Martin Agterberg and his wonderful synths

October 26th, 2020

Martin Agterberg
Schiedam Center Opus 2
Hong Kong Connection
Andromeda Spaceway Patrol
Robotly Yours Forever
Classical Votage 220
China Ballerina

Time for another installment of “Let’s try to write a lot about someone I know little about and can’t find anything (in English) about on the internet!” My favorite thing to do.

Martin Agterberg is a Dutch musician who seemed to be the most prolific as a solo artist during the 1980s, releasing three albums between 1982 and 1988. I’ve only been able to track down his first two, however; 1982’s Flyer and his wonderfully titled 1984 release Synshine. Flyer is good, a solid electronic album full of catchy hooks and fun sounds, but Synshine is really where Agterberg, well, shines. On Flyer, he’s only using a Korg Polysix, with a slight assist from a Korg Monopoly KR-55 Rhythmbox. He stretches that synth a long way, but all the songs use similar sounds, and it at times comes off as a little simple since its so minimal with its audio pallet.

On Synshine, Agterberg was able to diversify his sounds with the help of a wider selection of synthesizers, adding several other Korg goodies to his line-up of electronic doodads and doohickeys. He’s working largely with the same sounds still, but they got more going on behind them. The beats are bit more complex, and there are added effects and embellishments that just make the songs sound, I don’t know, more lively and entertaining. It has an oompf to it.

Throughout both albums, Agterberg is definitely going for a “space” vibe. These are songs that all play in the perfect 80s sci-fi B-movie of my dreams. In my mind, this is the soundtrack to Ice Pirates or The Black Hole. The song titles themselves certainly suggest that’s what Agterberg was shooting for as well, with great names like “Andromeda Space Patrol,” “The Back of Beyond,” and my personal favorite, “Robotly Yours Forever.”

(Was Martin Agterberg the first person to turn the word “robot” into an adverb? Maybe!)

Despite Agterbeg’s obviously lofty ambitions for these songs, even the most bombastic and over-the-top ones still come off as just a little kitschy. But that’s another reason why I dig them so much. The drum machines make them sound a little corny, the digital keyboards give it a dated feel, but I feel both give the albums character. In their limitations I find charm.

I feel that the closest Agterberg comes to achieving a bigger, booming sound (on the two albums of his I have at least) is with “Classical Voltage 220,” an obvious homage/pastiche of classical music that opens with an absolute wall of sound that would make Beethoven in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure happy. With its faux-strings and harpsichord-inspired sounds, it’s obvious that Agterberg is going for Baroque with this one (sorry), and the results are fantastic. Sames goes for “Schiedman Centre Opus 2” (which might be based on a classical piece). Total Wendy Carlos vibes.

 

On both albums, Agterberg doesn’t slow things down that often. He prefers to use sequenced beats and drum machines to create more upbeat music. But on both albums he does knock down the tempo for a few more sedate numbers, and those often work as well. The similarly named “Hong Kong Connection” and “China Ballerina” rely far more on harmonies and melodies than beats and bounce, and they’re both soothing, relaxing numbers that are good segues between the more fast-paced tracks. The faux-“Asian” hooks of “China Ballerina” also lend themselves well to Agterberg’s electronics. It has a real YMO feel.

Again, I can’t find damn near anything bout Agterberg online. All I’ve found is from his Discogs page. Apparently he was in a few bands before he went solo, but didn’t seem to do much afterwards. I did discover a Dutch webpage that had a brief write-up about him, and from there I was able to find out that he now works as a composer for commercials in Europe. With his talent for writing brief, catchy, melodies that can grab your attention, I feel like that’s probably a good fit for him.

The above tracks are a smattering of tunes from the two Agterberg albums I have. Both are vinyl rips, since I don’t think that these records ever came out on CD (or digitally for that matter). I might share more in the future, but honestly, I’d rather his work get a proper digital re-release so I don’t have to. This stuff is too great to vanish into the analog ether.

Posted in Martin Agterberg | 1 Comment »

Apollo Smile and Madonna (because of course Madonna)

October 13th, 2020

Apollo Smile
Dune Buggy (Remix/Edit)
Dune Buggy (Remix/Edit Without Vocal Breakdown)
Dune Buggy (Full Drivin’ Mix)
The latest in my continuing series of “dubious Discogs purchases bought drunk and depressed during the lockdown.”

