Future Funk in a bummer future

May 19th, 2020

Goddammit I miss going to Tower Records.

There are lots of reasons. Walking to and from Tower Records after work was my designated chill out alone time whenI could listen to music and podcasts. So that was good. But I just miss being in Tower Records. I miss being surrounded by music, and by people who love music as much as me. The kind of people who will go to a physical location and buy a physical copy of a CD or LP, those are my people.

Also, Tower Records was my primary method of discovering new music. The listening station there are a godsend, and have led me to finding out about countless artists. Without the Tower Records listening stations I would have never discovered De De Mouse. I would have never found out about Supercrush. I would have never given Perfume a chance. Drahla. Bully. The Comet Is Coming. Mitski. TEEN. They’re all bands I found out about solely because I gave them a spin at a Tower Records listening station. I know some of y’all rely on YouTube or Spotify to serve you new music, but I’ve had terrible luck trusting algorithms to steer me in the right way for fresh tunes. I need that human touch, that nudge of a curated collection, to steer me in the right direction.

And if you pick something up when you’re there, Tower Records will occasionally give you bonus swag for it. Usually this is something simple like a button, sticker, or poster. But sometimes you get lucky and you get a full-on bonus CD with exclusive tracks. I got so much rare shit this way. It’s awesome.

Things are starting to look up in Tokyo. The number of new infections each day seems to be hovering around 10 to 20. Those numbers are a bit low mostly because testing here is rather limited, but other metrics that judge the rate of infection, deaths, hospital capacity, they’re decreasing too. Some indie stores are starting to open up again. Most are beyond walking distance for me right now (I still want to avoid the trains), so I haven’t made the trek. But it’s a good sign. I suspect that Tower Records will be the next to re-open, probably near the end of the month.

I will buy so many CDs. You have no clue. It’s going to be a problem.

You guys, I’m so stoked. I hope this doesn’t all go to shit again. I can’t take it much longer.

Hare Toki Doki
Brinq DJ Mix [future funk edit]
Speaking of bands that I discovered via Tower Records, this Hare Toki Doki (ハレトキドキ in katakana), a rather strange Japanese techno-pop act. They’re going for a HARD retro aesthetic, drawing equally upon online vaporwave future funk and their obvious adoration for 80s and 90s J-pop idols. Everything about them screams retro.

This display at Tower Records repeatedly touts the band’s retro sound, while a video for the band plays on a VHS tape that’s hooked up to an old-school CRT monitor. They’re not just wearing their influences on their sleeves, they’ve made a whole damn outfit out of them.

If you like Macross 82-99’s A Million Miles Away then you’ll definitely eat this shit up, trust me on that. If dance music so aggressively upbeat that it makes euro-dance sound like doom metal by comparison isn’t your thing, then you will hate this group with an unending fire of a thousand suns. From what I’ve seen there’s no middle ground with them.

When I bought their CD at Tower Records, I got a freebie bonus CD single, which contains this mix. It’s a great 17 minute overview of their entire album, and probably will let you know if this is your kind of thing or not. It touches upon all the album’s bangers in a non-stop HI-NRG way. This is usually the first track on my workout mix, and I have to be careful because it’s so upbeat it could kill me if I try to keep up to its beat.

If you like this and want to hear more from the band, check out their Bandcamp page. They only have one album, a remix compilation, and a few singles. you can get it all for about $20. Fair price.

 

Posted in Hare Tokidoki | 2 Comments »

Nostalgia for imagined genres

May 11th, 2020

Klaxons
As Above, So Below (Justice Remix)
As Above, So Below (French Version)
For the 20th century, looking back at musical trends is easy.

60s – British Invasion, Motown
70s – Disco, Funk, Prog
80s – Hair metal, new wave
90s – Gansta Rap, New Jack Swing, Grunge, bubblegum pop

Of course, that’s a bit reductive and ignores several other trends and movements, but in broad strokes that works well enough. But you just can’t do that with any decade after the 1990s. What was the big musical trend that encompassed the first decade of the 20th century? Krunk? Nu-Metal? Indie rock? It’s really hard to just pin one, or even a few, down. Throughout the 80s and 90s pop culture had begun to get more fragmented, but the 2000s really saw that trend kick up a notch, largely due to the fragmentation of culture as a whole and the internet. The 2000s were the decade where almost no one and nothing became omnipresently popular anymore.

This was doubly true with rock music. The splinters between the “indie” “alternative” and “mainstream” scenes became gulfs, and within those scenes you had your own splits and divisions. You had the mainstream rock fans who dug Linkin Park, the indie kids and their Arcade Fires, and us folks in the middle who lived on The Strokes and The Killers. And of course, things have gotten even more fragmented since. There can never be an “I love the [decade]” show ever again that can talk about music, unless it covers the uber-hits like “Umbrella” and “Uptown Funk.”

But one of the things I loved about the 2000s rock scene was just how fragmented it was. There wasn’t just one scene that was big and a few bubbling under, as was the case in the 80s and 90s. So many styles and sub-genres vying for attention. Post-punk revival, electroclash, neo-psych, synth-pop 2.0, new-rave.

New-whatnow?

