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Comets and Synths

Saturday, November 15th, 2025

Halley’s Comet – The Complete Adventure (Click to download the album)

In 1986, Halley’s Comet made its regularly scheduled flight around the sun. I was six years old at the time and way into anything outer space, so I was pretty stoked. However, I, like most people on the planet Earth, could not see the comet that year. Read the wiki if you’re curious why. Long story short: conditions were shit for seeing Halley’s Comet in 1986. So a lot of people’s “once in a lifetime” chance to see the famous interstellar object shrank to “never in a lifetime.” Unless you were Emperor Hirohito. He apparently lived long enough to see it twice.

The closest I got to seeing the comet was watching Arnold and family on Diff’rent Strokes see it.

Anyways, I do remember the hype. The hype was real. It was all over the news, and we talked about it in school. So the fact that a record like this exists does not surprise me in the least. Halley’s Comet: The Complete Adventure is a 1985 Canadian release that was no doubt quickly cobbled together to cash-in on comet hype.

Side one of the record features some pretty threadbare narration about the comet, the history of its sightings on earth, and some overly flowery and optimistic ideas about what our planet might be like when the comet makes its next flyby in 2061, all while some wonderfully 80s synth music plays in the background

Side two of the record features the same music as the first side, but with the narration removed, so you can rock out with your comet out to the latest hi-tech electronic bleeps and blops that mid-range 80s keyboards had to offer. Some would probably write this music off as cheesy or corny, but I enjoy it quite a bit. It’s one part Yanni, one part Tomita, and one part Tangerine Dream (albeit nowhere near as good as any of them, obviously). This could easily be slowed down and distorted into vaporwave, I’m sure.

The narration on side one was by Don Francks, who was a Canadian actor, musician and voice actor. Most notably for anyone around my age, he was the voice of Boba Fett on the Star Wars Droids cartoon (and possibly on the Star Wars Holiday Special). He was also Sabertooth on X-Men. His daughter, Cree Summer, continued in his footsteps and has become an incredibly successful voice actress. She’s Elmyra on Tiny Toons, and also voiced Penny on Inspector Gadget.

His narration here is fine, as I said before, there’s not much to it. It reads like a NASA brochure about the comet, hitting all the basic points as quickly and plainly as possible.

I find the music a lot more interesting. It was composed and performed by Don Horsburgh. He has no credits to his name on Discogs, but he works as a stage music director and composer in Canada, mostly Alberta. According to this page, he’s worked on some pretty big shows too, including Canadian productions of Billy Elliot, Mamma Mia!, Sweeney Todd, and Mary Poppins. I wonder how often he takes out the keys and lets loose some newage jams.

The record was produced by a man named Jim MCKenna, a name that is far too common and plain for Google to be of any help whatsoever. There is a politician with that name in Canada, but I doubt he’s the same person.

And that’s about all I can find out about the record! Another blog shared this same record a few years back, and their copy came with a star chart that they helpfully scanned, so check that out if you’re interested (I think I enjoy the record itself more than that writer). The album has no barcode or spine number. The only identifying marks on it at all, is the stock number “PAM-080.921899” on the record label. Because of that, Discogs credits the album’s label as “PAM.” I would take that with a grain of salt, however, because Discogs also credits the album artist as “Halley’s Comet” and I’m fairly certain the comet itself had nothing to do with this release. Unless Halley’s Comet provided Don with the keyboards. God only knows how this thing was distributed. Was it solely for educational institutions? Mail order only? Who knows!

Enjoy! Maybe I’ll have another post up this year? Regardless, that’s four posts with music this year, which is the most I’ve managed to put on this site since COVID, I think. So I’m gonna take that as a victory.

As I said before, comments on this site are broken as fuck, so if you have something you’d like to share about this record, reach out to me on Bluesky!

Posted in Complete Albums | No Comments »

Japanese Moog Disco Covers and More

Friday, August 8th, 2025

Hey, this blogging thing is fun, maybe I’ll try and do it more often again!

I just finished my most ambitious YouTube video to date, a massive 70+ minute look at Tower Records in Shibuya. I was really happy with the video I made about Tower Records a few years ago, but the store has changed so much since then that I thought it was worth re-doing with something a bit more expansive. I didn’t plan for it to be feature-length, it just kind of turned out that way. Give it a watch, leave a comment, click those like and subscribe buttons, you know the drill.

Also, and I’m going to keep saying this until someone responds, I want to work with someone to revamp this website, drastically. It’s a paid gig. If you’re interested, reach out on Blue Sky. Don’t bother leaving a comment here, as they are broken – like most things on this website.

Anyways, music time.

Oriental Mechanic Band – Discotheque Fantasy (Click here for complete album download)

How many times have I featured out-of-print and hard-to-find music featuring Hideki Matsutake (aka Logic System) on this blog? I’ve lost count and my tags are broken as shit (like everything else on this website) so who knows?

For those who may not know, Hideki Matsutake is a very influential Japanese electronic musician who is best-known for his work with Yellow Magic Orchestra and various YMO associates. He got his start in the industry at a young age, working with Tomita when he was still a teenager.

In addition to working on YMO’s first two releases, he also contributed to early albums by many other greats of the Japanese techno-pop and new wave scenes, including Sheena & The Rokkets, Akiko Yano, Rajie, Susan, Mioko Yamaguchi, and many more (as well as solo releases by all the members of YMO). If you have any notable Japanese pop music release from the late 70s or early 80s with prominent synthesizers or sequences on it, odds are he had his hand in it.

I also met him once. I tried not to be that big of a geek about it.

But before his work with YMO and other big-name artists in Japan, he released a few albums under other assorted names, a few of which I know I’ve shared in the past. One of my favorites is The Charm of Synthesizer: Japanese Melody (which you can find here), an album composed entirely of covers of Japanese enka tracks. He release that under the name Beautiful Shateau & Synthesizer. At the time I wrote that, I didn’t know what year that album came out, since then I’ve discovered that it most likely was released in 1976, meaning that it was one of his earliest releases.

This album, released under the name Oriental Mechanic Band, came out just one year later, but it’s a bit different. While that previous record was nothing but Japanese folk songs given the plugged-in/synth treatment, this album features more contemporaneous music, mostly on the disco side of things, hence the name.

The album opens with two Bee Gees covers, “Night Fever” and “Stayin’ Alive.” I’m an established Bee Gees hater, but I dig these takes on their tunes. Maybe it’s because there’s no high-pitched squealing distracting from the solid melodies or basslines. Or maybe it’s the totally radical shakuhachi playing?

