sakamoto, who serves an electronic accompaniment to her playing and vocals. Even with him, this is some sparse-ass music. If I didn’t run my recordings through noise-reduction software, large parts of this piece would’ve been lost to the background noise of the record.

This is interesting music, but it also feels kind of like a blown opportunity. It doesn’t really combine modern electronics and traditional music all that much. Momoyama seems to keep Sakamoto’s electronic contributions at arm’s length. They play off each other for a bit at the beginning, but as the piece progresses it quickly changes into an either/or situation. You get Momoyama’s singing and shamisen, then you get Sakamoto’s electronic soundscapes, then you go back to Momoyama, then back to Sakamoto for a brief coda. It makes me wonder if they were on the same page with this. I’m sure Sakamoto would’ve loved to have had a more collaborative effort, at the time, he was all about combining eastern and western as well as modern and classical. Regardless, it sure is an interesting experiment, and I’ve certainly never heard anything like it before.

Holly Johnson
Americanos (Liberty Mix)
Americanos (Radio 7″ Mix)
Americanos (Mambo Dub Mix)
Oh shit look what I found, a 12″ remix of an 80s pop song. This one’s okay. I guess. To be honest I’ve been sitting on this for about a year because I didn’t have much to say about it. Still don’t really. It’s very much late-80s synthpop, when the genre had played itself out and there was nothing left for it to give. Still, it’s fun. Good remixes too. If shamisens and electro-acoustic soundscapes aren’t for you, then here you go.

Posted in Holly Johnson, remixes | 9 Comments »

Frank Becker’s Synth Vivaldi

April 7th, 2019

I was really surprised my last post didn’t take off. I’m not going to say that I wrote that specifically with getting a larger audience (at least for a short time) in mind, but it was definitely a factor. This may sound selfish and whiny, but having an audience feels good sometimes. That’s the main reason why I’ve severely curtailed my other site. People really dig the record store guides, and that makes me really happy. But damn never everything else I wrote fell on death ears, especially the posts that I enjoyed writing the most.

I’ll be honest (and I think I’ve mentioned this before) but my readership for this blog continues to decline. When I started this up I was quickly getting thousands of hits a day thanks to the attention given to MP3 blogs. Now, thanks to Twitter and Facebook, I get a fraction of that. People don’t want to read about music anymore. And people don’t even want to download it (legally or otherwise) it seems. They’re more than content to give a service 10 bucks a month for the right to borrow poor-sounding streaming music that they don’t even own.

Whatever. I’m an old man. I’m nearly 40 and feel more and more out of touch each year. When my clickwheel iPod finally croaked earlier this year, I really had a difficult time finding a decent replacement. I wondered why, but then it hit me – people don’t buy MP3 players anymore. They just listen to music on their phone because they’re getting most of it via Spotify or a similar service. I would say that made me feel old, but even people my age don’t buy music anymore, so I guess my obliviousness to current trends is more than just a generational divide.

Anyways, rambling. All this to say that I was once again reminded by all of this that I should never ever bother writing posts strictly “for the hits.” The posts will inevitably fail to find a substantial audience and I’ll just get bummed. Best for me to stick to my wheelhouse and write about things that will never find a meaningful audience.

Keep them expectations low.

So yeah, here’s a post about a synthesizer rendition of The Four Seasons by Vivaldi.

Frank W. Becker – Synthesizer Four Seasons
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
This is the second time I’ve shared a rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The first was an interpretation done entirely on the Japanese koto. This time I’m going the opposite route, with one done predominately on synthesizers.

One of the the many things I absolutely adore about Japanese record stores is their tendency to break things up into the most specific genres imaginable. Stores here don’t just have “rock” sections. For example, a rock section is properly segmented to include special sections dedicated to prog, punk, heavy metal, jazz fusion, and so on. It makes it so much easier to find new music. You can go to a sub-genre you like, find an interesting-looking album, and give it a whirl.