Yeah, remember new-rave? No? Yeah, why would you? It was a a genre that the British press made up. But its one band, The Klaxons, were really good. I was always bummed that they were never able to carry the momentum from that first album. Shit, I was bummed their version of electronic-rock didn’t garner more attention. I feel as if this sound had its moment for about 20 seconds, before it was watered down and washed out into the electro-rock sonic wallpaper commercial jingle indie rock sludge we’re subjected to now. Maybe bands like The Klaxons are the Pearl Jam of their era, wholly original and fantastic, but influential in the formation of some of the worst music ever.

Although now that I think about it, for 20th century bands, that dubious distinction probably should be bestowed upon The Killers. I love The Killers, but I feel its safe to say that we wouldn’t have Imagine Dragons without The Killers first leading the way. If The Killers are the Pearl Jam of early-200s rock, then I guess The Klaxons are…lemme think…The Toadies? Sponge? In as much as they had one moderately successful album but failed to capitalize off of it despite the fact that the follow-ups were just as good?

Is that too much of a stretch?

These tracks are from a clear 12″ single that I think only came out in France. Beats me how it ended up in a bargain bin at a Tokyo record store, but that’s where I found it. The Justice remix is dope, speaking of acts that vanished without a trace after one great record. I guess the world got sick of Daft Punk impersonators when the real thing returned.

Posted in Klaxons, remixes | 5 Comments »

Dracula’s coming. Duck.

May 4th, 2020

This post is rather short so I thought I’d take some time to give an update as to the situation here in Tokyo.

So, we’ve been under what some people have been calling a “soft” state of emergency for a few weeks now. This was in response to a surge of cases that happened (surprise) less than two weeks after a lot of restrictions were lifted that led to large groups of people gathering together.

Funny how that works.

Anyways, people have been calling this a “soft” state of emergency because it didn’t change much from a legal perspective. It made it easier for the government to start assistance programs and disaster prep/response, but not much else. There are no laws in Japan that can regulate people’s behavior in a way that could be called a “lockdown.” Everyone keeps saying that it’s impossible to pass such laws in Japan, but I just think that they’re lazy and don’t want to bother trying.

The soft state of emergency was implemented with the goal of reducing traffic by 80%. That goal was not hit, especially in the first week or so. But people have been getting the hint as of late. While too many office jobs haven’t seemed to close down, most retail and restaurants have shut or severely cut back their hours. Major shopping areas like Shinjuku and Shibuya are relative ghost towns now. Local shopping streets seem to vary neighborhood-to-neighborhood.

Cases do seem to have slowed down a bit as a result, but it’s very hard to tell because the government isn’t testing enough. About the only measurable metric we have to judge how well things are going is by how busy the hospitals are. They are all busy, but none have been pushed to the breaking point yet. So things are relatively under control, I guess.

The state of emergency was supposed to end this week, but thankfully the government has learned from their mistakes, it was extended all the way to May 31st.

That’s super-great awesome news and a rare example of a government actually LISTENING TO THE FUCKING SCIENTISTS and shutting things down as much as possible, for as long as possible. I feel that after this month, Japan will be able to open up more, at least to the point where retail stores and schools can have limited hours again.

While this, like I said, really good news from a prevention standpoint, I AM GOING INSANE. I’ve already gone two months without working, and a little over a month in isolation. I’m staring down another month of this shit and it’s giving me tremors. I am desperate to get out of my apartment, see my friends, drink at my favorite bar, and BUY SOME DAMN RECORDS.

While my boyfriend is here with me and he’s the best, it is getting rough. I’ve nearly run out of productive things to do. I’ve organized and sorted all I can. I’m trying to study Japanese but that gives stress and anxiety on good days, so I can’t do it all that much. I’ve been playing a few games. A lot of Animal Crossing. Talk about the right game at the right time. The boyfriend and I are also using this time to watch as many movies as possible. We’re currently knee-deep in 70s disaster films and 80s legal thrillers. Would love to hear some recommendations of lesser-known films from those eras.

Would also love recommendations for mental health tips.

And whiskey cocktails – which can be the same as mental health tips.

Anyways, here’s a really stupid song.

 

Monsieur Goraguer
Sexy Dracula
Sexy Dracula (Instrumental)

This song is about Dracula having an orgrasm.

Sorry to be overly crass and kind of gross. But there’s really no way around it. In terms of subtly, the lyrics of “Sexy Dracula” are about as understated as Donna Summer’s moaning in “I Feel Love.” A woman tells Dracula that she wants him to come. Then he laughs. Then she again tells Dracula that she wants him to come. Then Dracula (repeatedly) says that he is about to come. Then the woman (again) tells Dracula that she wants him to come. Then Dracula says, “I’m there, move it little girl, oh yeah.” Then Dracula laughs some more. The song ends.

Needless to say, the instrumental version of this one is better than the vocal one. With the overly detailed lyrics stripped away, the melody gets a chance to stand on its own – and the melody is really good! It has a good creepy vibe to it. And the bassline is just killer. It’s a good combination of lush, instrumental disco, old-school funk, and a touch of electronic music. Musically speaking, the song is just fantastic. Maybe they knew that and decided to throw the instrumental version on partially to vindicate themselves?

Whose responsible for this? Well, Monsieur Goraguer is a pseudonym. This track was actually composed by Alain Goraguer, a French composer who worked with Serge Gainsburg and composed the score for Savage Planet. I have no idea if this was him slumming it, him having a goof, or him trying to capitalize on disco for a paycheck. Whatever the reason, the song didn’t seem to get a wide release. I think it only came out on a seven inch single in Japan and that was it. It’s the only credited released under this pseudonym.