These aren’t purely electronic arrangements. This is not a Wendy Carlos album. In addition to Matsutake’s synths, we also have Junichi Tagiri on drums, Eiko Koizumi on koto, and, most notably, John Kaizan Neptune on shakuhachi (Japanese flute). Most of those people haven’t done a ton, but Neptune has been around. He’s American-born, but lives in Japan and has apparently made the shakuhachi his life. Not only does he play the thing, he makes them. He’s released a ton of albums since the 1970s. I can highly recommend his 1981 album, Shogun, it’s some good jazz-funk with a Japanese edge. If the city pop people ever stumble upon that record, my vinyl copy is going to skyrocket in value, I know it.

Anyways, after the Bee Gees covers we get a take on “You’re The One That I Want” from Grease. Much like the Bee Gees, I’m assuredly not a fan of Grease. But I’m also not deaf and I realize that “You’re The One That I Want” slaps pretty goddamn hard. Matsutake infuses his version of the song with a synth sound that I can only describe as “bouncy as hell” and Neptune delivers a fantastic wavering flute melody over it all.

After that brief lapse into musical theater we go back into full disco mode with a cover of “Macho Man” that has vocoder and tons of random robotic bleeps and bloops. What was an anthem for hyper-masculine presenting gay men in the late-70s club scene now sounds like a declaration of independence by a queer robot. It rules. Disco-mode continues with equally entertaining covers of “Last Dance” and “Thank God It’s Friday.”

Things take a bit of a turn moving onto side B. First, there’s a cover of “Diamond Head,” a Ventures song. I had never heard of it before. I’ve lived in Japan a long time, but not long enough to get into The Ventures. I assume I’ll get there at some point. In case you didn’t know, The Ventures were INSANELY popular in Japan, second only to The Beatles. If the wiki for this song is to be believed, it was the first song to sell one million copies in the country. When people think of the phrase “big in Japan,” the first band that comes to mind shouldn’t be Cheap Trick, it shouldn’t be Mr. Big, it should be The Ventures.

Anyways, I’ve only listened to the original a handful of times after listening to this version. They’re quite different to the point that I didn’t think that they were the same song at first. Matsutake uses the synth like a bass here to good effect, giving it some great percussive energy.

Then there’s a cover of The Beatles “Something.” I have so many covers of “Something.” I have a version played on bamboo flute that I like quite a bit. I have a baroque arrangement by a group called Tokyo Solisten. I have two versions by Shirley Bassey. “Something.” It’s a good song. It’s really hard to fuck up “Something”. Good news, Matsutake and company don’t fuck up “Something.” But there’s only so much you can do with it. It’s fine.

I really like what comes next, however, a cover of “El Condor Pasa,” a Peruvian orchestral song made famous by Simon & Garfunkel. Apparently it was really popular in Japan, because this is the fourth cover I have that’s performed by a Japanese artist. I have a cover by funk musician Akira Ishikawa, one by Tomita, and another by koto (Japanese harp) performer Tadao Sawai. Much like “Something,” it’s a very hard song to screw up. The melody is so powerful and haunting. A basic cover of the tune is going to earn you an easy B+ at the least.

This cover is fantastic. While the main melody is playing on the synthesizer, the koto and flute do a lot of work, and it really transforms the song. This song has always made me think of Morricone, listening to other versions I always imagine a cowboy wandering the desert or something similar. This one evokes the image of a lone samurai wandering the Japanese countryside, sword in one hand…and possibly a keytar in the other.

We go back even further in time after that, with a medley of “Rhythm of the Rain” and “Johnny Angel,” the former by The Cascades and the latter made famous by Shelley Fabares. This is some real golden oldies stuff, pre-Beatles pop tracks from the early 60s. Honestly, not my thing and this doesn’t do much to change that. However, the medley still piqued my interest due to the opening that Matsutake plays on the synth. It’s there for just a second, but you listen to that and tell me that you don’t hear at least the glint of the opening to Yellow Magic Orchestra’s “Behind The Mask.”

Am I crazy? I totally hear it. The earliest version of “Behind The Mask” is from 1978, used for a Seiko watch commercial, and Matsutake worked on that version as well. It would not surprise me if he took the sounds he created for this album and applied them there.

And finally we close with a cover of “Love Me Tender,” another song that I’ve never been a big fan of, but I enjoy what they do with it. Who knew that an Elvis Presley song could be improved with concurrent synth and koto melodies playing along a synth drumbeat and a funky-ass bassline? Makes me want to hear more synth covers of songs Elvis made famous. And honestly, given the shocking number of Beatles-themed synthesizer albums, I’m surprised that isn’t more of a thing.

My copy of this also includes some liner notes. While my boyfriend can speak English and does translate things for me from time to time, the notes here are pretty massive. I went ahead and used Google Translate on them, which is better than nothing. My boyfriend says the translation gets the point across. You can read the translated notes here and here. If you want to read the untranslated original notes, you can see those here and here. I know that machine translation is no substitute for a real human doing it, but I wanted to get this post up relatively quickly.

Give this one a listen and let me know what you think of it. I’ll probably be sharing some albums similar to it later this year. I actually got really lucky since I started writing this post and stumbled upon two other super-early Japanese electronic albums, including what I think is Matsutake’s first ever credited release!

Matsutake released one more album under the Oriental Mechanic Band moniker, Sonic Syncopation, which came out the year after this release. I’m going to try and track that one down and if I find it I’ll be sure to share it here as well.

Posted in Complete Albums, Hideki Matsutake | No Comments »

Ozzy’s Lost Live EP

Friday, August 1st, 2025

Just Say Ozzy (Click here for a complete album download)

As I write this, it’s been a little over a week since Ozzy Osbourne left us, and it still doesn’t seem real. Ozzy just felt like someone who would always be here. And it’s not just because he was a seemingly invincible madman powered by liquor and cocaine. He was just an overpowering presence in the world, as both a musician and a media personality. I was born in 1979, so I have only known a world where Ozzy was a goddamn motherfucking superstar; the biggest name in metal for over 40 years. No one name will forever be more synonymous with “fucking metal” than “Ozzy.” Even if you removed the entirety of his work with Black Sabbath, the band that literally invented the genre, Ozzy would still be one of the most important people in heavy metal music who ever lived thanks to some of the best popular heavy metal tracks of the 80s and 90s, and even in to the 21st century; and his last two albums were fantastic.

I’ll be mourning the Prince of Darkness for a long time. Thankfully I have a lot of his music to remember him by. So far I’ve been listening to a lot of Sabbath as well as his last two albums, as well as Ozzmosis. However, I haven’t really touched most of his 80s output after his second album. Shockingly, I didn’t own any of it. I owned it at one point, but I must have sold all of it for some reason, and before I was ripping all my CDs to my computer.