And while most record stores in other areas would neglect synthesizer-centric albums to a general “electronic” section, here they get their own placard. I chalk this up to the relative influence that Japanese musicians had on the early synth scene. Even before YMO, many Japanese musicians were embracing the synth craze started by Wendy Carlos. The most notable of these is, of course, Tomita, but there were many more, including new age darlings Kitaro and Fumio Miyashita, who both made a killing with “healing music” in the early 80s.

But a lot of synthesizer albums in Japan weren’t made by Japanese musicians. As I dig through the crates looking for obscure pieces of moog-ephemera, I often find Japanese exclusive synthesizer albums by artists from all over the world. Sometimes the albums are just reworked versions of records already available overseas, with altered tracklistsings or covers. However, on occasion, the album is an entirely new creation made specifically with Japanese audiences in mind.

That’s the case with the work of Frank W. Becker, who released six albums of synthesizer-focused music in just two years, from 1978 to 1979. His work with the instrument runs the gamut. A few are entirely original compositions that he made specifically for the synthesizer. Two are Beatles covers albums (and are quite good).

But the one I come back to the most is his rendition of Four Seasons. Of course, that has a lot to do with the source material. Four Seasons is a classic for a reason, and like I said in my first post where I wrote about it, very few pieces of music calm me down like Four Seasons. I also like it because it doesn’t force itself to be limited to only synthesizer. On the album, Frank’s synth work is accompanied by a violin. Why some who enjoy synthesized renditions of classical music might be let down by this, I find it to be a welcome addition. It gives the record a sense of life that would not have been possible by synthesizer alone in 1978. Also, the violin isn’t used as a crutch to hide imperfections or weaknesses with the synthesizer material. It’s just an accompaniment and nothing more. The crux of the album is still Frank and his amazing synth work.

Frank is still with us and still making music. He has a website. I even tried contacting him (several times) to see if it was okay for me to share his music. He never responded. (Frank, if you do find this and don’t want me sharing this, let me know and I’ll delete it immediately.) His website mentions his electronic work, but only in passing, and this album is absent entirely. Perhaps he only wants to focus on his original material, which I guess makes sense.

I have five of his six albums and cherish them all. His covers are fun, his classical pieces are soothing and well-done, and his original pieces make great use of the synthesizers of the day. I hope to share more of his work in the future.

Frank, if you stumble upon this, just wanted to let you know, your shit rocks and you kick ass.

Dope beard too.

Posted in Complete Albums, Frank Becker | 6 Comments »

Bleachers – Terrible Thrills Vol. 3 #1 (High Quality Vinyl Rips)

March 25th, 2019

Bleachers
Let’s Get Married (by Mitski)
Mickey Mantle Comes Alive
There are probably two groups of people reading this right now; my regular readers, and Bleachers fans who stumbled upon this site somehow or another.

To the Bleachers fans (I assume you outnumber my regular readers), welcome! Here are some high-quality vinyl rips of those songs you’re looking for. They sound better than the ones you found on Dropbox. Trust me on this. And hey, if you like Bleachers, bookmark me, I occasionally share 80s pop and other shit you might enjoy. And you don’t need to jump through any hoops to download those songs. Just right-click and “save as.”

Now, if you’re not a die-hard Bleachers fan who came here specifically to find these songs (and hence, already know what they are), an explanation/backstory.

In 2016, Bleachers, a side-project of Fun’s Jack Antonoff (who also produced at least one hit song you like – he gets around) released Terrible Thrills Vol. 2, a track-by-track covers album of the group’s debut album Strange Desire that featured new versions of the songs on that album reworked by woman singers.

(In case you were wondering, Terrible Thrills Vol. 1 was a single by Jack Antonoff’s earlier group, Steel Train).

While Terrible Thrills Vol. 2 can be easily purchased digitally on iTunes and other digital storefronts (and I assume it’s on Spotify, but fuck if I care),(edit: apparently this is no longer true) it only received a limited, vinyl-only physical release. That sucker is pretty rare now, goes for about $50 on Discogs. Even if you can’t track down a vinyl copy of it, I highly recommend buying the digital versions. With vocals by such amazing artists like Charli XCX, Susanna Hoffs, and Sia, in some ways, it’s better than Strange Desire itself, not a small feat considering that’s probably my favorite album of 2014.