As good as the instrumental is, that’s probably for the best.

Also, for a song called “Sexy Dracula” the Dracula on the cover is decidedly unsexy, unless “sad daddy” is your type.

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

Super Madonna (remixes) to the rescue!

April 27th, 2020

I’m not going to lie to you, being unable to go to any record stores for over a month has actually dealt a pretty serious toll to my psyche. I know it sounds rather pathetic, and yes, I completely understand that there are millions of people all over the world in far worse situations than mine (as that’s true literally everyday). But for me, record stores have always been therapy. Even when I don’t buy anything (which, admittedly, is quite rare) just the act of surrounding myself with music and music lovers can often cheer me up and and put me in a better headspace. And, of course, the dopamine rush of discovering a rare, strange, or out-of-print record does wonders for my mental state as well.

Shopping online just isn’t the same. There’s no thrill of the hunt, and it’s harder to discover new things. Discogs is great, and I use it all the time, but it’s only good for buying music that I already knew I wanted. One of the biggest joys of shopping in a record store is browsing the racks and stumbling across something that you didn’t even know existed, whether it be a rare release from one of your favorite artists, or an interesting looking record by an artist that you’ve either never heard of or know little about.

An overwhelming majority of the bands and artists that I love I discovered because I bought their albums on a whim at a record store. Erasure, Depeche Mode, New Order, Gong, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Tangerine Dream, Osamu Shoji, even Madonna, all of them are acts that I either discovered outright because of a random purchase at a record store, or I gained a new appreciation of them because of albums or singles I bought used. This is largely impossible when shopping online.

I’ve been trying though, and not only because I’m jonesing new records. I also want to support my local stores during these shitty times. I bought a ton of oddball releases from Coconuts Records’ website (which I might feature here in the future) and I also went to Disk Union’s website to pick up a few things from them as well. Online shopping in a foreign language sure as hell isn’t easy, but I was able to snag a few choice items. Sure, it wasn’t the same. But I shouldn’t focus on that right now. That’s not a healthy headspace. Instead I’ll just be happy that I did something that made me happy and now I have happy music that I can share with you, and that makes me happy too.

Madonna
La Isla Bonita (Extended Remix)
Open Your Heart (Extended Version)
Gambler
La Isla Bonita (Instrumental)
“La Isla Bonita” was first issued as a single in 1987, with a few different variations being widely available. There was the 12″ single, which included both an extended remix and an instrumental version of the track, and a 7″ single with shorter edits of both. A CD version wasn’t released until the mid-90s, and it was just a copy of the 12″ single with the two tracks and nothing more added on.

However, Japanese fans were given an entirely different single that wasn’t a single at all, one full of so many remixes and bonus cuts that most people call it an EP instead. Released under the title La Isla Bonita – Super Mix, it includes five tracks in total. The two remixes from the standard 12″ single are there, but it also tacks on the amazing 10 minute remix of “Open Your Heart,” as well as “Crazy For You” and “Gambler,” both from the soundtrack to the motion picture Vision Quest.

Also, unlike the other versions of the “La Isla Bonita” single, the Super Mix edition got an immediate release on CD. This means it was the earliest CD release to feature all of these remixes, and the only Madonna CD to date that features “Gambler.” It’s never been included on any other CD singles and it never saw the light of day on a proper Madonna album. It was included on the soundtrack to Vision Quest, and that’s it.

Over 30 years later, and CD or digital versions for many of these tracks are still hard to come by. While La Isla Bonita – Super Mix was given an international release last year for Record Store Day, that didn’t include a CD release nor a download code. The last time that Super Mix was released on CD was in 1997, again in Japan only (it also got a release in Australia at one point, as most Australian Madonna singles used the same tracklistings as their Japanese counterparts). The only track on this single that is easily available on other releases is “Crazy For You.”

Of course, “La Isla Bonita” is a great track, but that’s not why I bought this CD. I bought it for “Gambler.”

Just kidding, I bought it for the ten-minute remix of “Open Your Heart.”

Someone, maybe Roger Ebert, said once that a good movie is never too long and a terrible movie can’t end soon enough. Whoever said it, they were right. Last night the boyfriend and I watched the Ralph Bashki film Fire and Ice and while that sucker is barely over 80 minutes long, it feels like an eternity. Conversely, I could watch a 10-hour version of Cabaret or Dreamgirls and not get bore. This goes ditto for “Open Your Heart.” Ten minutes might seem excessive, but “Open Your Heart” is just a goddamn perfect song. Perfect vocals delivered perfectly atop a perfect melody and perfect 80s synthesizers and perfect drum machines. All perfect. The only reason why I hesitate calling it Madonna’s best single is simply because making a declaration like that is nigh-impossible.

I can definitely say that it was my first favorite Madonna song though. I have a vivid memory of hating “Like A Virgin” when it first came out (still not a huge fan) and hating the video for “Material Girl” when I was a kid too. But something about “Open Your Heart” clicked with little seven-year-old me. I think I even danced along with the video when it was on the Top 20 Countdown.

And people were surprised when I came out of the closet.

 

Posted in Madonna, remixes | 2 Comments »

Osamu Shoji’s Kaleidoscope of Movie Medleys

April 26th, 2020

Osamu Shoji – Kaleidoscreen (Complete Album Download)

I’ve been posting a lot of complete albums lately. I hope my hosting service doesn’t kill me.