When I placed the order for this, the seller reached out to me just to double-check that I actually wanted to buy it. The single only cost about two bucks, but, since I live in Japan, shipping would run me closer to $10. The seller wanted to make sure that I was okay with such a premium, and was very willing to cancel the order. In fact, I bet they thought I would. “What kind of idiot would pay $10 in shipping for a fucking Apollo Smile single?”, they probably said to themselves.

THIS KIND OF IDIOT.

I don’t even like Apollo Smile all that much. Her self-titled album is actually pretty bad. She’s good on it. She has personality galore. But the songs are bland and forgettable. “Dune Buggy,” with its bright-but-chill party vibe is an album highlight though, so I was happy to score this single.

I’m sure I’ve told this story before, but I actually tried to interview Apollo Smile at one point. So many anime nerds of the mid-90s saw her on Sci-Fi Channel, and many (myself included) wondered what happened to her. She still has her fans, and I though that she would want to know that, and that she might want to let her fans know how she was doing.

It wasn’t that hard to track her down. At the time, her employer was even named on her Wikipedia page. I emailed said employer, identified myself as a freelance journalist, and inquired about and possibly interview opportunity with Apollo.

Crickets.

About a year later, I thought I’d give it another go, so I sent a second email to her employer. This time, I did get a response. It was the most polite “leave us the fuck alone” reply I ever got. And that was that for that.

Oh well. Apollo if you’re out there, know that people want to hear your story. And if you’re not interested in sharing it, know that people still like you, and have fond memories of the goofy fun you gave them.

 

Madonna
Everybody (Extended Version)
Everybody (Dub Version)
Hate to sound like a broken record (ha it’s funny because the blog is called Lost Turntable) but these are new CD rips of mixes that I previously only had as vinyl rips. So, if you did download these when I first featured them, you’re going to want to go grab these because they sound much better. Another one of my drunken Discogs purchases.

Between Discogs and Recofan closing (sobs forever), I bought a lot of Madonna these past few months. Seriously. Like, even more than the usual amount of too much Madonna that I typically buy. I’m going to have to start sharing these piecemeal like this or I’ll never get them out of my backlog.

Both of these tracks are from the Japanese True Blue: Super Club Mix single. That five track CD has some other good remixes on it, but all of them are either commercially available for purchase or streaming, or I already recently featured them here. The True Blue: Super Club Mix single was actually re-issued in the states not all that long ago, but only on LP, with no CD or digital option available. Which is stupid.

Posted in Apollo Smile, Madonna, remixes | 2 Comments »

Random Remix Sunday

September 27th, 2020

Random happytime remixes.

Macy Gray
Sexual Revolution (Blaze Shelter Vocal Mix)
Sexual Revolution (Miguel Migs Petalpusher Vocal Remix)
I miss Macy Gray! I guess it’s not really fair to say that. It’s not like Macy Gray is dead or anything. She put out a record just two years ago. What I really miss is a world that gave a shit about Macy Gray. Her voice is so cool. No one has ever or ever will sound like her. Truly one-of-a-kind.

SHE’S ALSO ON THE LAST GREAT BLACK EYED PEAS SINGLE FOR FUCK’S SAKE!

Her first two albums are just amazing stuff. They have fantastic love songs like the immortal “I Try” and the almost-as-good “Sweet Baby,” but the best tracks on both are the ones where Macy is horny as hell and DTF. Horny Macy Gray is the best Macy Gray because she wants to let you know that she’s down to do some hardcore nasty shit, not at all low-key about it, but always skirting the line right against outright vulgarity. She’s the hard PG-13 or soft R or sex jams.

This is a great jam, and the remixes both do a fantastic job of balancing the jazzier aspects of the original cut while still slicing in some nice dance beats. I sadly don’t have this album nor her first on my computer for some reason. Guess I’ll have to pick them up again sometime.

As killer as this tune is, if I had to name my all-time favorite “Macy Gray is down to do the deed” track, it actually wouldn’t be a Macy Gray song at all, it would be her collaboration with Fatboy Slim, “Love Life,” off of his 2000 album Halfway Between The Gutter and the Stars. The lyrics to that song are just fantastic, with one the greatest outros in the history of music:

Said I’m gonna A ya
And I’m gonna B ya
And I’m gonna C ya
Gonna D ya
If I E ya
Cause I wanna F ya
Yeah, I wanna F ya
Yeah, I wanna F ya

Its the horny alphabet song.