Now Bleachers’ sophomore effort Gone Now is getting the “Terrible Thrills” treatment for Vol. 3. But this time, Antonoff has decided to do something a bit different. For starters, it’s not a track-by-track collection of covers by women artists, half of it is that, but the other half consists of new versions by Antonoff himself, featuring reworked lyrics and different production. Secondly, it’s not an album at all, and is instead a collection of 7″ singles that are now being released piecemeal.

The first part in the set came out a few weeks back, and I finally got my copy in the mail this week (I live in Japan, shit takes time).  And if this introductory volume is any indication as what’s to come, I’m very stoked to hear the rest of the records when they come out.

The A-side is a cover of the single “Let’s Get Married” that features new vocals by Mitski. I’ll be 100% honest here. I don’t know anything about Mitski at all (I’m a middle-age out-of-touch gay white man in Tokyo, I can’t keep up with everything). But after hearing her take on this track, I’m eager to check out her stuff. The song is entirely re-imagined. What was once a big, bombastic ode to gated reverb (like most of Antonoff’s stuff – and I mean that in a good way) has now been reworked as a ballad with the majority of the instrumentation coming by way of vocal harmonies and simply synths. It sounds halfway between a demo and the fully-fledged final version. Love it.

The B-side is reworking of Gone Now‘s opener “Dreams of Mickey Mantle,” retitled “Mickey Mantle Comes Alive.” It’s an odd rejiggering, featuring purposely distorted vocals and an extended outro that’s a barely audible conversation. Taking what was previously a rather standard (if fucking great) pop song and morphing it into Sleigh Bells-lite was a bold choice, and I’d be lying if I said I’m 100% in love with it. I do like the added drums though, and the new production on the choruses is good too.

I mentioned at the top that these rips are better than the ones that have already been made available. I think the fans that ripped these earlier didn’t really know what they were doing. Not their fault, they’re not idiots like me who have been ripping vinyl for over a decade. While those were just straight-up audio rips, mine have been cleaned up a bit. I ran it through some noise reduction to get rid of the background noise, and also scrubbed it clean of clicks and pops. Finally, I gave it a slight EQ boost to give it a richer, fuller sound. If none of that is your game, then hey, those raw rips are still on Dropbox.

If you do like my rips, please feel free to share them however and wherever you like. Antonoff said himself that we can rip and share these tracks!

Posted in B-sides, remixes | 6 Comments »

Epo Depot

March 24th, 2019

Epo
Performance (Overture)
Shang-Hai Etranger
Tibetan Dance
Tibetan Dance (Edited Version)

I posted some Epo tracks a while back.

She’s fun.

To be honest, I really don’t know what else to say about her. She’s just…fun. Bubbly upbeat synthpop with a sound so “1985” that it’s gone from hip to dated to retro to dated to retro to hip three times over. Epo was incredibly prolific (a common trait I’m finding in 80s J-pop), releasing a whopping 13 records between 1980 and 1992. Her early stuff is much more “city pop,” that funk/soul/pop hybrid style that vaporwave artists are always drawing their samples from. But by the time the mid-80s rolled around she traded in that downtempo jazz for some uptempo 808s and went to work, releasing several fun albums during that period.

I’ll be honest, every Epo album I’ve bought to date has been a little uneven. Even the best of the bunch that I’ve found, Hi-Touch Hi-Tech, was a little touch and go, with slow ballads dragging it down just when it was getting good. Ditto goes for Pump! Pump! an album far more sedate than it’s double-exclamation point title would suggest. Harmony, the album from which tonight’s tracks are pulled from, suffers the same fate. Just when it gets the blood pumping with some upbeat bangers, a plodding mid-tempo ballad or a forgettable filler track slams the brakes on the whole thing.