Well, thankfully I fixed that problem today. I went out and bought Speak of the Devil, The Ultimate Sin, and No Rest for the Wicked. I can’t wait to dive back into them. It’s been literal decades since I gave any of them a proper listen, so it will be like discovering them all over again.

I know that Ozzy’s mid-80s output isn’t considered a highlight by most people. Metal went pop/glam in the 1980s and Ozzy went along with it for a while, that’s for sure. His hair sure as shit got big for a few videos, and the man wasn’t afraid to don the sequins when on tour with the likes of Motley Crue.But I dig this shit. In the past few years I’ve gotten really into metal, to the point where I started buying 80s glam metal albums I previously scoffed at. And it’s just so fun. So upbeat. It’s hard to hate on it too much now. Besides, it just fucking sounds great. If you’re a fan of well-produced rock music, you can’t get much sleeker than this shit. And for some that might be a negative, but I ain’t too good for pop in my heavy metal, and you shouldn’t be either.

Just Say Ozzy is a live EP that came out in 1990. I read some (all negative) contemporaneous reviews of the release, and many of them juxtapose that the album was quickly hobbled together as a way to keep Ozzy’s name in the spotlight as he took a break for rehab. I don’t think Ozzy’s ever said much about the release, so it’s hard to say what the real motivations behind the EP were. In the album liner notes, he just says that it was the label’s decision to release the mini-album and that he was initially against it; but he changed his mind because he was happy with the performance and his band.

But there’s a bit of mystery behind this one, a lot of speculation online about when this album was recorded and just how “live” it actually is. In the original US and UK releases, the back cover claims that the album was recorded at Brixton Academy in 1989, but Ozzy didn’t play Brixton Academy in 1989, so…what gives? I’ve read some discussions online that suggest it was recorded almost entirely in the studio with the audience added in post. To be honest, it does kind of sound like that’s the case. I own a lot of live albums from this era, very few sound as crisp and clean as this one.

However, in my late-90s Japanese CD re-issue there are liner notes by legendary Japanese rock journalist Masa-Itoh, and he claims that the songs were taken from a concert at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia (which is really in Upper Darby). He also says that this concert was “streamed to home TV screens using the groundbreaking pay-per-view system.” (according to Google translate, but my Japanese boyfriend confirms this translation), and that’s just crazy. Late-80s/early-90s PPV was nuts, man.

Well, that concert has been preserved in its entirety on YouTube, so it’s easy to compare and contrast the versions here with that footage. They definitely sound different, at the very least, it’s a different mix of the same recording. Crowd noise has been damped drastically during the tracks, and fake crowd noise has been added between songs, most likely to ease the transitions between the songs. Ozzy’s banter has also been removed or changed too. In the video, you can hear Ozzy saying things like “c’mon clap you hands!” during the intro, those interjections have been removed for the CD, with the intros to many songs being shortened as well.

But it roughly sounds like the same performance to me. Zakk’s first solo on “A Shot In The Dark” sounds nearly identical on both versions. I bet there were substantial overdubs done, especially to Ozzy’s vocals, but this is probably more live than not. Also, I’ve read some reviews of this online that criticize Zakk Wylde’s playing, citing various mistakes he makes during solos. My ear is not good enough to pick those up, but if those mistakes do exist, I doubt Zakk would’ve made mistakes like them during a tight studio recording.

Regardless of the album’s authenticity, it still captures Ozzy’s live energy, and I feel it’s worth a listen if for no other reason than the line-up that’s supporting Ozzy on it. Just Say Ozzy is the first live Ozzy release to feature Zakk Wylde on lead guitar, who of course would stay as Ozzy’s guitarist for most of his career from this point on. The EP is also the live debut of Randy Castillo, who played on most of Ozzy’s 80s output and on 1991’s No More Tears (he’s also on the 1993 live album, LIve & Loud, alongside Wylde).

Most notably, however, is that this is the only official live Ozzy solo release that features Geezer Butler from Black Sabbath on bass (save for one track on Live & Loud as part of a Black Sabbath reunion set). Butler would later play again with Ozzy on Ozzzmosis, but didn’t join him for the tour.

Just Say Ozzy has been out-of-print for the majority of this century. The same goes for The Ultimate Sin and Live & Loud. There’s been no official reason as to why this is, but a lot of people contribute it to a songwriting dispute over “A Shot in the Dark.” Gonna guess it involves Sharon being Sharon.

However, while The Ultimate Sin and Live & Loud are available on most streaming services; Just Say Ozzy has completely vanished from the digital realm. I’m sure there are bootleg streams on YouTube and such, but if you’re like most people who aren’t me in the year 2025 and consuming your music entirely via streaming services, you aren’t going to find this one on any of them – which is why I feel fairly safe in sharing it here.

Again, this isn’t essential Ozzy by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a solid little release. Wylde’s solo for War Pigs slaps pretty hard. The drumming is super-aggressive and gives the show a lot of energy, and I think that the live versions of “Miracle Man” and “A Shot in the Dark” surpass their studio rivals. I hope that more live releases from this era (and others, I’d love a Retirement Sucks live album) get released.

RIP Ozzy. Fuckin’ metal.

Posted in Complete Albums | No Comments »

Dorf goes Techno

Monday, June 2nd, 2025

It’s been a minute since my last post, but I think this might be the shortest time between posts since 2022! So that’s something!

How’s everyone doing these days?

Sorry to hear that, yeah, me too.

Anyways, this site is still broken. If you leave a comment I’ll be able to read it but it won’t show up on the site. Sorry about that. I’m hoping to get that fixed very soon. I found someone online who said they’re willing to help. In the meantime, if you really want to reach out to me, give me a shout on Blue Sky.

I did manage to resurrect my YouTube channel with semi-regular updates! You should check it out! I’ve done some videos about records I recently bought, did deep dives on Mario and Zelda soundtracks, and even did some angry YouTube bullshit whining about AI. (Guess which video was the most popular.)

Right now, I’m doing a series where I rank literally every movie I’ve ever seen. Of all the projects I’ve done on YouTube, it’s by far the one I’m most happy about. I really enjoy making the videos. They give me a chance to talk about a lot of movies that no one has ever heard of, which is one of my favorite things to do, and I feel that it’s a unique concept that not many people have attempted before. No one is watching the videos, but I’m going to keep doing them!