Talking Heads
Blind (Extended Remix)
Blind (Deaf, Dub and Blind Mix)
Blind (Beats)
I could’ve sworn that I shared these remixes at one point. These rips are taken from a fairly recent purchase I made here in Tokyo, but I recognized the mixes when I heard them. I know for a fact that these were on my late 2000s iPod. I have a vivid memory of driving around Pittsburgh with my friend who found David Byrne’s vocal deliver on “BLIND BLIND BLIND BLIND BLIND” the funniest thing ever. She rolled down the window and screamed along with him, much to the confusion of the people we passed by.

She may have been high at the time.

But I never shared them! So here they are now! Add Talking Heads to the list of immensely popular 80s bands with a substantive back catalog of remixes that have yet to be re-released in any way at all. Argh. Are all of their remixes locked in a vault next to Madonna’s remixes or something? They’re driving me crazy keeping this shit buried. At least it makes finding tracks for this blog easier.

Posted in Macy Gray, remixes, Talking Heads | No Comments »

Yeah it’s time for more Madonna

September 22nd, 2020

Madonna
Dress You Up (The 12″ Formal Mix)
Dress You Up (The Casual Instrumental Mix)
Papa Don’t Preach [Extended Version]
Look, writing about Madonna is easy and makes me happy.

I posted these eons ago but those were vinyl rips. These are shiny CD rips that sound better.

I was going to feature more Madonna in this post. I picked up a CD single for “Cherish” that has an extended mix, but I’m not posting that. Apparently some digital only Like A Prayer 30th anniversary edition was made available last year? It’s on Spotify, YouTube Music and a few other digital outlets. The artwork is terrible. I thought it was a bootleg at first, but it appears to be legit, and it has the extended mix of “Cherish” on it, as well as a few other out-of-print remixes.

As a whole though, it’s an underwhelming release. Only a scattering of remixes, a couple of B-sides, and no unreleased tracks. There was word that a physical release of this was coming at some point, but that still hasn’t materialized. No word why. The delay goes back a bit, well before COVID, so it’s one thing we can’t blame on that.

I hope that if a physical edition of this anniversary release ever does see the light of day, it’s more substantial than this digital one. A deluxe edition of Like A Prayer could be three to four CDs easy. A remastered disc, two discs of B-sides and remixes, and then an extra disc of unreleased/demo material. None of it would be extraneous or feel tacked on either, it’s all good stuff. I’m sure there’s a market for it. If the ongoing Prince re-issue campaign has taught me anything, it’s that people are still more than down for over-the-top massive box sets of 80s masterpieces.

“Dress You Up” isn’t the best song ever, but it’s really good. It’s my second-favorite single from the Like A Virgin album, behind “Material Girl,” but ahead of “Into The Groove” and “Angel” (I don’t like the title track, if you’re curious – never was a fan of it). I love the simplicity of it. What the hell does it even mean? Does it need to mean anything? It’s like “Pour Some Sugar On Me.” It sounds vaguely romantic, a little sexy, fuck the details, who cares?

Of course, the exact opposite is true for “Papa Don’t Preach,” it is about one thing, very specifically. It is a story song. That’s not something Madonna does very often with her singles. This, “Take a Bow,” and “Bad Girl” are the most notable. Maybe “Bitch I’m Madonna” too, the story of that song being, well, “Bitch, I’m Madonna.”

I’ve love the strings of “Papa Don’t Preach.” In a time where synths were king, it makes the track unique. The strings give it gravitas. If the hook was just keyboards and synth bass it wouldn’t hold the same weight. The strings almost make the song cinematic. Especially that opening. Fuck. That shit’s good.

I was depressed, drunk, and staring at Discogs earlier this week and may have bought…let’s just say…several…more Madonna CD singles this week. I know that some of you get sick of the Madonna, but I’m in self-care mode right now. Expect more Madonna and random Japanese shit that’s easy to write about at least until the election.

 

Posted in Madonna, remixes | 1 Comment »

Less Stress More Ambient Pop 2020

September 6th, 2020

Hi. Are you stressed? I’m stressed. I wonder why. Maybe it’s the global pandemic and the still present risk that I or any of my loved ones could be stricken with a potentially fatal virus at anytime. That’s the kind of the thing that could keep one up at night.

Maybe it’s the unprecedented global heat waves, forest fires, and deadly storms. Rapid climate change is here, everyone! It’s not going to cause the extinction of humankind, but it sure as fuck isn’t a picnic. And the heat seems to be getting worse in Tokyo every summer. The masks don’t help either.

I think that it could be the election that’s making me stressed. Fate of the free world riding on an election that will probably be corrupt and rigged by the incumbent party. Scary thought. It’s definitely keeping me up at night.

