Japan YM O2

The number one dance band from Tokyo again , thusfar no Japanese music act has been able to egual or surpass YMO's international acclaim, even when their run as YMO didnt last that long, their solocareers have been impresssive thusfar, with Ryuichi SAkamoto taking most of the international limelight, working on soundtrack scores and joining with international artists, something every member of the illustre trio has kept up these decades. They have kept going strong and certainly not taken the easy path, far from it, with hindsight one could say they were never more 'commercial' as in YMO.

In 93 on the back of renewed interest and a commercial push by their old record company Alfa Rec, that had gotten into financial troubles, Harry, Ryuichi And Yukihiro decided to give it another go, unfortunately the project was marred by troubles, Alfa Rec claimed the rights to the YMO name, clearing samples ran into obstinance and so the album was released as not YMO..not the best of choices, later Toshiba which released the album, bought Alfa Rec but the damage was done and after commitments were fulfilled they decided it was best to leave it at that, and persue their solocareers again.

So whats on offer today ? Hosono's best solo album according to some, to be honest i wouldnt know i haven t heard all of them, but Omni Sight Seeing is more than an intriguing title, its an exploration of music worlds to take the listener out of this one so full of greed and lust. Mr Sakamoto escaped that same year 1989 into estheticism and called his album Beauty. Thats 2 great albums for starters then Technodon the album which to me had plenty of potential and undeservedly fell thru the cracks, luckily the guys didnt wine and quickly picked up their music careers. The Technodon album had been preceded by a remix album HiTek / No Crime and the release of another live album - recorded dec 1983 with Brian Eno on the mix and with him producing The Complete Service in 1992. Considering there had been several Live Albums, not to mention several different versions under the After Service name..another strange move by the rec company, never the less the involvement of Brian Eno should gather some interest in the west, btw the album is no longer available so here's your chance. Finally Senor Coconut, 6 years after he released an album with Kraftwerk covers "baile aleman" he decided YMO deserved the same treatment and well he was right, many of the YMO tracks hold up strongly in the latin format, convince yourself.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Haruomi Hosono - Omni Sight Seeing (89)
Ryuichi Sakamoto - Beauty (90)
YMO - Technodon (93)
YMO - Complete Service (92)
Hi Tek/No Crime YMO remixed (92)
Senor Coconut - Yellow Fever (06)

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Ryuichi Sakamoto - Beauty ( 89 flac 316mb)

Sakamoto leads a sort of world-orchestra here, because members of a pool consisting of more than twenty musicians and singers with various nationalities make some or other contribution to the album. For each track a different number of them combine into a line-up, the only constant member being of course Sakamoto himself on keyboards and vocals. This international idea behind the album is evidenced further by the song-lyrics having been written by people working in at least four different languages and the music writing, where just seven out of the eleven tracks are provided by Sakamoto. The music sounds exotic to say the least, due mainly to the percussion and vocal styles being used. Guests include Brian Wilson, Robert Wyatt, Shankar, Sly Dunbar, Robbie Robertson, Jill Jones, Youssou N'Dour and Arto Lindsay.



01 - You Do Me Ft. Jill Jones (Edit) (5:02)
02 - Calling from Tokyo (4:25)
03 - A Rose (5:02)
04 - Asadoya Yunta (4:31)
05 - Futique (4:03)
06 - Amore (4:50)
07 - We Love You (Remix) (5:02)
08 - Diabaram Ft.Youssou N'Dour (4:12)
09 - A Pile of Time (5:28)
10 - Romance (5:24)
11 - Chinsagu No Hana (7:23)

Sakamoto @ Base
Sakamoto @ Amazon

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Haruomi Hosono - Omni Sight Seeing  (89 flac 248mb)

Another pearl on Hosono's chain. Its not really ambient but i read somewhere someone considering it an excellent Astral Travel Companion, not sure if that will guide you here, anyway i topped the 100mb download up with 2 favourite tracks of mine From The Quiet Lodge/ Medicine Compilation album.