But the bangers are bangers, man. I feel like I should point out that Epo is not just a “pop idol,” meaning a pretty face put in front of a microphone. She was a singer/songwriter, often writing the majority of tracks on her albums. Usually working with her was Nobuyuki Shimizu, a musical ubergenius who played with just about everyone of note in Japan. The back cover of Harmony proudly proclaims that Shimizu plays “all keyboards, guitars, bass, drums and many other instruments” on the album. The same goes for a lot of other albums he worked on at the time. He’s like the Jack Antonoff of Japanese 80s pop music.

Like I said, Harmony is an uneven affair, but when it’s on fire damn its on fire. The opener “Performance (Overture)” melds disco string melodies with driving electronic beats like its taking the best of “On The Radio” Donna Summer and “I Feel Love” Donna Summer. “Shang-hai Étranger” is another high point, with how it combines traditional Japanese melodies with some truly radical synthesizer work. Feels like it could be a YMO b-side.

The album’s true highlight, however, is kind of a ringer, it’s a cover of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “Tibetan Dance,” which first appeared a year earlier on his Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia album. However, calling it a cover is a bit of a misnomer. It’s straight up the track that appeared on that album, with a bit of edits and overdubs, including Epo’s vocals. The back cover just flat-out says that the backing track for the song is taken from the Sakamoto album (with permission, of course). I wonder how often such things happen, pop singers taking solid instrumental tracks from electronic producers and just singing over them with minimal edits. If it doesn’t happen a lot, why the hell not? Seems like a good, valid shortcut for finding decent backing tracks. In addition to the album version, I’m also including a special edited version that appeared on a 12″ single.

I don’t think that Epo was ever a massive huge artist, but she must’ve been at least modestly successful in the 80s if her non-stop output is any indication. Strange then that so much of her stuff is woefully out-of-print. Some of her records haven’t even been re-released on CD (although all of her best ones have). I feel like this is a common fate for B-level J-Pop acts of that era. There were just so many of them (bubble economy y’all) that some have just gotten lost in the shuffle over time. And unless you were a megastar (Seiko) or found cult success later (Taeko Ohnuki) you kind vanish to the past. Someone really needs to compile this stuff Nuggets style so the world can rediscover the hidden gems that have been lost to Disk Union 100 yen bins.

 

Posted in EPO, remixes | No Comments »

This blog post is best viewed on a three-monitor display

March 14th, 2019

Zuntata
SELF – BIG Beat Remix
Living in Japan has many benefits, amazing food, a fantastic public transit system, affordable health care, no guns, and of course, easier access to limited run special editions of games.

Taito just released the Darius Cozmic Collection, which includes several versions of early Darius games, both from the arcades and home. It comes in a massively-oversized box that also serves as a home for a wonderful book full of pictures and information about the games (albeit entirely in Japanese).

All that stuff is great, and I’m happy that I finally own decent home ports of these classic games. But I’m going to be real, the the main draw for me when it comes to Darius has always been its amazing music, and this collection is no exception. Included in the box set is the Darius The Omnibus II CD, a compilation featuring remixes of several classic Darius tunes, as well as a super-limited edition bonus CD. Most of that CD is dedicated to the soundtrack to PC Engine exclusive Darius Alpha, but it opens with this exclusive remix to the track “Self.” I might be mistaken here, but I think “Self” first appeared on Darius Gaiden. It’s hard to say though. Yo, there are a lot of Darius games.

While this track is impossible to buy without shelling out $300 for an import collection of 80s arcade shooters, it’s worth mentioning that most of Zuntata’s music is not only in print, but able to buy in America on iTunes. Want the complete soundtrack to Darius Gaiden? They got it, as well a soundtracks to deep cuts like Sonic Blast Man, Space Gun, and Kid Kaikai. Credit where credit is due, good on them for making all that stuff easy to get.

ALFH LYRA
Street Fighter II Medley (GMF Version)
Nearly all Street Fighter II music is in-print and easy to come by, thanks largely to Brave Wave and their amazing Street Fighter II re-issue from a few years back. But a few tracks have fallen through the cracks, like this live medley featuring the greatest hits of Street Fighter music. This was originally performed at the 1992 Game Music Festival in Japan, and was included on the CD of the same name.