Or maybe I’m stressed out, cant’ sleep, and am having a hard time writing because my big toe (right foot, for those curious…ew) decided to get an infection and swell up like a balloon before exploding in a rainbow of wondrous puss.

Might be that. Who knows. Anyways, stressful times call for relaxing tunes. And this is the most relaxing stuff I have at the moment.

And don’t worry, I went to the doctor and got a cream for my toe.

 

Dip In The Pool
Rabo Del Sol
Spring From The Surface
Sur Le Pois
Again
I first wrote about Dip In The Pool back in October of 2019. I called them a Japanese Cocteau Twins, chill as fuck, beautiful, awesome, and so on and so forth. I stand by all of that. And much of what I wrote in that post goes double here.

These tracks are from the group’s 1986 EP, Rabo Del Sol. All the tracks from it eventually made their way onto the band’s self-titled debut LP, which came out later that year. I don’t know if these versions are in anyway different than the ones on the LP, because I can’t find that album anywhere. For some reason, the overwhelming majority of this band’s output continues to be out of print. That gives me stress too, but I’m going to try and not focus on that.

These tracks aren’t all that different than the ones I featured before. Again, very chill. Very ambient. Very mellow. This is music for listening to with a nice red wine, preferably in a bubble bath. This is some of my go to music in the winter, when I go for late-night walks after work downtown. The city is quiet, almost alien-like, and the music serves as an incredibly fitting soundtrack to it. I’m not listening to them too much right now when I’m out walking, however. My walks at the moment tend to be in the morning, in the oppressive sunny heat, and are more about losing weight than chilling out. Dip In The Pool are many, many things, but “workout music” sure as hell ain’t one of them.

Enjoy the chill tunes for un-chill times and decidedly un-chill weather.

By the way, a quick programming note, if you will. Posts here might stay bi-weekly or so for a bit. Nearly everything I have queued up to post here is incredibly obscure and hard to write about. I don’t like to rush those posts. So I apologize if things slow down here again for a while. This could, of course, change at a moment’s notice if I happen upon a score of CD maxi-singles or something like that. You never know. I might also just say “fuck it” and write about Madonna singles for a while again. Still got a load of those to get through!

Also, I do plan on finishing my articles about MTV’s Top 100 of 1985. I’m very close with the next section. But…stress. Trying to be witty and funny about 80s pop is really hard when the world is on fire. I’ll give another go this week, I know a few of you really like those articles, so I appreciate your patience very much!

Stay positive. And chill.

Posted in Complete Albums, dip in the pool | 3 Comments »

I’m back and I brought the forgotten J-Pop

August 23rd, 2020

If you were reading my site last week…you weren’t because it fucking exploded into fire.

It’s a long story, but I tried to update something, it very much did not work, and the efforts to restore it did not work either. This necessitated a off-site restore from my hosting provider, and that took much longer than they originally estimated. It was not a fun time. I was not happy. But it’s taken care of now. I’m still not happy, but that has more to do with the state of the world and my own personal health than the health of my website.

However, I really do need to get around to updating this site at some point. It’s a damn mess. This site an imported version of a 14-year-old Blogspot site. It’s extremely cutting edge for the mid-2000s. Although I really don’t know what I would “updating” this site would entail. It’s an MP3 blog. It’s gonna stay an MP3 blog. I could probably figure out a way to make it look slightly less ugly but, meh, it’s hard! I guess the only thing I really want to do is clean up the back-end and streamline it a bit. But again, I have no idea how to do any of this. I paid a tech-savvy friend to do all this years ago, she has since moved to Oregon and I have since moved to another country. That complicates things.

I’ll probably figure something out. In the meantime, if my site mysteriously vanishes again, be sure to check me out on Twitter, I’ll probably be posting vulgarity-filled updates if that happens. I should also mention that while Twitter is a garbage fire of rancid shit, it’s still the best way to get a hold of me quickly if you have any questions or concerns about anything. I check it more than I should.

Some other news, I’m still working my way through MTV’s 1985 Top 100 countdown over on my other site, and I’m probably going to get to the Top 20 sometime in the next week or two. I also plan on writing up something about all the amazing commercials that aired during the countdown. If you want a sneak peak of that, I uploaded a ton of them to my YouTube channel. I especially love this video store one, because I literally grew up in a video store and that triggers all them nostalgia dopamine triggers. Blurry VHS box art is like heroin to me, is what I’m saying.