01 - Esashi (1:50)
02 - Andadura (6:23)
03 - Orgone Box (6:05)
04 - Ohenro-San (2:44)
05 - Caravan (4:16)
06 - Retort (3:33)
07 - Laugh Gas (11:26)
08 - Korendor (5:26)
09 - Pleocene (6:12)
Xs
10 - Medicine Mix
11 - Mabui Dance #2

Hosono @ Home
Hosono discography
Hosono @ Amazon

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

YMO - Technodon  (93 flac 354mb)

Technodon is the seventh and final studio album to date by Yellow Magic Orchestra and released in 1993, a decade after the band's original breakup. Because the name Yellow Magic Orchestra was owned by former record label Alfa Records, the band were forced to release the album under the name YMO. At the time of recording, Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto were incorporating a lot of world music elements into their sound, which is still evident on Technodon; however, the sound is pared down, revealing simple technopop arrangements. Yukihiro Takahashi mainly used drum machines for the record as opposed to a drum kit. Like many artists at the time, YMO faced many potential legal troubles due to copyrights associated with sampled sounds from other artist's work. In this environment, using samples on the album was out of the question; a matter that Sakamoto was quite angry about. The new sound confounded older fans of the band while drawing in new listeners. Sakamoto's response to criticism was "This is YMO."

The album artwork, designed by Stefan Sagmeister, featured diffraction grating on the CD jewelcase, allowing messages composed by American artist Jenny Holzer to be read through the lens; the text is otherwise illegible. The cover's text read "Slipping into madness is good for the sake of comparison" when the disc was packaged, but Sagmeister designed the sleeves to be interchangeable, allowing the consumer to choose his or her cover.



01 - Be A Superman (Voc. William S. Burroughs)
02 - Nanga Def?
03 - Floating Away
04 - Dolphinicity ( Voc. John C Lilly )
05 - Hi-Tech Hippies (Voc. William Gibson)
06 - Tre Merli (Voc. William S. Burroughs)
07 - Nostalgia
08 - Silence Of Time (Voc. Ruriko Kamiya )
09 - Waterford
10 - O.K.
11 - Chance
12 - Pocketful Of Rainbow


YMO @ FanBase
YMO @ Amazon

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

YMO - Complete Service (92 * 759mb)

YMO has released several live albums thru the years... this one was recorded dec 83 , with Brian Eno at the mixing helm, it was not until 1992 Eno did the final productionwork for the release of this double album, its no longer available as such.



YMO - Complete Service cd 1 (92 flac 387mb)

01 - Propaganda (5:44)
02 - Tong Poo (5:17)
03 - Behind The Mask (4:40)
04 - Solid State Survivor (4:47)
05 - La Femme Chinoise(5:10)
06 - Ongaku (3:30)
07 - Focus (3:48)
08 - Shadows On The Ground (4:27)
09 - Ballet (4:42)
10 - Perspective (5:09)
11 - Wild Ambitions (5:17)
12 - The Madmen (5:28)

--YMO - Complete Service cd 2 (92 flac 372mb)
01 - Limbo (3:43)
02 - Chinese Whispers (4:17)
03 - Expecting Rivers (4:48)
04 - Kai-Koh (4:10)
05 - See-Through (3:43)
06 - Key (4:36)
07 - You've Got To Help Yourself(4:43)
08 - Firecracker (5:24)
09 - Kageki Na Shukujo (4:25)
10 - Kimi Ni Mune Kyun (4:47)
11 - Technopolis (4:14)
12 - Rydeen (4:46)


YMO 500 youtube hits

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Hi Tek/No Crime YMO remixed   ( 92 flac 414mb)

Can't have a YMO special without remixes, well the nineties didnt pass without gracing the Technodons of YMO with some remixes, considering this album was released in 92 one could say they set the trend. Ive added some remixes from the Technobible release a year later.



