As an 80s J-pop obsessive, I thought it would be cool to share some tracks which inspired me while I was writing Ice Choir’s recently released album, Designs In Rhythm. My bandmate Patrick South is even more of a geek about this stuff than I am and he actually turned me on to a bunch of the tracks on this mix. Ultimately, we compiled it together. Hope you enjoy! (If you like the mix, you can download it here.)
Tracklist:
1. Michiko Shimazaki — クロッカス・ヒルで逢いましょう (0:00)
2. Kedge — Chime (4:02)
3. Taeko Ohnuki — Les Aventures De Tintin (8:39)
4. Tsukasa Ito — お願いスピルバーグ (13:10)
5. Tomoko Tane — ユーアー・ジ・ワン (17:21)
6. PSY · S — Woman · S (21:43)
7. Kyoko Endo — 夢見るスター (26:47)
8. 3dl — Uruwashi No Otome (Original Version) (32:17)
9. Jadoes — Heart Beat City (37:31)
10. Hiromi Ohta — ガラスの週末 (41:50)
11. Kyoko Koizumi — Fairy Tale (46:52)
12. Hi-fi Set — Bloomin’ Blue (51:00)
13. Nobuo Ariga — 雨色の僕と君 (55:32)
14. Reimy — 星のクライマー (60:42)
15. Momoko Kikuchi — Night Cruising (66:05)
16. Rajie — エスプレッソ (70:51)
17. Eichii Ohtaki — 君は天然色 (75:18)
18. Yasuhiro Abe — Kiss Mark (79:55)
19. Chika Takami — くちびるヌード (83:00)
Cesar Mariano is best known as the producer, arranger, and one-time husband of Elis Regina, though he recorded a wealth of classic recordings as a pianist in his own right. Famed for his ability to swing, Mariano’s 1960s recordings with the Sambalanço Trio and Som Três masterfully paired jazz modes with bossa nova rhythms.
This 1977 album saw him shift towards jazz fusion, delivering an uncompromising take on the genre, full of dramatic tempo changes and neat Brazilian twists. “Metropole” begins with a hard-edged, Herbie Hancock-esque funk workout before slowing to a crawl of dreamlike synths, with the deepest of basslines and a dramatic, sprint-like finish. “Estação do Norte” switches from elegant classical piano to a Rhodes-led carnival of sunshine melodies, whistles, and manically charged percussion. Mariano’s unaccompanied, dextrous piano opens “Futebal de Bar” before a cavalcade of percussion is unleashed – cut frustratingly short. Standing toe-to-toe with the fusion greats, it’s little wonder that prices for original pressings are eye-watering. Grab a copy below.
A YouTube forage on a late-night mission to find everything related to early 80’s Telex eventually led me to Alec Mansion. The first track to hit me was “En Volant” (a sublime slice of uplifting disco-boogiefunk and well worth sniffing out) from his first LP Microfilms, but his self-titled follow-up album has an excellent run of dance floor bangers and so gets our attention here today. Instant winners are “Ou Es-Tu,” which gives RIPrince a run for his money in fizzy funk synth territory, and “Laid, Bête, Et Méchant” (roughly “Ugly, Stupid, and Mean”), which snaps harder than a stretched pair of disco knickers.
Impossible to find a hard copy and commanding high prices when it does rear its head in the vinyl market, so I highly suggest you grab this and save yourselves a few months waiting time…and a scramble to find a few hundred clams when it does. High recommends for fans of Telex and Lio. Repress please!
In 1975, pioneering minimalist composer Terry Riley and jazz trumpet cosmonaut Don Cherry joined forces for a magnetic performance in Köln, Germany. Recorded live, but never commercially released, the concert is something of a hushed treasure, as well as the only record of a profound spiritual experience and meeting of two free form jazz titans. Riley’s swirling synth, droning and clairvoyant and prescient in its clarity, parades along with a triumphant Cherry, leaving behind trails of mystery and a sense of beauty in a larger, more universal form. Side A, the twenty-minute “Descending Moonshine Dervishes,” is a transcendent moment of improvisational experimentation and spiritual jazz. As Cherry’s physical presence slowly liquifies, “the lonesome foghorn blows” into some kind of misty dawn. His mournful trumpet immerses the listener into dense layers of playful percussion and dissonance. When Karl Berger joins the duo on vibraphone for side B, the tone becomes more hypnotic and reedy – a strange mystical noir – with the final three-and-a-half minutes of “Improvisation” exuding a vivid imagination. A lucid and rhythmic front row seat to the startling beauty of minimalist explorations and eloquent fusions of Eastern and Western ideas.