The Game Music Festival was a thing in Japan for at least a few years in the early-90s and possibly the late-80s as well. The 1990 Game Music Festival CD bills itself as “Zuntata vs SST Band” and holy shit I’m jealous that I can’t track that disc down.

Again, if you like the music to Street Fighter II, be sure to pick up Brave Wave’s absolutely incredible release that features the game’s complete soundtrack, even both the CPS-1 and CPS-2 variations. In a time where so many game music releases are limited releases manufactured with scarcity in mind, it’s important to call out the studios that are doing it right.

 

Posted in Game Music, remixes | No Comments »

Hot Sax and Sequencer Jazz

March 3rd, 2019

Akira Sakata – テノク・サカナ 
Room
Yarin’Age
Meuniere
Panco
Akira Sakata is a Japanese saxophonist who has worked with Bill Laswell and Jim O’Rouke. If you know anything about those artists, then I feel that pretty much says it all. Working as a frequent collaborator of those two usually earmarks you as a “weird avant-garde motherfucker for whom ideas like ‘genre’ and ‘traditional song structure’ does not apply.”

I bought this record not knowing who Sakata was, grabbing it instead because I noticed that it was put out by Better Days, a label known for their avant-garde pop releases by artists like Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yazuaki Shimizu. And this record certainly didn’t disappoint in that regard. Even if Sakata didn’t work with Laswell, I would be forced to compare the two here, this sounds like something Laswell would’ve cooked up around the same time, since its an intersection between the then burgeoning electro scene (this came out in 1980) and free, almost 100% improvisational jazz. But while Laswell’s experiments with melding electro and jazz gave us mainstream smashes like Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit,” this swings hard in the other way. The electro elements don’t make the music more mainstream, in fact, the opposite happens. Sakata’s sparse, wildly unpredictable playing takes the beats and bloops of the electronic instruments and transforms them into a tool for his free jazz freakouts.

On side A of this four-track release, that’s nearly as annoying as it sounds. Neither “Room” nor “Yarin’Age” strive to achieve any sense of form. If they’re truly improvisational sessions, they sound like them, meandering around in search or a hook or theme, and largely failing. As experiments, they’re interesting. As songs, they’re pretty nerve-grating.

Side B fairs far better though, the electronic elements are more locked-down. On “Meuniere,” the Sakata’s sax is moved far into the back of the mix, and the wild electronic sequences are given center stage. For me, this is the highlight of the album, and almost krautrock in execution. The pulsing beat is interesting enough on its own, but Sakata’s saxophone gives the song a style and sense of life I don’t hear often in electronic music. It’s Ninja Tune by way of Can. “Panco,” is the most traditional-sounding number one record, and the most full-sounding one too. Real drums are mixed with electronic beats, both serving to steady Sakata’s wailing sax. All the while, a menacing synth-strings section plays behind it all. If there was a bit more form to it, it could even work as film music.

Sakata wasn’t working alone on this, among his collaborators on this release was Shigenori Kamiya, whose name some readers of this site might recognize as he’s responsible for one of my favorite Japanese electronic albums of the 1970s, Mu. It’s probably safe to assume that the electronic bits were more his doing that Sakata’s.

Another release that’s definitely not for everyone, maybe not even me. But if you like posts I’ve shared in the past by artists like Blue Box, Toshinori Kondo, or Jun Fukamachi, then you might enjoy this one too! Let me know what you think in the comments!

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Original Music by Imitation

February 28th, 2019

Imitation – Original
Complete Album Download

Sometimes buying an album strictly because the cover pays off, as was the case with this one, Original, the hilariously-named debut album from Japanese synth act Imitation, which came out in 1980.