Shit, no one reads this blog either but that’s rarely fucking stopped me. Remember that I also have a podcast. Some people do actually seem to listen to that, so that’s nice.

Tonight, a complete album by a band you have, without a doubt in my mind, ever heard of. Gee, for some reason I can really identify with bands that are completely forgotten and no one care about. Go figure.

 

Dorf – Compact Dorf (Click here to download the album)

One of my favorite record stores in Tokyo is the Disk Union in Shinjuku. It is seven stories tall, and each floor has a different theme. In my 10+ years in this country, the first floor has changed layouts multiple times. It used to be the new release floor. Then it became an ill-fated cafe that I think I never once set foot in. That was a waste of floor space, let me tell you. A couple years ago, it was renovated again into an all anime and game music store.

Have you ever seen Hostel? You know that scene where the dipshit protagonist stumbles upon the snuff house and he bumps into the Japanese guy (Takeshi Miike)?

 

Yeah, it’s kind of like that for me. It’s a problem, is what I’m saying. They know me by name. I’m the Norm of that store.

Last week they had a sale. I bought a lot of CDs. I bought TWO soundtracks to TWO different Space Invader games that I didn’t even know existed. I bought the soundtrack to the Nintendo DS Araknoid game. I bought the soundtrack to the original Tekken (it has dub remixes). I bought the soundtrack to something called 1997 Nostalgia. I don’t even know what the fuck that is, but I liked the cover and it was ¥500 so I was like, “fuck it who cares.” Turns out it’s the soundtrack to some MSX game and it has a real dope mid-90s MIDI vibe.

I also bought this. Also because it was about ¥500. And I liked the minimalist vibes of the cover art. Really clean 90s Designers’ Republic shit. It looks like something the art team from Bungie would plagiarize, that’s how cool it is.

This is Compact Dorf by the band Dorf.

Bad band name. Bad album name. Really good music though!

The music is a bit hard to describe. Although maybe that’s just because I haven’t written about music in a few years now and I’m out of practice, who knows. It’s very much electronic music, that much I can say. There are no guitars here. It’s all synths, keyboards, drum machines, and samples. Some of the tracks have vocals, but nearly all of them are processed through vocoders and other electronic effects. I can’t even tell if they’re singing in Japanese or English.

Tracks like “Datum” and “The Link” have big Kraftwerk vibes, with bouncy beats and robot vocals, while songs like “Zeitgeist” give me YMO energy, with an emphasis on traditional Japanese-sounding melodies. What makes the album really stand out, however, is the heavy chiptune sound. I’m sure that most of this was composed and performed on synths both modular and electric, but the whole album feels like it was arranged using sound libraries from Super Nintendo games.

And that’s really something because this album came out in 1996, and according to the one page I can find on the band, they formed in 1990! I have no idea what their earlier stuff sounds like, but if it’s anything like this I feel safe in saying that these guys were light years ahead of their time. What’s the earliest chiptune artist you can think of? Bit Shifter? Anamanaguchi? YMCK? These guys predate all of them by at least a decade. They even precede Polysics, whose chiptune meets Devo sound didn’t start to make waves until the second half of the 90s.

I was so stoked to discover this! You know how hard it is to find genuinely obscure music these days? It feels like everything’s not only been discovered at this point, it’s all on Spotify with YouTube essays about it and vinyl re-issues from Light In the Attic getting pressed. And not only is this genuinely obscure, it’s really good! It’s one of my favorite albums that I found this year! I can’t believe this has just fallen through the cracks like this. It’s probably because the album was self-released. And with the band kaput, there’s no one around to re-publish it or get it online in any way.

I am surprised that there’s almost nothing about them online, however. All I can find is on that one page, and a sole live performance from 2005 uploaded to YouTube.

From what I can gather on that page, the group went through several lineup changes both before and after this album. On Compact Dorf, they were a trio; the members being Okuno Terushige, Komaba Mikiya, and Yamazaki Yasunori.

I did a bit of digging on those names. Yamazaki Yasunori is on Discogs. Apparently after he left Dorf he went on to form an electronic duo called Uni. This was in the early 2000s. It appears he hasn’t released much music since then. He has a Soundcloud but there’s nothing on it.

I also found Komaba Mikiya on Discogs. He’s released several albums online under the name Komaba. It sounds a lot like Dorf, albeit with a bit less of the video game influence and more of a general “electronica” sound. I dig what I’ve heard.

As for Okuno Terushige, I got nothing.

Again, going back to that sole page with information on the group, I see that they have a few other releases, but a lot of them are tape only. I have no idea how to even begin a search to track those down. There are stores in Japan that sell old cassette tapes, but they don’t carry stuff like this: they’re more down to charge you $50 for a Billy Ocean tape or some bullshit. I guess I’m going to have to start scouring Japanese auction websites. I just know I need more of this band in my life. I hope you give this a listen and feel the same way.

Posted in Complete Albums | No Comments »

Non-music from Japan, music from a Japanese band, and horror disco

Wednesday, December 6th, 2023

Oy.

Yeah so I hoped to write more in 2023 but that sure as shit didn’t work out huh?

So what had happened was my health got worse, my podcast work got more intense, my work got busier, my social life got more hectic, and I spent about a month in the states, which ended up exacerbating several of my health problems.

(Don’t worry, none of my health issues are life-threatening and I am currently seeing multiple medical professionals to improve my health. Also, I can afford all of this, so no need to offer donations or any financial support).

In addition to all of that, this was the year it finally happened: I couldn’t find anything out-of-print worth sharing here. You know my policy; for me to share something on this blog it has to be out-of-print in the majority of the English speaking world. Sure, I would occasionally bend the rules now and then, but after my Warner Bros/YouTube bullshit copyright battle, I’m extra careful now.

I guess I could have scoured the prog store from some ultra-obscure European jazz-rock album or something that has never been re-issued, but I learned a long time ago that whenever I buy music simply because it’s out-of-print, with the intent of sharing it here, it’s rarely something I have any interest in writing about.

But recently I got lucky with three releases that I am 99% sure have songs that are 100% out-of-print, at least in the forms I’m sharing today. And they’re not video game music! They’re proper songs (well, some of them) by artists you might have actually heard of.

I actually do have a few other out-of-print albums that I want to share at some point, but I am making zero promises as to when I will actually do that. Sorry. Life. It’s in the way. Hopefully my health will improve so I can dedicate more time to writing once more.