This is the (checks my expansive archive) fourth Osamu Shoji album I’ve posted in full. As I probably said in each of those previous posts (and other posts where I shared single tracks from his other albums), Shoji was a synth God with a capital G who produced some totally wacked out and insane pieces of music in his day. If you want to know more, I wrote a piece about him when he passed away a few years back.

Kaleidoscreen was first released in in 1982 and was probably Shoji’s 18th album. I say “probably” because English information on Shoji’s discography is still a little hard to come by. Since I first got into his music a few years back, several albums of his have been added to Discogs (mostly by me), so it wouldn’t at all surprise me if there are more holes out there that also need to be filled.

The early 80s were an incredibly prolific time for Shoji, between 1980 and 1985 the dude pumped out close to 30 albums. A few were original works, but the overwhelming majority were synthesizer covers albums. His bread and butter during this period was to release synthesizer covers albums of popular anime themes. There were all released under the “Digital Trip” series brand, which featured work by other synthesizer and keyboard greats, such as Jun Fukumachi.

But Kaleidoscreen is a bit different. Instead of sticking to one movie, anime, or series, he cast a wider net and covered themes from multiple movies, most of which were from America. These types of albums, of course, were not uncommon in the 1970s. I have countless collections of movie themes “switched on” for synthesizer. This one is a bit different though in terms of scope. Because while most synthesizer covers albums were content to have 10 or 12 movie themes reworked for the synthesizer. Shoji decided to shoot for the fences and compose 10 medleys that, when combined, featured snippets of SEVENTY-TWO pieces of music from a variety of different films.

A case of quantity over quality? Perhaps. The entire album does come off a bit cheesy, and the swings from theme to theme are sometimes so fast that you barely have time to register one before it moves onto the next. Additionally, the entire thing kind of has an elevator music/early-MIDI vibe to it, probably thanks to the prevalence of a rather generic beat that is played over most of the tunes. THAT BEING SAID I still love this album for all its ridiculousness, and the insane gusto that Shoji obviously put behind it. The dude just went for it. And I love how many deep cuts and oddball choices he included. Yeah, anyone could’ve (and did) make synth renditions of music from Star Wars, the James Bond films, and Rocky, but nobody else, for example, heard the themes to Laura, Days Of Wine And Roses, and The Way We Were and thought “Yo, what these themes need is more synthesizers and drum machines.” There’s a real sense of bravado there that I can really get behind.

This is not high art or a radical piece of work that re-invented electronic music. This is a piece of incredibly complicated, yet incredibly silly, music. It puts a smile to my face, even now, and I hope that it can do the same for you.

Below is the complete track listing, featuring all the songs that are included in each medley, in case you were curious.

Medley 1
Also Sprach Zarasthustra
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
Theme From Star Trek
The Throne Room
Main Title From Star Wars

Medley 2
The Big Country
I Left My Love
Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head
The River Of No Return
Johnny Guitar
The Call Of The Far-Away Hills
My Rifle, My Pony And Me
Buttons And Bows
Gunfight At O.K. Corral

Medley 3
The Theme From The Shaft
Charade
Whatever Will Be, Will Be
Laura
The Pink Panther Theme
The Entertainer
Love Theme From Godfather

Medley 4
Carioca
Cheek To Cheek
The Way You Look Tonight
Continental
A Foggy Day
Orchids In The Moonlight
Night And Day

Medley 5
The Geat Escape
Waltz From “Is Paris Burning?”
55 Days At Peking
The Guns Of Navarone
Exodus
Main Title Of Lawrence Of Arabia
The Longest Day

Medley 6 (James Bond Medley)
The James Bond Theme
Moonraker
No Boody Does It Better
For Your Eyes Only
Goldfinger
Thunderball
From Russia With Love

Medley 7
Three Coins In The Fountain
Love Letters
Never On Sunday
Sentimental Journey
Tara’s Theme
My Foolish Heart
Day Of Wine And Roses
Love Is My Splendored Thing
September Song

Medley 8
Gonna Fly Mow
Sound Of Silence
What Is Youth
Grease
How Deep Is Your Love
East Of Eden
A Summer Place

Medley 9
The Magnificent seven
The Green Leaves Of Summer
The Proud One
Ballad Of Davy Crockett
My Darling Clementine
Bury Me Not In Lone Prairie
High Noon
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

Medley 10
The Shadow Of Your Smile
Windmills Of Your Mind
Moon River
What’ll I Do
The Way We Were
The Rosy’s Theme

Posted in Complete Albums, Osamu Shoji | 1 Comment »

Chillaxing guitar with Clapton and David Gilmour

April 23rd, 2020

Liona Boyd
L’Enfant
Sorceress
Labyrinth
Persona

Liona Boyd’s wikipedia page says that she is “often called the first lady of the guitar” with a big fat [citation needed] next to it because it’s probably not true. She has an album called First Lady of the Guitar, but using an album title to designate yourself a grandiose moniker is like trying to give yourself your own nickname the first day of junior high; it’s just kind of sad. If I was forced to designate someone as “first lady of the guitar” I guess I would probably choose Bonnie Raitt? I don’t know, the title itself is kind of demeaning, doesn’t it mean that the woman is married to her guitar? Am I overthinking this? Probably, I got a lot of free time, after all.

