Japan V

Japan V and were still in the early eighties and on vinyl, that is apart from Yani, this is a rip from a cd John Zorn compiled from Akiko's mid eighties work, Logic System showed that programming moogs and synths does have a creative part. Susan's short music career was cut short by war and not to forget the full schedule of her backing band YMO, whose members were releasing solowork everyyear aswell. What me Worry being the result of Takahashi working a lot with befriended british popstars resulted in an almost british electro pop album. Yen records commemmorated itself with a fine sampler and founder Kunihiko Murai with a special 12 " track God Be With Us Till We Meet Again. As an off bonus a soundphile A drumbattle in Highest Fi of the day

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Logic System - Venus (81)
Susan - The Girl Can't Help it (81)
VA - Yen Memorial (85)
Yukihiro Takahashi - What, Me Worry ? (82)
Akiko Yani - John Zorn 84-88 Compilation
The Drum Battle (79)
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Logic System - Venus (81 * 249mb)

Logic System is a musical project of Hideki Matsutakem he started as an assistant for Isao Tomita in the 70's and is well-known as the sequencer programmer and modular synthesizer operator for the Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), but he wasn't a member of YMO. He worked on several of their albums and toured with his huge collection of synths. He also did sequencing work for numerous technopop albums for other artists, particularily in the early 80's. In 1996 he performed in a big concert event organized by Isao Tomita and was also guest on Towa Tei albums. On his website is a huge number of MIDI files he released, with some of YMO's original songs. He released 3 albums under the moniker Logic System, Logic, Venus and Orient Express.



01 - Venus (5:00)
02 - Morpheus (3:06)
03 - I Love You (4:44)
04 - Plan (3:00)
05 - Take A Chance (4:29)
06 - Automatic Collect, Automatic Correct (5:25)
07 - Be Yourself (5:03)
08 - Prophet (5:05)
09 - Metamorphism (4:08)
10 - Equivalent (0:33)

Logic System @ Info
Logic System @ Amazon

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Susan - The Girl Can't Help It (81* 67mb)

Susan was born Susan Nozaki in Japan, her mother was Japanese, her father a US serviceman with French ancestry. She has starred in musicals and presented TV shows, made many appearances in commercials and is now re-establishing herself as a performer of techno-pop music. Susan has recently made links with young fashion designers in Japan and she is working to popularise the Japanese Gothic Lolita style in a more sophisticated way. Her music is technopop in style, mainly featuring synthesisers and drum machines. n 1980, Yukihiro Takahashi from the Yellow Magic Orchestra met Susan at a TV studio and was impressed by her energetic personality. This led to her re-launching her career as a pop singer. Yukihiro and Susan collaborated with co-producer Kenji Omura on an album “Do You Believe In Mazik? The album featured all three YMO members (Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takahashi), Kenji Omura, Makoto Kubota (Sandii & The Sunsetz) and Hajime Tachibana (The Plastics)

By 1981 it was decided to launch Susan in Europe. She took part in a campaign alongside Ippu-Do, Sandii & The Sunsetz and YMO to promote Japanese pop music in the West. The same year Susan recorded her second album with the YMO members, called “The Girl Can't Help It”. This time, guest musicians included Masami Tsuchiya (Ippu-Do/Japan), Shigeru Umebayashi and Sandii. The material on this album uses a mixture of styles. A big launch event was planned for Susan in the UK in early 1982. Various TV appearances that had been arranged and a single version of “I Only Go Out At Night” was released. Unfortunately, this coincided with the outbreak of hostilities between the UK and Argentina over the Falkland Islands and so her trip was cancelled. Next year she married a member of the Rokkets, got pregnant and well family life.. Meanwhile 2007 she's back performing and recording aswell as working in fashion.



01 - You're My Number One (4:09)
02 - Koi Seyo Otome (3:33)
03 - Training (4:16)
04 - Blow-Up (2:25)
05 - I Need Your Love (4:12)
06 - I Only Come Out At Night (5:06)
07 - Go Go (3:39)
08 - Nuit De Saint-Germain (4:08)
09 - Tokyo Sue (4:46)
10 - My Love (4:56)

Susan

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VA - Yen Memorial (85 * 99mb)

YEN Records existed from 1982 to 1985. Hosono and Takahashi had a great deal of creative input on just about all of them. It was an imprint of Alfa so sometimes people identify Alfa material erroneously as YEN. During those years they released well over 30 albums and 16 singles (depends on how you count). Nearly all of the albums are superb and worthwhile. In 1993 Alfa Records apparently went bankrupt and was purchased outright by Toshiba EMI. They issued the landmark and now out of print YEN BOX collections and kept some material in print. They also reissued many new best of collections with no unique material.