In the meantime, if you’re really hankering for any written word by yours truly, your best bet would probably be to check out my Letterboxd page. I review every movie I watch. Sure, sometimes it’s just a sentence or two, but sometimes it’s a bit more in-depth. Typical rule of thumb: the more obscure the title is, the more likely I am to write more on it. I’m not going to go deep on something like Robocop when I watch that. Everything that can be said about Robocop has been said. I have nothing to add to that discourse.

Additionally, I am still on Twitter (sigh) and I’m also on Blue Sky. As always, those remain the best way to keep in touch with me, especially since the comment section on this website is now broken. I had to close all comments because I was getting inundated with spam and no filters were able to fix the problems. Sorry about that.

And there’s the podcast! Cinema Oblvia is still going strong! I had to cut down my production schedule a bit, again because of my health, but I’m still putting out at least one episode a month. And I feel pretty safe in saying that I’ll be able to keep that going for a while now. It’s hard work, but I enjoy it more than anything I’m doing at the moment.

If you listen to my podcast and you want to hear more of my absolutely lovely voice that no one at all finds weird or irritating, I was recently on an episode of Gayest Episode Ever talking about Benson, and was also recently on Retronauts talking about Night of the Living Dead, a film that traumatized me so much as a child that I needed to go to therapy because of it. You can find those wherever you get your podcasts. You can find my podcast on most podcast places/apps/websites/whatever as well. Except for Spotify. Because fuck that company.

Have a good new year! I’ll see you here at some point in 2024, that much I can promise.

 

Fred Myrow and Macolm Seagrave
Phantasm Disco
Okay, so there are two different songs called “Phantasm Disco” that incorporate the theme from the 1979 film Phantasm. Yes, really.

One is by an artist called Captain Zorro, which is actually a pseudonym for the disco producer Biddu. People seem to really like that version, but I’ve never come across a physical copy of that 12” single. I would buy it in a heartbeat.

This is not that version, this is a version by the people who composed the music from the film, Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave. In fact, a version of this track is on the Phantasm soundtrack proper, under the name “Phantasmagoria Silver Sphere Disco.” It’s a mix of two different tracks, actually, a spacey, creepy ambient bit followed by the disco tune.

This version is on a 7” single that completely removes the “Phantasmagoria” bits and extends the disco section. I think this version might be on the original Phantasm LP? But I don’t think it’s on the Mondo re-issue from a few years back, as that version (with both parts) is shorter than the 7” single version.

I love the fact that Japan had an exclusive 7” single for the theme to Phantasm and the B-side was an exclusive remix of an album track. Because…why?

If you haven’t seen Phantasm and you like beautiful, surreal horror films that aren’t that scary and don’t make a lick of fucking sense, I recommend it. Someday I’ll get around to watching the multitude of sequels and no doubt be disappointed by all of them.

 

Yellow Magic Orchestra – The YMO Micro Sampler
A Message From YMO
Tighten Up With Excerpts From The Snakeman Show…
Edited Selections From X∞ Multiplies (Nice Age, Technopolis, Rydeen, Behind The Mask, Day Tripper)
I have so many YMO albums, singles, re-issues, appearances, and compilations that Discogs has just straight up given up counting them. This is the latest acquisition in my YMO collection, and one that I was trying to find for a very long time.

It’s a five inch record that was distributed as a promo item exclusively in America to promote the group. It came out in 1980, probably around the time that the export version of X∞ Multiplies was released. In Japan, that album was an EP that had both comedy skits and some previously unreleased tunes by the group. Europe and the United States each got exclusive versions that combined songs from their previous albums with some new tunes. The US version of X∞ Multiplies is actually how I discovered the group, buying it in a used record store probably close to 20 years ago. It’s a safe bet that me discovering that record led me on the road that ended with me moving to Japan, which means that my mom probably hates that record.

This promo has three tracks, a very short 15 second intro, followed by two very short medleys of YMO tracks, oddly with excerpts from the Japanese only version of X∞ Multiplies edited in. As a thing to listen to it’s not that great, but as a historical curiosity for maniac YMO fans like myself, it’s fun.

 

David Sylvian – 日本語シートレコード (Japanese Sheet Record)
Adolescent Sex = 果てしなき反抗 (Version 1)
Adolescent Sex = 果てしなき反抗 (Version 2)
Lovers On Main Street = 表通りの愛人たち
Suburban Love = 愛の回転木馬
Speaking of things that are interesting from a historical standpoint but maybe not the best listening material…

This is the strangest thing I’ve bought all year, and I bought a lot of stupid shit this year. I found it in a used hardware store for about ¥500, and I bought it without knowing what it was because it was ¥500 and I like Japan (the band, I mean, I like the country too but anyways).

But this is not a Japan record. This is David Sylvian only. And he’s not playing any music. Instead, he’s reading Japanese lyrics to Japan songs. The lyrics were submitted by Japanese fans of the band, and they are not translations of the original lyrics, but new original lyrics that are meant to convey the musical mood of the original songs. At least, that’s what the Discogs page says. (Also, for the record, all the art for today’s post was taken from Discogs, my records are currently packed up for an upcoming move.)

I have not bothered to translate these lyrics, and I haven’t asked my boyfriend either, he has more important things to do. Sorry, but it’s already been nearly a year since my last post. If I had put it off until we had time to translate this, I might not have posted anything again until the 2030s, sigh.

 

Posted in Complete Albums, Japan, Yellow Magic Orchestra | No Comments »

Merry Christmas With Double Dragon

Saturday, December 24th, 2022

Hey this thing still works, cool.

Wanted to get one more post out before the year was up. I know that a lot of you who still read this site (thank you) aren’t all that into video game music, but I’ve been meaning to share this for a long time now, and it’s what I really want to write about, so either it’s this or several more months of radio silence.

Before we get to the music, hey, hi, how’s it going? It’s been a busy year for me. Cinema Oblivia, my movie podcast, is still going strong so I hope you all check if out if you can! Unfortunately, we had to call it a day on Alexander’s Ragtime Band, the amount of work involved in researching, recording, and editing was just too much for us. Hopefully it will be able to return someday.

The same goes for my YouTube channel. I really like filming YouTube videos! Unfortunately, I really hate editing YouTube videos, and I REALLY hate doing voiceover on YouTube videos. I’m trying to think of ways to streamline the process. I don’t know how people like Techmoan can bang out multiple videos a month. Must be easier when it’s your full-time job. I do mean to get back into it soon though, I keep getting new subscribers! I have nearly 700 people following me on that hellsite now, I feel that I owe it to them to update with something sometime soon. Maybe over the holiday break?