So who the hell is Liona Boyd and why the hell am I sharing her music? These are valid questions. Liona Boyd is a guitarist (duh) with a lengthy career that goes back to the 1970s with over 20 albums. She’s not a shredder or anything like that, she’s a classically trained guitarist who specializes in acoustic music. She primarily performs classical music, with some excursions into other, equally mellow genres. She has a lot of Christmas albums, which makes sense.

I don’t know anything about her career. I’m very sorry for all of the die-hard Liona Boyd fans out there. The songs I’m featuring by her tonight are from her 1986 album Persona. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not featuring said songs because of Boyd herself, but because of who joins her on said songs.

The tracks “L’Enfant,” “Sorceress” and “Persona” all feature guitar by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, while “Labyrinth” includes electric guitar by one Eric Clapton. The entire album is full of guest appearances, actually. Yo-Yo Ma pops up at one point, and nearly all of the album features work by composer Michael Kamen (Lethal Weapon, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Dead Zone), performing various other instruments. He also arranged the entire album. I have to imagine that the guest spots by the two superstar guitarists were the work of Michael Kamen as well. He had worked with Clapton on the Lethal Weapon movies, and he’s worked with Gilmour quite often.

I typically can’t pick out instrumentalists just by hearing them, but I was able to guess pretty well which tracks Clapton and Gilmour played on this album without even seeing the liner notes beforehand. Sure, it helped that they’re both playing electric guitar on an album that is largely dominated by acoustic guitar, but I think that nearly everyone with even just a passing interest or knowledge in Clapton would be able to instantly recognize his style on “Labyrinth.” The obvious blues influence, the sustain, even the pacing of the notes, it all screams Clapton.

Gilmour is a bit harder to spot on a few of his tracks. I hear hints of him on “L’Enfant,” but the only reason I think he’s playing anything on “Sorceress” is because the liner notes tell me so. However, about two minutes and twenty seconds into “Persona,” an electric guitar solo kicks in that sounds like it was taken from outtakes of the “Comfortably Numb” sessions, it’s that recognizable at Gilmour’s work. It’s always hard for me to define what makes a Gilmour solo sound like David Gilmour, I guess I just know it when I hear it, like on the absolutely stellar “Pink and Velvet” by Berlin, which features one of Gilmour’s best solos of all-time. Listening to that track for the first time, I could tell instantaneously that it was Gilmour kicking out that solo. That album also features a shockingly good guest solo by Ted Nugent too. Weird record.

Again, hope everyone out there is staying as safe and as sane as humanely possible. Do whatever it takes not to go crazy. I’m trying my best and losing, so if you got any pro-tips in that area why don’t you pass them along.

 

Posted in David Gilmour, Eric Clapton | No Comments »

Radical music by Radical TV

April 16th, 2020

Radical TV – AV Kids (complete album download)

Just when I thought that I had hunted down every Yellow Magic Orchestra associated act that ever existed, no matter how incidental their connection to the uber-influential Japanese synthpop legends was, I stumble upon something that proves that I probably have even more to find, an incredible piece of lost techno-pop that renews my entire interest in the genre: AV Kids by Radical TV.

It’s very hard to dig up information on Radical TV in English. Strike that, it’s literally impossible to dig up any information on Radical TV in English. I suspect that when this blog post is complete, it will be the most anyone has ever written about the group in English.

A quick glimpse at Radical TV’s Discogs page shows that they only have two releases to their name, this mini-album that I’m sharing tonight, and a video release that was done in collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto of YMO. That video album came out in 1988, while this EP preceded it by two years. They could have more releases though, Discogs is not all-knowing and all-seeing. In fact, their Discogs page had several mistakes that I am just now fixing as I’m writing this. Originally, the album’s page only had one credited artist on it, a man by the name of Yoshifumi Ito. Now, while Ito did seem to be a predominate creative force behind the group, in the album’s liner notes he’s not even credited as a member, the only people credited as actually being part of the group were Daizaburo Harada and Haruhiko Shono. Harada performed vocals on the album, but Shono’s role is a bit of mystery. While every other performer on the record is credited, in detail, with their contributions, he is not. He’s just listed as a member of the group, and nothing else.

Neither Harada nor Shono were very prolific in music, according to Discogs anyway. Outside of Radical TV, they only have a couple of credits to their names, all of which are visual or technical. While they’re credited as composers on a few tracks, I suspect that they were primarily responsible for the visual element of the band’s performances, which was something else (and I’ll be getting to in a bit).

The group was probably Ito’s baby, it certainly sounds like other albums and artists he was working with at the time. He produced records for synthpop acts like Shi-Shonen and Hajime Tachibana, who shared Radical TV’s sampler/fairlight-heavy sound. He also played keyboards on albums by Togawa Jun and Yukihiro Takahashi, who also had a sampler heavy sound at the time. He was very prolific throughout the 80s, according to Discogs I own 43 releases in which he receives some sort of credit.

While Ito was a keyboardist, he’s not the credited keyboardist on this album. The keys here are played by Hiroaki Sugawara. He also worked with several of the artists already mentioned here, as well as Ryuichi Sakamoto. In fact, he handled the Fairlight programming for Sakamoto and David Byrne’s Academy Award winning score to The Last Emperor. So hey, he’s got that going for him.

