Okay, so here was my plan: Put a couple posts in the pipe while I was in China, and then once I got to Japan, occasionally blog about the stuff I was getting/feature some music from any out-of-print CDs I may have bought while in the country.

The first part of my plan worked perfectly, however, once in Japan I realized I failed to take into account HOW FUCKING AWESOME TOKYO IS. Sorry, but once I got there the last thing I wanted to do was sit in my hotel room and write about what I bought that day. I wanted to go out and play in the arcades; walk around Shibuya until midnight; go to crazy Japanese clubs; drink crazy Japanese drinks; and so much more! There’s so much to do and see in that city, and the longer I was there, the less I cared about getting back to my hotel in time to write a really good blog post. I just wanted to explore that city until my feet couldn’t take anymore, sleep, wake up, and repeat the whole process. So sorry if the blog kind of fell into a wasteland for a couple of weeks, but I was honestly having too much fun to really care.

But I’m back now! And holy shit do I have a lot to talk about! I plan on writing a couple of massive posts about my trip in the coming weeks/month, hopefully for my oft-delayed new site, but until then, I’m just going to start posting music that I picked up on the trip. I bought a ton of Western stuff, but expect to see a good portion of Japanese music as well, starting with tonight.

Yellow Magic Orchestra
Y.M.O. Mega-Mix
Firecracker (Remix)
Behind The Mask (Remix)
I wish I knew the reason why most of Yellow Magic Orchestra’s discography remains painfully hard to get in the states. Only one of their albums is available digitally on Amazon, and only a select few are available to buy via import. Is it a right’s issue? Or is Sony (I think that’s who own this stuff) just too stupid to give the stuff a proper release. I get why they haven’t bothered to put the CDs out here, but it would cost them next to nothing to get this stuff on digital download stores. What gives?

I didn’t want to wait to find out, so when I was in Japan I pretty much picked up a complete YMO discography across both CD and LP, and over the next few months I’m going to try and figure out what to post and what not to. Sure, nearly all of their albums aren’t available in the states, but I still think that most of them are worth tracking down and picking up, even at import prices. Maybe I’ll do some kind of “Greatest Hits” where I choose my favorite YMO tracks across the records I picked up. I think that’s the best and most ethical way to do things.

Tonight though I’m putting up a complete CD single, because even if the YMO albums proper ever make their way to American shores, I really doubt these remixes will. These are from a 1990 CD single simply called Y.M.O MEGA MIX that contains the self-titled medley track, and two additional YMO remixes.  The mega-mix is a massive 12 minute beast, containing snippets from seven different YMO tracks. None of them are massively re-worked, but it’s a great brief journey through some of YMO’s better tracks, including the excellent “Rydeen” and the super-catchy “Computer Game.”

I personally prefer the two additional remixes more than the mega-mix, especially the mix of “Behind The Mask” that extends the song by nearly two minutes and really lets the track’s excellent melody come to life.

It’s good to be back! And expect plenty of amazing stuff over the next few months! I bought so many records in Japan…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013 at 11:48 am and is filed under Complete Albums, remixes, Yellow Magic Orchestra. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.