Speaking of hellsites, I’m still on Twitter. As I write this I’m coming off of a 12 hour “twitter timeout” for saying that cisgender people commit more crimes than transpeople (yes really). I vowed to quit that shitshow multiple times, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. If nothing else, I need to use Twitter to find guests for my podcast. I also follow a billion Japanese record stores too, and how the hell else am I going to know when a copy of Capcom Game Music Vol. 3 is available on vinyl at a Hard-Off on the outskirts of Tokyo? That’s important shit.

Anyways, as I’ve said before, this blog isn’t going anywhere even if updates have slowed to a glacial pace. Thanks for sticking around in 2022 and I hope to get more written in 2023.

Now, let’s talk about game music on tape.

Original Sound of Double Dragon Arcade Version

For those who don’t know, Akihabara is an area in Tokyo that’s well-known the world over for its abundance of “nerd” friendly stores. Most of the biggest electronics stores are there, as are several stores dedicated to other geekly delights such as action figures, comic books, video games, and hardcore pornography of both the animated and live-action varieties.

Of the gaming stores, the most famous is Super Potato. It’s a really good store, don’t get me wrong. But for me, the best store in the Akihabara is Beep, a much smaller store located a bit off the main drag. It’s a tiny basement, and most of the store is dedicated to things I have no interest in, such as vintage Japanese computers and arcade game boards. But I still try to make my way to the store every week or so because they have often great game music releases that I never see anywhere else.

I got a crazy selection of vintage flexi discs taken from old game magazines there, for example. I also bought from them about about three dozen game music releases on motherfucking cassette tape.

I’m not saying I don’t have a problem, okay? I know I have a problem.

Most of them don’t even have any unique or original music. And I even owned quite a few of them on CD and LP. But…they’re tapes! Yeah, they sound like garbage, cost too much, and I’m probably only going to listen to them a handful of time at most, but…they’re tapes! They look cool. Sound bad. Look cool.

But I did pick up a few that were legit rare, with some honest-to-goodness hard to find tracks. Like this Double Dragon tape, for example.

This is the soundtrack to the original Double Dragon arcade game. The game came out in 1987, this tape came out in 1988. It was never released on LP, only on this tape and on a mini-CD that I have never found anywhere ever – not even online.

While it calls itself an arcade soundtrack, the tape is comprised entirely of arranged versions that I think are unique to this release only. At least, I’m pretty sure. The tracks aren’t on any other Double Dragon soundtrack release I have (and I have a lot, trust me).

They’re really good too! They all have that unique, 80s video game sound, just punched up just a bit. They sound too good to be authentic to 80s game hardware, but still sound like game music.  This version of the main theme fucking slaps. And I really dig the version of “The Battle Is Over” and “Forest” too. “Forest” hits especially hard. Sounds like music from a lost 80s ninja flick like New York Ninja (you should watch New York Ninja, by the way).

Another stand-out, simply for how batshit bizarre it sounds, is “Abobo the Giant Appears,” which is a remix of the main theme comprised entirely of sound effects from the game. Imagine Art of Noise covering Double Dragon. Bonkers shit.

It also came with this rad double-sided poster with liner notes. Love the artwork on this.

And it’s nice to know that I am, canonically, the same height as Abobo.

Anyways, Merry Christmas, happy holidays, all that jazz. I’ll be back next year at some point – I promise.

Posted in Complete Albums, Game Music | No Comments »

Synthetic Space – Early Japanese Synthesizer Tunes

Thursday, July 8th, 2021

I’ve been meaning to post this for over a year now. I kept putting it off because I wanted to do more research, or even pay someone to translate the liner notes. But I realized that it’s more important for the music to get out there than it is for me to spend literal months reading machine translated Japanese webpages, hoping to find tiny morsels of info that a small handful of people might find moderately interesting. So here it is.

Synthetic Space – Complete Album Download

Synthetic Space was released by RCA Japan in 1978. It is a collection of synthesizer music created mostly be amateurs or non-professionals. They were the winners of a contest that was sponsored by a Japanese magazine called Weekly Playboy, of no relation to actual Playboy. From what I found online, judges for the contest included members of the early synth act The Bach Revolution, and synthesizer pioneer Isao Tomita, who also served as the album’s producer.

There are some notable people on this compilation.

Track one is credited to three people, one of which is Makoto Inoue. He was a member of Hikashu, a very strange kind of post-punk, experimental act that formed in the late 70s and released several interesting albums in the early 80s. He’s also a member of Inoyama Land, an ambient act that was on Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Yen Records in the 80s. Their debut album, Danzindan-Pojidon, is a masterpiece. Inoue is also the person behind the Godzilla Legend albums, amazing compilations featuring unique adaptations of music from Godzilla movies. I highly recommend those. Inoue’s track on this album, “Sunset World,” serves as the album’s opener. It’s a highlight, a fantastic, slightly creepy, track with a slight industrial bent.

Another major player in the Japanese electronic scene who is present on this album is Susumu Hirasawa, who is the main songwriter, guitarist, vocalist, and synth player for P-Model, a hugely influence Japanese post-punk synth-pop act from the late-70s and early-80s. While YMO was taking synthesizers and using them to craft elegant, sophisticated pop music ala The Human League, P-Model were much more interested in combining synths with more out-there and abrasive sounds. They’re much more in line with acts like Devo or early Talking Heads, really crazy stuff. His track on here is called “Cosmic Dancer.” It is of no relation to the T-Rex track. It kicks ass.

There might be some other people of note on this compilation, but I can’t seem to find any. The Discogs pages for most of them are completely blank. Hell, for a few it’s even hard to judge how to pronounce their names. Kanji names can have different pronunciations, and with no English frame of reference to go by on a few of these, I just left their names in kanji to play it safe.

This is early synthesizer music, and while a lot of those collections of early synth music skew towards the atonal, experimental, and avant-garde, this one is much more listener-friendly. Yeah, it’s a bit out-there at times, but most of these songs are recognizable as songs, really good songs at that. I would not be surprised if everyone involved with this record went on to work in the recording industry, if not as performers like Inoue and Hirasawa, then as behind-the-scenes engineers or producers. This is awesome stuff. It’s also insanely rare and from what I can tell, I’m the first person to share the complete album online.

I actually have another album like this, also comprised of contest winners. I hope to get that one up sometime this year. I promise.

 

Posted in Complete Albums | 4 Comments »

Enka Synths

Sunday, April 4th, 2021

I hope you’re not sick of me talking about my podcast, Cinema Oblivia, because I’m about to talk about my podcast, Cinema Oblivia.

Sorry (not sorry).

The podcast has actually been going pretty well. It’s not setting the world on fire or anything like that, but I didn’t expect it to, especially out of the gate. I’ve been really happy with every episode so far. It’s been a while since my last post here, and I’ve put up quite a few episodes since then.