01 - Camouflage (Mark Gamble Micro-Mix) (1:40)
02 - Light In Darkness (The 808 State Remix) (5:10)
03 - Behind The Mask (The Orbital Remix) (5:50)
04 - Multiplies (The Altern 8 Syncopated Remix) (3:49)
05 - Loom (Mark Gamble Micro-Mix II) (0:47)
06 - La Femme Chinoise (The LFO Remix) (4:48)
07 - Tighten Up (The Robert Gordon Remix) (6:09)
08 - Firecracker (Zero B Mix) (5:03)
09 - Castalia (Mark Gamble Micro-Mix III) (2:26)
10 - Shadows On The Ground (The Sweet Exorcist Remix) (5:57)
11 - Rydeen (The Graham Masey Remix) (5:20)
12 - Firecracker (Additional Production, Reconstruction And Mix By The Shamen) (5:36)
13 - Tong Poo (The Orb Remix I) (9:46)
15 - Light in Darkness (...Spark) (The 808 State Ambient Reprise) (1:30)
14 - Tong Poo (The Other Orb Remix II) (9:40)
16 - Neue Tanz (something wonderful remix) (5:34)
17 - Firecracker (special dj copy 1978)
18 - Rydeen (The Graham Masey Long Remix) (7:07)
19 - Pure jam (the sideways remix) (7:52)
20 - Multiplies (The Altern 8 12" Remix) (6:05)
21 - Technopolis (single mix version 1979)
22 - Computer games (Mark Gamble Micro-Mix ) (2:03)

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Senor Coconut - Yellow Fever (06 flac 289mb)

Uwe Schmidt (aka Atom™, Señor Coconut; born in Frankfurt, Germany) is a German DJ and producer of electronic music.
Schmidt, also known as Atom Heart, as well as a number of other aliases, produced dance music during the first half of the 90s. In 1994, Schmidt started his own label, "Rather Interesting" with the aim of developing music that doesn't follow the traditional paths of electronic music. By 1996 he was thoroughly bored by European dance music and moved to Santiago, Chile to explore Latin music. He quickly adopted the intentionally ridiculous Señor Coconut moniker, and soon released El Gran Baile. His next release, in 2000, was the Latin-Kraftwerk fusion of El Baile Alemán. The album featured Kraftwerk classics reworked with Latin instrumentation and rhythm. El Baile Alemán was intended as a salute to, and a parody of Kraftwerk. In 2006 Senor Coconut released "Yellow Fever" latin-covering Yellow Magic Orchestra tracks, something which must have endeared Haruomi Hosono who's musical scope certainly includes latin. That said even Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi feature on this latin take of YMO's music. The sunny side up !



01 - My Name Is Coco (0:20)
02 - Tong Poo ( Ft. Jorge Gonzales, Ryuichi Sakamoto )(5:06)
03 - Coco Agogo ( Ft. Jorge Gonzales) (0:37)
04 - Limbo (Ft.Yukihiro Takahashi) (3:21)
05 - What Is Coconut? (0:30)
06 - Behind The Mask (3:22)
07 - El Coco Rallado (0:25)
08 - Pure Jam (4:03)
09 - Mambo Numerique (Ft.Marina, Towa Tei ) (1:28)
10 - Simoon (Ft.Mouse On Mars )(6:48)
11 - El Coco Loco (0:18)
12 - The Madmen ( Ft.Haruomi Hosono) (3:51)
13 - What Is Coconut ? ( Ft. Constanza Martinez)(0:32)
14 - Music Plans (4:36)
15 - Breaking Music (Ft.Dandy Jack , Schneider TM) (0:32)
16 - Rydeen (4:26)
17 - El Coco Roto (Ft.Towa Tei )(0:19)
18 - Ongaku (3:19)
19 - What Is Coconut ? (Ft.Towa Tei )(0:33)
20 - Firecracker (Ft Lisa Carbon) (5:32)
21 - Bleep (0:06)

Senor Coconut @ Casa
AtomTM @ Base
Senor Coconut @ Amazon

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