This is an album I would describe as multi-sensory and completely transportive. Listening to it, I feel refreshingly elsewhere! Really, it should be thought of less a quintet record, and more a formidable big-band recording with, as the name suggests, a palpable African feel. There’s boisterous and joyful percussion throughout, and some tasteful solos by Adderley, but for me what makes this record stand out are the memorable refrains and motifs. Adderley’s opening lead on “Khatsana,” on my first listen, made me think I had heard it a hundred times before; it’s narrative in such a familiar way and has an effortless predictability that makes you feel you’ve written it yourself and are merely conducting the musicians in your ears. In typical big-band style, the record is a sure-fire party winner, and the African influenced grooves and chunky percussion only add to the sense of lively ensemble and GOOD TIMES. There’s a filmic quality to much of the instrumentation here, like the sultry “Up And At It,” which wouldn’t be out of place in a stylish 60’s detective film. “Gun Ja” slows things back down, initially feeling like a mourning song with a wailing distant vocal before picking itself back up gradually, for a dramatic final chorus with cinematic horn lead. As far as big band records go, this is right up there for me alongside my favourites like Duke Ellington’s The Far East Suite. A total romp, with unforgettable melody and some genuinely touching moments. Highly recommended.
Jazzy, dubby, experimental, ambient, joyous, meditative and so much more. Fans of Mariah’s Utakata No Hibi will be visiting familiar territory here, as Shimizu is also the brain behind that long-awaited reissue from Palto Flats. There’s the same simplicity and attention to detail present on Kakashi and, having been released a year before Utakata, it appears to have been a learning exercise for Shimizu.
For starters, check out the repetitive marimba lines weaving throughout the space-jazz-dub of “Umi No Ue Kara” (a personal favourite) for a whole eight minutes, acting as bamboo scaffolding for drips of guitar and Shimizu’s sax lines which drift around it like a fine mist. Total masterful simplicity.
Elsewhere, expect ambient tracks that suddenly drop into a backstreet Chicago jazz club with dueling brass stabs and hand claps, only to drift out into smoke; abstract 8-bit sampling that could, frankly, send you a bit la-la until it flings you out into cosmic piano territory; uptempo psychedelic drama-ska; and, ultimately, the sound of Mongolian farmers having a stab at Arabic jazz!
Despite sounding a bit all over the place, there’s enough of a thread throughout Kakashi to bind it all together, and after only a couple of listens, I promise you the pieces fall into place.
Jetting out their debut album in 1980, this runs a neat sonic parallel to Jon Hassell’s notion of fourth world music, melding minimalism, ambient and South Asian classical tropes. Futuro Antico are an Italian group interspersed with Indian and African members, rather than another distant westerner’s constructed exotic fetishism. They live up to their name, which renders the sound timeless. Often, it’s tricky to decipher whether this is a product of childlike, spontaneous vulnerability, or calculated engineering. There’s a host of indigenous instrumentation present, as well as synths, vocals, and maybe even a didgeridoo.
If cascading pianos, howls of swinging creatures in the distance, or labelmates of Franco Battiato peak your fancy, click away.
Aldebaran is a giant orange star in the Taurus constellation, and is one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky. Farewell Aldebaran, a singularly bizarre and captivating album produced by Jerry Yester and Judy Henske over a couple weeks in the summer of 1969, is appropriately titled, existing in a musical space located far outside of its time and the trodden terrain of planet Earth. Each song sounds remarkably different, widely-ranging in style, instrumentation (with Yester playing over a dozen instruments and contributions from Ry Cooder, Zal Yanovsky, and David Lindley, among others), and the disparate contours of Judy Henske’s incredible voice.