On March 18, Madeline Koestner and I talked about William Friedkin’s amazing forgotten film Sorcerer, a wild flick about a group of goons transporting nitroglycerin through a South American hellscape. It’s a fantastic movie (with a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream!) and you should totally watch it (and listen to that episode). After that Emma Buntrock-Miller joined me to discuss Brian De Palma’s wacked-out horror-musical Phantom of The Paradise. This movie stars Paul Williams and was a major influence on Daft Punk, so if that sounds cool to you, maybe check it out.

Last week I put up the strangest episode to date. Dr. Sparkle of Chrontendo fame called me up to talk about Seeds, a batshit crazy movie by the late not-so-great Andy Milligan. Even if you haven’t heard of that movie (and let’s be real, you probably haven’t) I think the episode is well worth a listen; we dive into some pretty cool topics like lost films and gay underground cinema.

I’ve already recorded the bulk of the episodes that are going up in April and I’m excited to share them with you. This week Shane Bettenhausen and I talk about the disco nightmare that is The Apple, and the following week an old friend of mine joins me to discuss the 1983 video game sex comedy (yes, really), Joysticks. After that, Erik Pepple, a film scholar and another old friend of mine, comes on for the first Cinema Oblivia double-feature, Rad and BMX Bandits! And finally, I’m very excited to say that I’m closing out the month talking about one of my all-time favorite movies, Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia. Joining me on that episode is none other than Giant Bomb’s own Alex Navarro! Wow!

Let’s celebrate with the most obscure album I’ve ever shard on this site. Seriously. I think it’s the all-time winner.

Beautiful Shateau & Synthesizer
The Charm of Synthesizer: Japanese Melody (Complete Album download)

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while now. I keep saying to myself that I’m going to dig deep and try to uncover more about it, but each time I try, I turn up with nothing. Here’s what I know.

This is a very early project by Matsutake Hideki, aka Logic System. I’ve written about him before, (hell, I even met him once). He was the synthesizer programmer on the early Yellow Magic Orhestra albums, and he’s had quite the career aside from that both as a solo artist and a studio musician. Here, he’s working under the odd (and incorrectly spelled) name of Beautiful Shateau & Synthesizer.

From what I can gather, Matsutake released three albums under this name; Synthesizer 美しき日本の抒情; シンセサイザーが奏でる日本の名歌 – 都会の夜; and this one The Charm of Synthesizer: Japanese Melody. Again, from what I can tell, the first two were issued on LP, while this may have been a cassette only release. There may have been more “Shateau” albums too, I just don’t know.

I’m sorry for the all the caveats and uncertainty, but I literally can find zero information on these albums online in English. And what little I managed to find in Japanese haven’t been much of a help. Again, I can’t even find release dates on these albums. That’s insanely rare for Japanese albums. Most Japanese records print the release date on the cover, down to the day of the week. I don’t know why these are so lacking. I’m sure some of you are saying “well, just go to Discogs,” but they don’t have the release dates either. And trust me, I would know since I entered most of the data and took all of the pictures for all of the releases on the Discogs page!

However, one of the “Shateau” tracks did appear on the Logic System box set that came out a couple years back. On there, the track was given a release date of 1976. That’s the same year that Matsutake released his very first album under his own name, alongside fellow Japanese synthesizer pioneer Tsuneaki Tone, Pop Memories on Moog III. Again though, I really should caveat that with another maybe. There is a “III” in that album’s name, after all. They could have recorded something even before that. Still, I feel that it’s safe to say that the “Shateau” releases probably came out no earlier than 1975, and no later than 1977. These albums are very simple.  By 1978 he was experimenting with more complex arrangements, and in the following year he was working with YMO on their debut record.

All the songs on all the Shateau albums are covers of enka songs. Enka is a genre of music that’s often described as “traditional Japanese pop music” and I guess that’s accurate. It’s very pre-rock type stuff. Almost exclusively ballads. It’s the kind of shit that Japanese grandparents just fucking go apeshit for. Obviously, I’m not familiar with the original versions of any of these tracks. So I can’t tell you how many liberties Matsutake is taking with the source material. Given how barren and simple these tracks are though, I feel it’s safe to say that these are probably relatively faithful to the original versions, just like a lot of other early synthesizer covers of pop tunes.

Despite my complete lack of cultural awareness for anything on this album, I do really enjoy listening to it. Most enka songs are usually sad or melancholy, and it translates really well to the minimal arrangements that Matsutake put forth on all of these releases. They’re all so bizarre, like music out of time, obviously very old but recorded in a (then) very new way. Listening to them transports me to another reality, a retro-futuristic world where everyone is dressed like 1950s gangsters, but somehow all have cyberpunk gear hooked up to their trench coats. It’s detached and unfamiliar to anything else I’ve ever heard. It’s so my jam.

None of the Shateau albums I have sound particularly great from an audio perspective, sadly. The records are all pretty banged up, and this tape has seen better days too. Of the lot, I think this tape rip is the best though. It’s a little muddled, and there’s a weird audio glitch in one track that I just couldn’t remove, but overall it’s very clean and clear. I prefer a slightly muddy recording to a heavily scratched one, that’s for sure. If the quality bothers you, I recommend listening on your speakers instead of headphones, it sounds better that way for sure.

Let me know what you think of this one in the comments. I know it’s really out there, but I it’s so fascinating to me.

 

Posted in Complete Albums, Logic System | 2 Comments »

The Funky Monkey Magic of Donkey Konga’s Hottest Hits

Thursday, January 28th, 2021

I’ve been in and out of lockdown since March, but the one I’m currently in has been the hardest, and is soon entering its third month. And since Japan has not even approved a vaccine yet (because racism and stupidity), who knows when it will end.

What I’m saying is, the longer I can’t leave my house, the more likely it is I keep buying shit like this on Discogs. You can decide whether or not that’s good or bad.

Donkey Konga – The Hottest Hits
I never played Donkey Konga. It came out when I was living in a small apartment and had a roommate. Our relationship was already tumultuous, if I had started banging on plastic conga drums at all hours of the day he probably would’ve killed me. I love the idea though, and when its safe for me to go to Akihabara again and make regrettable purchases in person as opposed to online, who knows, I might pick it up. Does it even play nice on 4K TVs though?

I had no idea this album even existed. I stumbled upon it on Discogs just by typing “Nintendo” in the search field and digging through the results. Apparently it was a promo release that was included with some copies of a Nintendo magazine in Europe. It’s a very short CD. While it has seven tracks in total, each of them are very brief, leading to just a paltry 13 minutes of music, which is why I just went ahead and uploaded the whole thing.

