Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sandii & The Suntsetz and Sheena & The Rockets
Tighten Up/Idol Era/Baby Maybe
Haven’t found a YMO rarity in a while. I literally thought I bought all of them. According to Discogs, I currently have 80 releases that feature YMO as an artist, and I think that’s a conservative estimate thank to some Japanese-only releases that I have yet to add to that website.

Currently, YMO is celebrating their 40th anniversary with a re-issue campaign. While that would usually be a call for celebration, the YMO re-releases so far have been a complete travesty. Instead of focusing on collecting rarities, live material or unreleased material, they’re instead repackaging the albums as they were, just in overpriced “prestige audiophile” formats. Many of these releases cost upwards of $100, despite the fact that they lack anything in the way of bonus tracks. You’re buying a nice box and (allegedly) a nice-sounding record with some posters and other extraneous goods thrown in. Complete rip-off for sure. You know how inessential a YMO release has to be for me not to buy it? That’s really saying something.

I found this oddball remix/medley (which I doubt will ever see inclusion on any YMO re-issue) on the 1980 Alfa Special Disco Sampler, one of a series of records that Alfa Records sent to record stores in the late 70s to early 80s.

Of that bunch, this one is special because it’s the only one that features a unique mix, this medley of YMO and their two sister acts, Sandii & The Sunsetz and Sheena & The Rockets. If you don’t know anything about them, I suggest you read the “associated acts” section of my multi-part guide to YMO, where I cover both of these acts and many more!

Gil Trythall
Folsom Prison Blues
Harper Valley PTA
Yakety Moog
A Johnny Cash song sung through a vocoder is the kind of things that you didn’t know you wanted until you hear it.

These three tracks are from Country Moog, AKA Switched-On Nashville, which first came out in 1972. It’s one of the many, many (many many many) “Switched-On” knock-off records to be rushed to the market after the success of Wendy Carlos’ Switched-On Bach. It’s not the first “Switched-On” album I’ve featured here, and it will no doubt be the last, as I buy these things the instant any of them cross my path.

Of the Switched-On knock-offs in my possession, this is certainly…one of them. I was going to say that it’s unique, thanks to its blending of country pop and moog electronics, but I don’t even think that’s the case. I’m fairly certain that I own another country-themed moog record somewhere. If not, I’m sure such records exist. Hell, this isn’t even the only country-themed moog record by Gil Trythall, he followed it up with Nashville Gold a year later. That record has a cover of “Wichita Lineman” that I’m sure is just dope as fuck.

I don’t know much about ol’ Gil, other than the fact that he’s prolific enough to have his own Wikipedia page and is still kicking it at 88 years old. Go Gil! Hope you’re still plugging away with oddball covers of obscure country tracks when you’re not apparently working as a well-regarded avant-garde electronic music composer and educator.