This may be a synthpop record with keys a plenty, but it’s also an 80s pop record, which can mean only one thing – extraneous saxophone! Saxophone duties on the album were handled by Hiroyashu Yaguchi. While he had a short-lived solo career in the later half of the decade, with two albums to his name, he was much more prolific behind the scenes. He also worked with Shi-Shonen and Hajime Tachibana, and was a member another synth act from the time, Real Fish. Additionally, he played on some albums by my favorite 80s pop idol, Epo, and everyone’s favorite city pop star, Taeko Ohnuki.

Finally, the album was “executive produced” by Yukihiro Takahashi, but I think that just means he thew some money and/or keyboards at it. The album was released on the T.E.N.T. sub-label of Pony Canyon, which handled a lot of Takahashi’s (very bad) solo albums from this period. I don’t know if T.E.N.T. was a vanity label that Takahashi set up, but they were obviously strongly connected.

So, that’s a lot about the people behind this music, but how is the music itself?

It’s fan-fucking-tastic.

Given the amazing quality of this record, and the people associated with it, I’m surprised that it took me this long to discover it. This is really a quality piece of late-80s synthpop, with Fairlight-a-plenty. The instrumental opener “Shot,” has a fantastic drum machine sound and an absolutely stellar keyboard melody. This sounds like a lost YMO track, it’s so good. The quality keeps up throughout the EP. “Frontier” sounds like a perfect amalgamation of Takahashi’s (good) solo work from the first half of the 80s, thanks to Harada’s wonky vocals, and Sakamoto’s sampler-heavy sound that he experimented with on Futurista. It has a fantastic groove to it as well.

With “愛のソビエト” (Soviet Love), things slow down a bit, but that Fairlight sound shines through, and Harada drops his Takahashi impression to deliver his best vocals of the album. It’s a nice quiet bit that is immediately brought to a close with the incredible, and incredibly jarring, “XYZ,” which features Speak and Spell samples and absolutely bonkers vocals that seem to combine actual singing and cut-and-paste samples. It’s a crazy track that reminds me of Thomas Dolby’s more adventurous material and some of the stuff that Takahashi would be doing nearly a decade later, when he would get out of his late-80s nadir.

A mechanical beat serves as a backbone for the ballad “TVアイドル” (TV Idol), which is probably the most standard pop song on the record. If this one was translated into English I could imagine Howard Jones or Nik Kershaw covering it, for good or bad. The synths on this one are actually a little bland until about halfway through, when a bizarre collage of nearly-random noise breaks things up. What really keeps the song going is that 80s sax. A slow jam, but a jam nonetheless.

And then we end with a cover of Abba’s “Dancing Queen” with all vocals delivered through a vocoder, with a steel drum sound that sounds like it was taken out of Super Mario Bros. 3, because why the hell not. It’s awesome.

 

As radical (he he) as the sound of this album is, the main members of Radical TV were visual artists first and foremost. The visual element of their persona seemed to be just as, if not more, important than the music. Despite only a single EP and a collaborative video album to their name, there’s quite a bit of Radical TV video up on YouTube, and it’s all really amazing with a lot of computer video effects that were definitely cutting edge. Some of it even has a digital/”cyber” aesthetic to it that feels a decade ahead of its time.

Much of their collaboration with Sakamoto can be found on YouTube, and I really suggest checking it out. From what I can gather, their collaboration, TV War, was used as a showcase for the then brand-new Sony Jumbotron, as you can see in this video and this one. The music/soundscapes are fantastic, and it’s all a really great look at how visual artists of the 80s were using the then-nascent technology of computer graphics to create some really fabulous stuff in a style that is largely forgotten today.

The group also released a video for the track “XYZ” and while it’s not as cutting-edge as their work with Sakamoto, it’s still pretty damn awesome.

 

He-Man! By the power of Grayskull! And a digital sampler!

I say “this shit is dope” a lot, but yo, “this shit is dooope.” I hope everyone likes it.

Posted in Complete Albums | 4 Comments »

SELF-ISOLATION DISCO PARTY WHAAAAT

April 9th, 2020

My boyfriend and I have taken the whole “not leaving the house” thing as far as we can, as things are really starting to ramp up here in Tokyo. Did you know that you can buy junk food in bulk on Amazon? Guess who has a cupboard full of potato chips, fried squid, beef jerky, and Oreos?

Yo.

We also bought a shitton of puzzles on Amazon. They’re a great way to kill the time, and we can listen to music at the same time. Right now, we’ve been burning through the massive 33 CD Encore Donna Summer box set. That thing is a monster. So many remixes and single edits. It came at just the right time for me to ingest a massive amount of music too, so at least I got that going for me, which is nice.

All that disco has certainly put me in a dance mood lately, and in the rare hours where we’re not shaking our jigsaw-solving butts to extended remixes of “Hot Stuff,” we’ve been rocking out to this album.

That’s Eurobeat Non-Stop Megamix
Michael Fortunati Mega Mix
Stock, Aitken & Waterman Mega Mix
Eurobeat is so fucking stupid I love it so much. Ironic music is for assholes, give me something that is base-level designed for mindless brain dead stupid motherfucker gay ass bullshit any day of the week, especially right now. World in shambles, society collapsing, pump these beats directly into my cerebral cortex so hard and so loud that they jackhammer all the bullshit out of my head and replace it with four on the floor beats until my brain is mush and I can’t think of anything at all. Give me shit that makes Abba seem deep. Give me shit that makes Erasure seem low-key. I want the musical equivalent of Richard Gere in American Gigolo, dumb as rocks, hot as hell, and with gay subext.