 

The tracks included are:

  • Super Smash Bros. Melee Theme
  • Donkey Kong Country Theme
  • DK Rap
  • Donkey Konga Theme
  • Super Mario Bros. Theme
  • Rainbow Cruise
  • The Legend of Zelda Theme

Some of these are new arrangements, while others are just slightly modified or abbreviated edits of previously available versions. The Smash Bros. Melee Theme is similar to the original, from what I can tell. The DK Rap also doesn’t sound that different, although it is shorter. It cuts out after the third version. You can decide for yourself if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I think the Donkey Konga Theme and Rainbow Cruise tracks are identical to their original versions that appeared in their respective games also.

However, the Donkey Kong Country Theme seems to be a new arrangement, it’s definitely CD quality audio and not a rip from the SNES game, that’s for sure. It’s a fun take on the theme too, very big band in the way that many of Nintendo’s themes are when they get a proper CD release.

For me, the real highlights of this disc are the arrangements of the music from Zelda and Super Mario Bros. I think that both are original versions that were made for Donkey Konga, meaning that they were never released on any other CDs or games. As someone who has about a dozen different versions of the theme to Legend of Zelda, and god knows how many variations of the Super Mario Bros. Theme (official and otherwise) I can’t be 100% positive of that fact, but I’m fairly certain.

I really like both of these arrangements. They have that big band sound that I already mentioned, but they got a jazzy vibe to them. They’re a bit looser and goofier. This is especially the case with the Legend Of Zelda Theme. That’s not one that usually gets an upbeat, percussive, fun mix. Nintendo likes to treat that number with prestige and gravitas with a full orchestra more often than not. It certainly doesn’t often get remixed into a calypso jazz number. I imagine Link slaying some Moblins and then meeting up with Buster Poindexter for a conga line when I listen to this. Great stuff.

I have a lot of CD singles and other weird shit coming from Discogs soon. Some video game music, some not. If you were jonesing for some old-school remix-focused posts like I used to do “back in the day” I have at least two of those planned as well.

As always, stay safe out there. May the Donkey Kongas give you the strength to go on.

Posted in Complete Albums, Game Music | 2 Comments »

Even more Japanese synthesizers, now with anime

Sunday, November 29th, 2020

My move to my new apartment is really kicking into high gear now. Since my new place is in the same building as my old place, I’ve been slowly moving a few things over everyday, as much as my back will allow. All my records are currently at my new place, as is my record player. This, coupled with a scary resurgence in COVID cases here in Tokyo, means that I can’t rip any LPs at the moment. Thankfully, I have an impressive backlog that I have to get through. However, nearly everything in said backlog is more weird-ass Japanese electronic shit. Or Madonna. So I hope you like stuff like this. Or Madonna. Cuz that’s what I have to offer in the immediate future.

 

Symphony Urusei Yatsura

I’m not all that into anime, at least not anymore. I was a teen in the mid-90s after all, so I was super into it then. I owned Akira on VHS tape, watched Ghost In The Shell a million times, rented weird random shit like Gunsmith Cats and Riding Beam, and even may have covertly sneaked out some “adult” anime out of my dad’s video store from time to time. But as anime got more omnipresent in the early 2000s, I checked out. I think the last series that I followed obsessively was Cowboy Bebop, and even then I didn’t finish it.

One anime that I always knew of, but never really engaged with, was Urusei Yatsura. I don’t know how, why, or when, I’ve just seemingly always known of its existence. Perhaps laserdiscs of it graced my local Suncoast Video back in the day, who knows.

I finally watched Beautiful Dreamer a couple years ago, the second and most widely regarded movie in the Urusei Yatsura series. It totally blew me away. Not only did it have an incredible story, but it was full of gorgeous, surreal images. I learned where 8 million vaporwave Tumblrs got their gifs from. I super recommend it. Even if you’re not an anime fan I’d say it’s worth checking out if you’re into sci-fi, philosophical films, or just weird shit.

However, I haven’t checked out any additional Urusei Yatsura content since then, which is a roundabout way of explaining that I don’t really know the origins of the music on this release. I know none of the tracks here were in Beautiful Dreamer, but I couldn’t tell you if they showed up in any other movies or OVAs from the series. There are a lot!

So what the heck is this exactly? Again…I don’t really know! It’s a very strange release. Like the Digital Trip albums that I love so much, I think it’s an all synthesizer re-imagining of music from Urursei Yatsura animations? Maybe? Or it could be a collection of entirely original music that just happens to have the Urusei Yatsura name on it. A lot of manga in the 80s had “soundtracks.” Bubble economy, yo. I tried to do a bit of research for this, and I came across some references to a laserdisc of the same name. It sounds like some sort of longform AMV, with scenes from various films and OVAs in the series set to music. I imagine this might be the soundtrack to said laserdisc. But, like I said, this is 90% speculation on my part. Like so much of what I’ve been sharing lately, English information is nearly nonexistent.

Whatever the source, I sure do dig it. Aside from what sound like authentic Japanese instruments, this is all synthesizer. And like so many synthesizer albums from Japan that were coming out at the time, it’s playful as hell. It bounces back and forth between styles and sound effects like a rubber ball on speed. One second its a ballistic industrial explosion reminiscent of early Art Of Noise, the next it’s a classical Japanese piece, before transforming again into something that sounds like a pastiche of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, then there’s ragtime! Why not!. It’s a mile a minute, never boring, and fantastic background music for writing or packing up multiple boxes of records. Trust me.

The album is credited to “Apricot Systematic,” but I think the real person behind the album was Fumitaka Anzai. In addition to his work on the Urusei Yatsura series, he not surprisingly contributed to the Digital Trip album series as well. He also was a member of TPO, a fantastic, batshit bizarre Japanese synthpop act from the early 80s. He was also a member of Crosswind, a better-than-average late-70s/early-80s progressive rock act.

If you listen to this and dig it. I suggest checking out some of the Digital Trip albums. I’ve mentioned them many times before, they’re fantastic digital synthesizer reworkings of classic anime themes. I featured the Lupin one here a few years back, and there are also excellent albums in the series that feature music from Nausica, Bubblegum Crisis, Gundam, and many other classic anime titles. They’re all out-of-print, but you can find some good ones on Discogs and Amazon Japan at more than fair prices.

In the meantime, enjoy this slice of Japanese 80s ephemera.

Posted in Apricot Systematic, Complete Albums | 2 Comments »

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