Imitation’s name is quite a misnomer, as they’re one of the most original and striking Japanese synthpop acts that I’ve come across. While most of the 80s pop scene in Japan was content to release polished radio-friendly AOR with a synth overlay, Imitation seemed to be way more out-there. To me, they’re akin to The Plastics, another avant-garde experimental synthpop group from the same time, as both groups seem to draw heavily from Talking Heads and Public Image Ltd., thanks to their willingness to mix synthpop with other genres and styles like funk and reggae. Imitation actually remind me the most of Polyrock, due to their tendency to use simple, repetitive rhythms akin to Philip Glass (who produced Polyrock’s records). However, since no one in any country bought Polyrock’s records, I can only guess that this must be a coincidence.

In addition to their musical style, another thing that Imitation has in common with Polyrock is that nobody bought their records either. At least, that’s what I’m assuming since I never come across them used and have never heard them mentioned in articles discussing 80s Japanese synthpop (including the ones I’ve written). It looks like they had some famous fans though, or perhaps the right connections. Their first record includes lyrics written by Chris Mosdell, who was the regular English songwriter for YMO and was produced by Kazuhiko Katoh, another longtime YMO associate. Their second LP, Muscle and Heat, includes a contribution from Sandii of Sandii and the Sunsets, while Hideki Matsutake, AKA Logic System, AKA the dude who programmed all of YMO’s sequencers drops in on their third and final album, Happy Hunting.

I haven’t been able to come across those records yet, as they’re even rare than this one. So all I’m sharing tonight is my copy of Original. It’s a vinyl rip, but I think it sounds pretty damn good. And since CDs of this sucker go for over $100 I doubt that I’ll be buying one those anytime soon. I hope that I can dig up their other two albums someday, along with the singer Cheebo’s sole solo album, as I really want to dive in more into their out-there sound.

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Synthwave(maker)

February 15th, 2019

Wavemaker – Where Are We Captain?….
Complete Album Download

Wavemaker is the third synth-focused project associated with BBC Radiophonic alum Brian Hodgson that I’ve shared on this blog. The first was Eletrophon, who released a collection of classical covers performed on electronic instruments in 1973 called In A Convent Garden. The second was the amazing Zygoat album, which came out a year later. While Hodgson is not credited on that release, that album was recorded in his Eletrophon music studio, and I can only imagine that he played some role in its creation, even if it was minor.

Wavemaker is a proper Hodgson release, a collaboration between him and Eletrophon co-founder John Lewis. Their 1974 debut release Where Are We Captain?… feels like a counterpoint to Zygoat. While the latter was a synth-funk jam of the highest degree, pushing the boundaries not only of what synthesizers were capable of in the mid-70s, but what could be considered popular music as well, Wavemaker takes things down a more restrained road with their release. Where Are We Captain?… is a spacey, out-there record for sure, but it’s far more concerned with traditional song structures, hooks, and melodies than anything on Zygoat. The only time Wavemaker takes things entirely into the experimental and avant-garde is with their namesake track, which forsakes melodies and rhythm for eerie soundscapes and excursions into “let’s see how much we can make our instruments sound like spaceships” territory.

This album also is different than Zygoat in that it features a smattering of acoustic instrumentation as well. Much of the percussion here is performed on actual honest-to-goodness drums (and tympani). The drumming, which is loose and free-flowing, contribute an almost jazz-like feeling to the proceedings, almost reminiscent of synthesizer-heavy krautrock that was coming out at the time. Unlike krautrock like Harmonia and Can though, this all sounds much more organized and put-together. There might be a smidge of improvisation here, but most of this record sounds tightly-written and well put-together. These weren’t some Berlin School dudes high on acid experimenting with knobs and sprockets, these guys knew what the hell they were doing and it shows. It almost feels like Hodgson and Lewis were trying to re-invent classical music for the 20th century, especially with the first half of the album. You could probably re-work those tracks for a proper symphony and musically speaking, they would still sound strong.

While Where Are We Captian?… lacks the what-the-fuck-is-this insanity and intensity of Zygoat’s release, it still a tremendous album, and was no doubt a technological breakthrough when it was first released some 40+ years ago. A lot of the sounds on this record still sound out-of-this-world, I can’t imagine what they must’ve sounded like to people in 1975.

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