Henske, who was known as the “Queen of the Beatniks,” had cultivated a style of powerful vocal delivery singing at clubs in Greenwich Village, and peppered her performances with wild jokes and vivid story-telling (live performance recordings from this era are hilarious and amazing). In Farewell Aldebaran, her poetics and nuanced vocal delivery are at their most transfixing. Her voice ranges from sweetly lulling to powerfully wailing, as she sings stories of a bewitched clipper ship named Charity, church fundraisers, and lands beyond the edge of death.
The musical arrangements travel just as swiftly along these outer space winds, merging folk and psychedelia in an inventive array of instrumentation (including toy zither, marxophone, Chamberlain tape organ, hammer dulcimer, bowed banjo, and heavy use of synthesizers).
My obsession with this album was immediate and very potent, and has only grown with repeat listens. I had the pleasure of recently seeing Jerry Yester play at a small venue in Northwest Arkansas, where he performed unreleased songs from the Farewell Aldebaran sessions and shared stories of his incredible musical career (he also played in The Lovin’ Spoonful, Modern Folk Quartet, and New Christy Minstrels, and produced for Tim Buckley, Tom Waits, The Turtles, and The Association, to name a few). He was even sweet enough to let me sing “Rapture” with him accompanying at the end of his set, a moment forever etched in my memory. If you’re ever driving through Northwest Arkansas, consider a visit to the Grand Central Hotel in Eureka Springs to hear Jerry Yester play, and prepare yourself for pure wonder. Until then, listen to this!
Marcos Valle’s Marcos Valle is a quintessential example of Brazilian boogie. Valle began writing and recording this record following his return home to Rio in 1980 after an extended furlough in Los Angeles where he met future collaborator and legendary R&B and Soul composer, Leon Ware (whose talents are demonstrated on this album a number of times, namely on linear party tracks like “Dia D,” which he wrote and recorded). The record’s single, opening track “Estrelar,” was successfully marketed as “workout music” by Brazilian record label Som Livre, which contributes to the kitschy allure imposed by the dazzling album cover.
This album is cooling exotic bliss in a sonic form. It flows seamlessly from tracks like “Naturalmente” to “Viola Enluarada” like some hyper-evolved liquid hell-bent on making you relax in ecstasy. Mentally isolate any one slice of this album (e.g. the production, arranging, melody, etc.) and you’ll be hypnotized by shimmering rays of sonic pulchritude. Overall this album is a consistently funky piece of jazz-infused soul that doesn’t compromise its Latin roots, and it definitely invokes the same dancing proclivity attached to those roots. From gliding and skipping bass, to elegant samba standards like “Samba De Verao,” to the warm embrace of a Fender Rhodes, this album is nearly perfect and requires not a single press of the “skip” button…devour in its entirety!
Hitomi “Penny” Tohyama is a Japanese singer who had a string of hit records in the late ’70s and ’80s. The earlier stuff is disco-funk in the J-Pop style, with YMO/Tatsuro Yamashita influences — smooth, electro production, with great synth bass-lines, and superb melodies. Some of her stuff in the late ’80s gets pretty cheesy, but Sexy Robot is a gem from front to back.
I can’t remember how I came across it — probably in a Hosono YouTube K-Hole — but my ex-girlfriend and I used to jam this record every night while making dinner — dancing around the kitchen, pouring more wine, turning up the volume. It’s catchy, despite 90% of the lyrics being in Japanese, though every few bars she’ll drop a phrase in English — something as short as just bursting out “Sexy robot,” or some groovier vocal progressions like “Sparkling eyes…fall in love…I am so sexy.” It’s one of those records that makes you feel sexy inside, and fun(!). Even if you listen to pretentious ambient or noise or techno all the time, this one is undeniable. It’s a reminder that despite all the awful things going on in the world, life is pretty great.
To sum it up — when you title your record Sexy Robot and have a cover like this, it’s hard to go wrong.