When Yen Records founder Kunihiko Murai died, all Yen artists participated in this album or remixes and an original 12". Takahashi and Hosono produced album consisting of-- a 12" with (writers in parenthesis parenthesis) God Be With You Till We Meet Again and an album



01 - Yen Artists - God Be With Us Till We Meet Again (7:43)
02 - Yen Artists - Platonic Stochastic(edit) (4:33)

03 - Yellow Magic Orchestra - Rydeen (Remix Version) (3:26)
04 - Hajime Tachibana - Rock (New Recording) (3:22)
05 - Sandii & The Sunsetz - Sticky Music (Makoto Kubota , Yasuhiko Terada French Remix) (3:23)
06 - Guernica - Maronie Dokuhon (Akitsugu Doi , Koji Ueno Remix) (3:41)
07 - Miharu Koshi - Petit Paradis (English Yasuhiko Terada Remix) (3:38)
08 - Inoyama Land - Pokala (Akitsugu Doi , Makoto Inoue , Yasushi Yamashita Remix) (2:25)
09 - Keiichi Ohta - Seean No Kodomoichiba (Akitsugu Doi , Koji Ueno Remix) (3:46)
10 - Koji Ueno - Adagietto (Yasuhiko Terada Remix) (3:25)
11 - Yukihiro Takahashi - It's Gonna Work Out (Yoshifumi Iio Remix ) (4:19)
12 - Super Eccentric Theater - Beat The Rap (Yoshifumi Iio Remix ) (3:18)
13 - Testpattern - Modern Living (Masao Hiruma, Yoshifumi Iio Remix) (4:08)
14 - Jun Togawa - Do Not Renai (New Recording) (1:40)
15 - Interior - Hawks (Daisuke Hinata , Yoshifumi Iio Remix) (3:28)
16 - Tamao Koike - Kagami No Naka No Jugatsu (Yasuhiko Terada Remix) (3:40)
17 - Haruomi Hosono - Yunemiru Yakusoko (Original Version) (3:18)

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Akiko Yano - J Zorn Compilation ( 84-88 Flac 259mb)

Born Akiko Suzuki in 1955, (Tokyo, Japan), Akiko Yano studied jazz piano in high school and recorded her first album, Japanese Girl, in 1976. To the familiar wispy, girlish voice of Japanese idoru, Yano added something different: a whimsical sense of mischief and the ability to simultaneously sing and improvise on the piano. Japanese Girl caused a sensation in the Japanese music scene, with Yano standing out from the J-pop scene of the time as something entirely original and different. After a failed marriage to Makoto Yano, the producer of Japanese Girl, she went on to become the wife and musical partner of Ryuichi Sakamoto, soundtrack auteur and former member of legendary '80s Yellow Magic Orchestra. The partnership saw Yano join YMO on tour worldwide in the early '80s as support keyboardist, and she began to cultivate her own following in the US. Little Feat supported her on the West Coast, and she also participated in recordings with UK rock band Japan, led by David Sylvian (who still writes songs with Sakamoto), and Thomas Dolby. Separating from Sakamoto, she moved to New York in the '90s, where she now gigs regularly and records with a range of musicians, mostly in the jazz field.



01 - Highland
02 - Ramen Tabetai (I Want to Eat Ramen)
03 - Mufujotai (Eye of the Hurricane)
04 - Pastorale
05 - Gokigen Wanisan
06 - Owari No Kisetsu (Season of Parting)
07 - Omocha No Cha Cha Cha (Toys Go Cha Cha Cha)
08 - David
09 - Greenfields
10 - Komado Kara (From a Small Window)
11 - Fuimukeba Kaeru
12 - Home Sweet Home

Akiko @ Base
Akiko @ Amazon

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Yukihiro Takahashi - What, Me Worry? (82 flac 347mb)

Another Takahashi album, unfortunately i dont have his first "Saravah "(78) produced by Sakamoto , one which would fit nicely in the YMO history. Next time I will post the 2 other solo albums by Sakamoto and Hosono that were released that year and which laid the groundwork for the emergence of YMO. More on that in my next post.
Meanwhile here we have Yukihiro sounding very british eighties , clearly the title inspired to do what he liked and not to live up to others expectations. This being his 4 th solo album, with another 20 or so that followed to date, Hiro almost keeping up with Hosono output wise.



01 - What, Me Worry? (1:05)
02 - It's Gonna Work (4:00)
03 - Sayonara (5:33)
04 - This Strange Obsession (3:42)
05 - Flashback (5:17)
06 - Real You (4:45)
07 - Disposable Love (4:29)
08 - My Highland Home In Thailand (1:11)
09 - All You've Got To Do (3:31)
10 - It's All Too Much (4:41)

11 - Futari No Kage Ni (4:39)
12 - Disposable Love (Japanese version) (4:29)
13 - Ich Bin Der Glucklichste Mensch Auf Der Welt (4:00)

Yukihiro @ Base
Yukihiro @ Amazon

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The Drum Battle (79 * 54mb)

This is a bonus, a bit out of the regular musical context, however it is an example how the Japanese tried to achieve the highest sound quality sound onto vinyl, their pressings already had a high status this album is a socalled direct master cut, no inbetween tape adding distortion limiting seperation etc, so the cymbals crash and the snares snap . All this suits the jazz format , live cutting in the studio. Well something for the freaks i guess, as it aint very long and in line with the drive for best audioquality i upped the grade to ogg-9 here .



01 - Jumping At The Woodside (5:20)
02 - Bernie's Tune (7:03)
03 - Drum Boogie (11:43)

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* All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !