Archive for the ‘Jun fukamachi’ Category

Japanese Covers of the Classics (and Time of the Season)

Sunday, April 29th, 2018

April is in full effect! And longtime readers of Lost Turntable know that means I’m currently getting my ass kicked with my legendary April bad luck. It’s been a pretty rough one; a drastic fibro flare-up, workplace drama, and a lot of wasted money on shoes (DON’T BUY SHOES ONLINE EVER IT’S NOT WORTH IT).

Anyways, the month is almost over and I’m unwinding the only way I know how, with odd covers of well-known music.

Jun Fukamachi
Classical Medley
Ave Maria

This record is so obscure that I literally can’t find a single English word about it on the internet so someone please help me.

I know that in the mid-80s Fukamachi briefly launched his own label, releasing a promo-only LP entitled 86 Spring & Summer Collection. Despite the similar name (and I suspect similar promo-only status) I don’t think that record and this one have anything in common. That album is a collection of original material, while this is entirely covers of classical compositions.

That, it’s entirely dope as fuck covers of classical compositions! This is some great, hyper-digital synth work and arrangement on display. While at first it sounds a bit cheesy, the more you listen to these all-digital reworkings, the more you appreciate just how much work went into them, especially with the epic 20-minute medley. These aren’t just classical pieces played through a keyboard’s default settings, many are reworked and tweaked to be equal parts jazzy and funky. It’s like an all-digital “Fifth of Beethoven.”

Like I said, I literally know nothing about this record. If you do, please give me anything you got! Especially if you have any idea about what the fuck is going on with that cover.

Ippu-Do
Time Of The Season
I don’t know what kind of stature Ippu-Do have in Japan now, or had during their peak, or even if they had a peak. Whenever I mention them to literally anyone I know, I get blank stare. That is, save for my boyfriend, who not only knows of the group, but remembered the melody of their biggest hit when I was playing the live record from which this track came from. My boyfriend literally never recognizes any music I ever play for him, especially Japanese music, so they must’ve been at least a little bit popular? I don’t know.

I have nearly all of their albums now. They’re good, obviously influenced by YMO and Japan (the band) in equal parts. I think bizarro cover of “Time Of The Season” is quite indicative of their sound, a strange combination of off-kilter vocals, heavy use of synths, and some rad guitar work. I really do need to give these guys more of a chance and dig into their discography a bit more.

One additional note, this is supposedly a live album, but considering how produced it sounds and the suspiciously looped crowd noises I’ve heard on several tracks, I have my doubts.

 

Blue Fukamachi

Tuesday, January 30th, 2018

Somehow, for whatever reason, some five months after the fact, I got my damn Twitter account unsuspended. I have no idea how I did this. I sent them countless emails over these past few months, pleading my case from every possible angle I could think of. During that time, I’m happy that I never succumbed to the urge to send vulgar insults or baseless threats. Trust me, many an unsent message contained both.

Maybe my restraint paid off. Maybe someone finally realized their mistake. Maybe someone just pushed the wrong button. I don’t care. I’m just happy I got my fucking account back after all this damn time. Not because I really like Twitter all that much, but dammit it’s important for me to stay on brand. UnLostTurntable was a shitty replacement name.

Anyways, @LostTurntable, follow me for random things. Mostly art.

Blue Pearl
Mother Dawn (Buckateer Mix 1)
Mother Dawn (Buckateer Mix 2)
Mother Dawn (Buckateer Mix 3)
Mother Dawn (Lunacy Mix)
Blue Pearl was a side-project of Youth from Killing Joke and featured Durga McBroom on vocals. The group also sported guest appearances from David Gilmour and Richard Wright from Pink Floyd, albeit not on this track.

All of these remixes are by The Orb and sound very much like remixes by The Orb, so your mileage may vary depending on how excited that sounds to you. Me, I’m not a big fan of The Orb’s remix work. They often fuck up with source material too much, and to me that’s the problem with these remixes here. They just sound like ambient dub Orb tracks, save for the Lunacy Mix, which has an actual beat and vocals.

Jun Fukamachi’s 21st Century Band
Shin-Ku
This is jazz fusion but please keep reading.

I went bit of a buying spree of Japanese jazz fusion as of late, trying to figure out which albums in the genre appeal to me and which ones don’t. I’m super hot and cold on this stuff. I either think it’s the best stuff ever or it makes me want to slam spikes in my ears, and I wanted to figure out why. What makes “good” jazz fusion to me? I think I was able to pin down the criteria:

  1. Absolute minimum vocals.
  2. Guitar or keyboard-centric
  3. Fast tempo
  4. The most synthesizers the better

With all these components, I really dig this stuff. It takes on a funky vibe that I hella get behind, like this track by piano virtuoso Jun Fukamachi. It has a jazz core, that’s for sure, but it branches out from that really quickly. It has a weird prog bent, some bizarre electronic accents, and more a few dope solos. And whoever the drummer is, wow. They really kick it into gear in the second half. It’s about 10 minutes long, but it still has structure, it doesn’t feel like a bunch of guys in the room just jamming nonstop. At least, it doesn’t to me.

I get that this isn’t the kind of stuff that people come to this blog for, and that’s cool. But if you don’t like it…just, don’t tell me? No one is making you download this free music, after all.

If you do like it, or have recommendations based on it, let me know! Leave a comment or you can contact me on my motherfucking back from the dead Twitter account.

Damn that feels good to say.

Funky Jazz From Space

Sunday, April 23rd, 2017

I hope you all had a good Record Store Day and were able to find what you wanted without getting gauged. I scored the two big Bowie releases and even managed to bang out a review of them over on my other site. Sorry to say, if you’re going on the second-hand market to grab them, you might want to pass.

Now who wants some Japanese space funk/jazz fusion!

Wait, don’t go, it’ll be cool I promise!

Jun Fukamachi
Quark
Perpetual (Movement)
Desillusion
Insight
I shared a Fukamachi track about a year ago, when I uploaded his jazz fusion take on the Star Wars theme, which was pretty dope. Tonight, I thought I would share the album of his that I think fans of my blog would dig the most, his 1980 release Quark.

As I mentioned in my previous post featuring him, Fukamachi is kind of a jack of all trades, dabbling in many different genres of music throughout his long career. Most of it is jazz, and not just fusion, but traditional piano jazz music. He also dives into funk on occasion. Those are some of my favorite records of his. Second Phase, his 1977 album, is a great record featuring his funky side, complete with a rad cover of “Ava Maria.” I’ll probably post some stuff from that at some point.

But Quark is a bit different, at least it’s different than the other Fukamachi album’s I’ve bought. This one is much spacier, with a heavy emphasis on ambient and electronic textures. Each track is ten minutes long, and they all take you on a journey, man, going between Tangerine Dream, quiet piano-driven segues that wouldn’t be out of place on a Pink Floyd record, and crazy purely electronic experimental pieces reminiscent of Wendy Carlos.

It’s a crazy record that I can’t really describe, so if you’re in the mood for something different, check it.

Japanese Versions Of The Star Wars Theme

Friday, May 13th, 2016

The best thing about living in Japan is finding 1970s covers albums of sci-fi films.

Okay, maybe it’s not the best thing, but it’s definitely in the top 10.

Toru Hatano
Star Wars Theme
Toru Hatano (aka Toya Hatano) is somewhat of a minor player in the progressive/jazz/electronic scenes of 1970s Japan. In the early 70s he was a member of the psych-rock band Brush!?, who only released one record as far as I can find. In 1977 he released his solo debut, a soundtrack called Love For You followed a year later by a collection of movie themes performed on synthesizer entitled Space Adventure. Since then, he’s worked behind-the-scenes and runs a company that sells insanely high-end audio cables.

As synth cover collections go, Space Adventure is an odd one, and features not only 70s soundtrack standards like Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001: A Space Odyssey, but also selections from lesser known genre material at the time including Logan’s Run, Capricorn One, Solaris, and even Flesh Gordon (not Flash, Flesh).

It’s not bad, although as someone who has listened to probably over a dozen synth cover albums in his day, there’s not much to make it stand out aside from its slightly oddball song selection. The cover is pretty rad though.

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Damn, it looks like they’re constructing the ELO spaceship.

Jun Fukamachi
Theme From Star Wars
One thing that I was surprised to learn about the 1970s music scene in Japan is how intermixed the jazz, funk and electronic music scenes were. Look into the discography of nearly any major guitarist or keyboardist from the era, and you’ll find that he or she probably got their feet wet in all three genres, if not more. Ryuichi Sakamoto’s first release as a collaborative free association jazz album, and both of YMO’s most prominent guitarists, Kenji Omura and Kazumi Watanabe, were accomplished jazz musicians before, during and after their work with the legendary synthpop group.

The same goes for Jun Fukamachi, digging through his back catalog I’ve found everything from J-pop, funk, folk, jazz, experimental avant-garde, synth-pop and pure electronic music. He even worked on a few of those “Digital Trip” anime soundtracks that I wrote about a couple weeks ago. His main focuses seemed to be jazz and funk though, using synthesizers in way that could be compared to the 70s output of Stevie Wonder, much more organically and with other instruments than his purely electronic counterparts.

And if you know anything about live jazz, with its heavy use of improvisation and free-association jamming, is why this live take on the Star Wars theme lasts over seven minutes. It goes places, man.

I’m crediting this to Jun Fukamachi because it’s listed under his discography at Discogs and I found it in among his solo records at the record store, but it’s really a collaborative effort. I think the band itself is called Space Fantasy. In addition to Jun, the group is also made up of Hideki Matsutake (aka Logic System) and the previously mentioned Kenji Omura. Joining them are Hiroki Inui, Shuichi Murakami and Shigeru Okazawa, all of whom have worked on countless albums in Japan as session players. So if you know anything about the jazz scene of Japan in the 70s and 80s, then this is kind of an all-star supergroup jam session.

To be honest, the album as a whole diverges into free-improvisation a bit too much for my liking, but their take on the Star Wars theme the only improvisational jazz/funk version of it I’ve ever heard, so they get points for originality if nothing else.