This LP of two non-stop Hi-NRGH mega-mixes certainly fits that bill. One mix for each side, on side A we got a mix of tracks by Italo Disco superstar Michael Fortunati, and on the B-side a selection of lesser-known tracks by uber-hitmaker dance music factory Stock, Aitken & Waterman, the people who brought you “You Spin Me Round,” “I Should Be So Lucky,” “Never Gonna Give You Up,” and “I Don’t Wanna Get Hurt.” Sure, most of those songs sound the same, but who cares. SAW are the Motorhead of dance music. They basically write two or three songs over and over and over again, but they’re such bangers no one complains.

I’m not that familiar with Michael Fortunati, but if this mix is any indication as to the quality or style of his work, sign me the fuck up. Great shit. “Into the Night (Slip and Slide)” is a fantastic amazing opener to this mix, and the (high) energy keeps going throughout the entirety of it. His side is actually more upbeat than the SAW side which start out with a medley of slightly more downbeat tracks by Princess. I know that she was rather popular in the UK for a bit, but I had never heard of her, and didn’t recognize any of the songs that make an appearance in the mix.

Their mix really picks up after the Princess tracks though, as it segues in Hazell Dean’s absolutely lovely “Whatever I Do (Wherever I Go).” I only recently discovered Dean’s music (this type of stuff never broke through in the states) and damn it’s good. No wonder she’s called the queen of Hi-NRG, she’s like a white Donna Summer on ecstasy.

From Dean the mix shifts hard into “I’m So Beautiful” by Divine. Yes, that Divine. Divine was a fantastic drag queen and a wonderful actor. She could not sing. Like, not even a little bit. But she owned it. And her horrible raspy, driveway gravel of a voice ends up somehow working in the end. Maybe just by sheer willpower or a complete lack of anything even remotely resembling shame. Gotta respect that level of not giving a fuck.

Fellow drag artist Lana Pellay closes things out with her single “Pistol In My Pocket.” I’m not 100% sure I’m using the right pronouns with Lana, who also goes by the name of Al from what I’ve read? Please forgive me if I’m fucking up here, it’s not out of disrespect. This song slaps. She can certainly sing better than Divine, but I think I like the message of Divine’s “I’m So Beautiful” more than this track. There’s something about a morbidly obese drag queen screaming violently at me to tell me that she, and I, are beautiful that I just get with on a deep, philosophical level.

Although I do love “Pistol In My Pocket.” It’s basically a prolonged dick joke and I can get behind that.

When this whole thing ends let’s gay dance party outside, okay?

Posted in Complete Albums | 3 Comments »

Not keeping it together, no matter how many times Madonna tells me to

April 7th, 2020

No need to comment on the current events. Things are bad and they’re about to get worse. Short post tonight too. I wanted to write a bit more but every time I try to my chest starts to feel like it’s about to cave it. Panic attacks are fun.

Anyways, here’s more Madonna. Sorry it’s not better Madonna. That’ll come soon.

Madonna
Keep It Together (Single Remix)
Keep It Together (12″ Remix)
Keep It Together (12″ Mix)
Keep It Together (12″ Extended Mix)
Keep It Together [Instrumental]
Hanky Panky (Bare Bones Single Mix)
Hanky Panky (Bare Bottom 12″ Mix)

“Keep It Together” is my least-favorite single from Like A Prayer. Let’s be real, it just can’t compete with that album’s title track, “Express Yourself,” or “Cherish.” And I might be in the minority here, but I even prefer the tragic “Oh Father” and the charming “Dear Jessie” (an underrated tune) to the bassy, 90s deep funk vibe of “Keep It Together,” a sound that has not aged very well for me, perhaps because I wasn’t a very big fan of it in the first place aside from some of the stuff that Janet Jackson was doing at the time.

That’s not to say it’s a bad song. Low-tier late-80s Madonna is still high-tier pop music, it’s just not my go to jam. Good remixes though. And if, unlike me, you dig the heavy bass sound of this track then I got good news for you, because these are hella bassy. In quarantine? Crank up your apartment’s woofer and drive your fellow isolating neighbors bonkers.

Now, for “Hanky Panky”….boy, this song, huh? It’s always weird when swing jazz makes its way to the pop charts. Feels like a fluke. It’s certainly a move that only an established artist can ever get away with. And let’s be clear, Madonna really didn’t get away with it here. Sure, the song did okay on the charts but when you compare it to other singles from this time, including “Vogue,” it didn’t make the same splash and it certainly didn’t have the same kind of staying power. Still, as songs about getting your ass slapped go, it’s good enough. I’m certainly happy that she went with a retro-jazz vibe for the tune and not an overly seriously, heavy R&B vibe that she would embrace with Erotica. “Hanky Panky” is a song about a fetish, albeit a rather tame one, but it’s certainly not a sexy song. It’s a goofy song. Because singing about how you get off on getting your behind beat is inherently goofy. Trying to make it sexy would just make you sound like Meghan Trainor or something.

Enjoy the spanking song. Just remember to wash your hands before (and after) you smack it.

