I recently bought a 3CD set entitled イエãƒãƒ¼ãƒžã‚¸ãƒƒã‚¯æŒè¬¡æ›², which according to my boyfriend translates to Yellow Magic Popular Music. It’s a compilation from a few years back that collects various pop tracks from the 70s and 80s that members of Yellow Magic Orchestra were involved with in some degree or another.
With 55 songs in total, it’s all over the place tonally, and includes everything from 80s J-pop, experimental electronic music and even some traditional Enka tunes. It’s a weird collection, and while it is a little uneven at times, I’m still incredibly happy that I was able to find a copy (and a cheap one at that), as I feel that it’s exposed me to a treasure trove of obscure pop acts from the 80s that I must unearth.
Tonight’s tracks were all taken from said compilation. I hope you enjoy them, especially since I plan on posting a lot more Japanese electronic pop in the coming weeks, from this compilation and elsewhere.
Koharu Kisaragi
Neo-Plant (12″ Version)
On the CD this track is credited solely to Kisaragi, but the truth is that it’s a collaboration between her and Ryuichi Sakamoto, something I could gleam even just by listening to the track. It sounds very similar to many of the best tracks on Sakamoto’s Futurist Bastard, an album that came out the same year. Both are heavily rooted in sampling technology and at times incredibly manic, seemingly drawing upon both the same technological and philosophical influences that The Art Of Noise were pulling from. Neeless to say, if you like Art of Noise or late-era YMO, this track should be right up your alley.
As for the woman who is credited with performing it, I really can’t find out all that much about her. She only released one album, Tokai No Seikatsu, which also came out in 1986. It’s never been re-issued and damn near impossible to find now. I did score a copy online though, and you can do the same here if you’re so inclined. It’s not bad, albeit a little uneven.
Cosmic Invention
Cosmic Surfing
The same blog I linked to above also has a page on this band, which also has a download link to their sole album, which came out in 1981. Outside of the information that page, I can find very little on this group. They were apparently a trio, they worked with Sakamoto at some point, and were able to score a couple hit singles before vanishing in the pop ether. This single, which is not on their album, is a cover of the YMO song of the same name. This was already a poppy tune, the jacked-up production and the cheery vocals make it even more upbeat. I need to add this to my jogging mix.
Susan
Ah! Soka!
サマルカンド大通り
Thanks to her incredibly generic stage name, it’s pretty hard to find information (especially in English) for this one. From what I can gather, mostly from Discogs information and an incredibly sloppy Wiki entry, Susan is a Japanese/French singer-songwriter who worked with YMO’s Yukihiro Takahashi to release two LPs and several singles in the early 80s. Sadly, nothing she ever put out really set Japan on fire, and it would appear that she hasn’t released much since. She does have a webpage, but I don’t think it’s been updated since 2007, so I don’t know if she’s really all that active today.
Too bad though, because these two songs are fantastic. Her voice has a squeaky-yet-haunting quality to it ala Kate Bush, and the fast-paced, energetic production is complex and layered enough to avoid sounding too terribly dated. There was a compilation released in 2005 that collected everything she ever released, I hope I can find that somewhere, I really want to hear more from her.
Thanks for posting more YMO-related songs. I’m not familiar with much Japanese electro-pop but I LOVE what I’ve hears so far (the collaboration with Human League was amazing!). I have a few tracks by Fantastic Plastic Machine that you may like…
Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! You’re my number one! I really enjoy my Susan lp on Epic, bought on a sale early 80-s. Gotta get a gramophone again.
Susan is amazing!
Her first album ‘Do You Believe In Mazik” in particular is one of my favourite LPs ever, and features writing and performing credits from all of YMO and other legends like Hajime Tachibana. Perfect blend of experimental weirdness and pop perfection. Her second album isn’t as instantly arresting and consistant as the first, but still has some amazing tracks and is also highly reccomended. Vinyl copies of both seem to be in high supply/little demand, as they can be tracked down online for really reasonable prices.
There is a CD compilation availble in Japan [‘Complete Susan’, from memory] which has everything she recorded. It’s great. My favourite is the bizarrely titled “Freezing Fish Under Moonlight Eatin’ my Backbone”.
Koharu Kisaragi was a writer, theatre director and performance artist, she died in 2000 of a brain hemmorhage.
Susan married one of Sheena & The Rokkets (also on that Yellow Magic Kayokyoku CD) and moved to Hokkaido to raise her daughter in the mid-80s. She is an actress as well as a singer; her career starting in 1971 when she was a young teen. She only made 2 albums but guested occasionally on other music in the YMO/Rokkets orbit such as the Sakamoto commercial for Parky Jeans that turned up on one of his compilations. Like Sandii she used a number of different names for session and commercial work. She appeared in a TV soap last year I believe. Lovely lady, met her a couple of times a few years ago in Tokyo and she kindly gave me a DVD of a one-off show she performed when the Complete Susan compilation was released. She was rather unlucky that a show she was due to perform in London to promote her albums in ’82 and related press and TV were cancelled due to the outbreak of the Falklands war, which disrupted travel to and from the UK for a few days.
Cosmic Invention were a teenage group also known as the “YMO Kids” – they suppported YMO at the Budokan in 1980 and subsequently recorded an album. There is a YouTube clip of them playing YMO’s “Technopolis” at the Budokan using YMO’s equipment – they are unbelievable! Their leader/mentor was one of the kids fathers, a music teacher.