Posted in Madonna, remixes | 3 Comments »

Synths with my man Barry

April 2nd, 2020

It’s April 2nd. The number of cases of coronavirus in Tokyo has just about doubled in a week, but the government still has not declared a state of emergency so people are still going to work everyday. Literally everything I see is bad news and there is no good news on the horizon. It is soul-crushing.

Let’s talk about some new music.

I’ve gotten way into synthwave lately. I’m buying almost everything that New Retro Wave has to offer at the moment. Of that, I highly recommend the latest albums by Wolfcub, Turboslash, Akuma & Tokyo Rose, and Tonebox. Yes, none of this is exceptionally original or groundbreaking but I don’t really care. It sounds good, it’s fantastic background music for writing, and it keeps me in a good headspace.

I’m also getting way into a group called Magic Sword. Their album Endless is also synthwave, but it has a bit more of an organic sound. I don’t know if they use acoustic drums, or if they just go for acoustic drum sounds. Regardless, it has a good 70s electronic vibe to it, kind of Tangerine Dream at times, and I’m into it. You can pick up their album on Joyful Noise’s website.

Video game music! A dude going by the name of Space Quest Historian has been remixing and reworking the soundtracks to the Space Quest video games by Sierra. He already did a limited release of the Space Quest IV soundtrack, and now he’s prepping his Space Quest III reworking. It’ll get a vinyl release eventually, but as of right now you can pick up a digital copy at your own price. For fans of the series, I highly recommend it.

Since I can’t go to record stores at the moment, I’ve been ordering some new releases on Amazon right now. I got the soundtrack to Link’s Awakening, which includes both the music to the original Game Boy release and the Switch remake, but I haven’t gotten around to listening to it yet. I have been listening to the new Early Years box set by Def Leppard and do enjoy that. Some good live and rare stuff on there from back when the band was more of a heavy metal group and Joe Elliot was not a good (but very energetic) vocalist.

I’m also still on my stupid old synthesizer album kick, hopefully my boyfriend (who is cooped up with me and has to hear all this shit), doesn’t mind.

Barry Leng
This is Synthesizer Sound! (Complete Album Download)
There aren’t enough Barrys in music, am I right? John Barry doesn’t count. I’m talking about first name Barrys. We only got Barry Manilow. That’s it. You don’t hear a lot of “give it up for Barry on guitars!” at concerts. Women aren’t lusting after hot lead singers named Barry. No up-and-coming Soundcloud rappers go by Barry. .

The only other Barry I can name-check in music is Barry DeVorzon. He did the fantastic score to the 1979 all-time banger classic movie The Warriors. So I guess he’d have to be my all-time number one Barry in music.

Coming in behind at number two (of two) is Barry Leng, thanks to his 1978 collection of synthesizer pop song covers, This is Synthesizer Sound! The exclamation point is in the title. I do enjoy this album, but I’m not that excited about it.

Far as I can gather, this album was released in Japan only. But many of the songs on it were on a 1974 album called
Golden Hour Of Golden Instrumental Hits Featuring The Many Moogs Of Killer Watts. As great as the name Barry Leng is, I’m going to have to say that “Killer Watts” is even better, wonder why he didn’t stick with that.

The fact that it was first released in 1974 didn’t surprise me. By 1978, the synthesizer album market was drying up, save for Japan, where they kept pumping them out until they just morphed into synthpop records. As synth albums of the mid-70s go, this one feels much more acoustic than others. A lot of the drums are acoustic, and it also features guitar and other instruments. I don’t know who’s playing those instruments, as no liner notes, English or otherwise, are included with the album. maybe Barry was a virtuoso.

He certainly was an accomplished producer. In the 1970, Barry pumped out a steady supply of mid-level disco and soft rock before striking it big in 1978, producing Amii Stewart’s hit cover of “Knock On Wood.” He would then go on to chart on the European charts some more as a producer for dance acts E’voke and Rage. It looks like he hasn’t done anything since the mid-90s though, if his Discogs credits are any indication. Hey Barry, you still out there? What are you up to?

As I said, this isn’t really entirely a synthesizer album, it’s more of a hybrid that mixes synths and more traditional instruments. It’s not the best record of its type, but I think what it lacks in originality it makes up for with production (ti sounds great) and a stellar tracklist. We get a great cover of the theme to For A Few Dollars More, a nice take on the Godfather love theme, and dope covers of “Apache,” “Help” and “Live and Let Die,” just to name a few. It also has a fantastic rendition of “Telstar,” which I’ve already mentioned is one of my favorite instrumentals of all time. Barry does it justice with his version here. I also have to call out the version of “Help.” The synthesizer work isn’t all that remarkable, but the drumming is fantastic. Ditto for “Hey Jude.” I hate “Hey Jude” but I love dope drums and this version has them in spades. The best track in terms of pure synth work is “Soul Coaxing” (google it, you know it). Very ethereal with lots of groovy pitch-bending sounds.

The album also has a cover of “Red River Rock,” another song that you definitely know even if you don’t know the name. You probably heard it on the soundtrack to Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The version on that was recorded by early synthpop act Silicon Teens. I wonder if they somehow came across Barry’s version and were inspired to create their own rendition because of it. Seems like a hell of a coincidence that two different synthesizer-based acts would decide to cover the same song so close together without one inspiring the other.

Fun music for not-so-fun times. Pipe it up loud and drown out the existential dread the best you can.

Posted in Complete Albums | 11 Comments »

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