 

 

Between both the world and my blog being on fire last week, I was swinging back-and-forth wildly between happy upbeat music to cheer me up, and supreme angry music to help me fester in negativity. I’m going to share the former tonight and not the latter. I don’t want to spread even more unneeded negativity in the world, and most of the angry music I was listening to was Korn’s dubstep album. No one needs to hear that. ALTHOUGH I SINCERELY THINK IT’S UNDERRATED.

Anyways, no Korn dubstep. 80s J-pop!

 

 

Shohjo-Tai – From S (Complete album)
There’s so much 80 J-pop out there (because bubble economy) that digging through it is nearly impossible. I always know that there’s good stuff buried in there, but I never know what to look for. I have no cultural context, plus I can’t even read 90% of the names, so that’s a problem. Imagine looking through crates of Western 80s pop music with zero context or understanding of anything about who was popular and when. You probably wouldn’t get lucky enough to stumble onto a Madonna record, you’d wind up getting something like the third Stacey Q record, or a Spoons album. That’s how it feels when I dig through a store’s stock of 80s J-pop. I’m looking for another YMO, but I usually end up with Japan’s answer to Mr. Mister or some bullshit like that. Thankfully I get help from my students on occasion, who direct me to groups like Shohjo-Tai.

I first featured Shohjo-Tai a couple years back. Not soon after a client recommended them to me I was able to find one of their singles in a store. I dug it, and got interested enough in the group to try and find more releases by them. Unfortunately, every other album or single I found by them just didn’t hold my attention as much as that first one. Everything was fine, they weren’t aggressively bad or anything, but they all had that overly polished, generic sound that far too much J-pop has. No personality, all kawaii, too many ballads. Boring.

I think a big problem with Shohjo-Tai is that they just put too much stuff out. Between 1984 and 1989, they released ten albums! Some were only EP length, but still, that’s a lot of music. Many of the very best artists of all-time, with careers that span decades, can’t put together 10 albums of great material. For a pop act to shovel out that much in such a short period of time is crazy.

In 1986 alone, they released four albums. I have two. One is Untouchable. It’s fine. It’s certainly not untouchable, but it’s decent upbeat pop music. The other is this one, From S. There are definitely more highlights in its six songs and 28 minute runtime than in the entirety of Untouchable‘s 43 minutes of 10 songs.

It’s a very creative album, and evens skews on the experimental side at times. “Natsu no Passport” opens the album strong with a synthesized bang, and a catchy keyboard melody helps carry it through. But then near the end the song completely breaks down into a short breakdown that’s reminiscent of The Art Of Noise’s best stuff, before re-assembling itself for the fade out. It comes out of left field and it really gives the song some character.

It’s followed by “Sanzennen No Yume,” a slower ballad. J-pop ballads usually bore me to death, but again, this one is just a bit different. The synthesizers, drum machines, and whatever other electronic doo-hickeys they got playing in the background give it something different, and it also has a fantastic breakdown near the end, with one of the strangest, most out-of-place solos of random sound I’ve ever heard in a pop tune.

The highlight of the entire album comes next, “Siam Paradise,” a pulsing tune with a fantastic beat. Awesome use of samplers and a great melody. This sounds like YMO. It really, really sounds like YMO (more on that in a bit). It’s super catchy and in my dream compilation of Japanese 80s synth-pop, it would totally be track three.

Most of the rest is also good. “Oriental Nights” is a little more generic, it lacks the crazy breakdowns and other innovations of the previous numbers, but it’s still a solid number. “Kinou no New Moon” picks things up again, with oodles of fantastic synths and drum machines. The only weak track on the entire thing is the finale, “Ikoku no Shinwa” which is just a generic 80s J-pop ballad. And if I wanted to hear those I’d listen to Yuming.

If you’re wondering why this album stands out so much when compared to the rest of their discography, well it probably has something to do with who worked on it. From what I can tell, all the Shohjo-Tai albums had fantastic production and session musicians on them. When I browse their pages on Discogs, nearly everyone who worked on their records have long careers across dozens of albums. But this one goes even above those.

Remember, how I said that the synthesizers here really stand out? And that the album occasionally reminds me of good YMO? Well, that’s because Haruomi Hosono of YMO and singer/songwriter extraordinaire Koshi Miharu both played keyboard and synthesizers here. Hosono even co-wrote a couple tracks on the album, including the standout “Siam Paradise.” That’s a hell of a duo to get on your album, especially in 1986, when both were at their peak in terms of their electronic music output. No wonder Japanese record geeks go after this one.

I hope this heavily synthesized, overly cheery synth-pop will serve you well this week. Enjoy.

Posted in Complete Albums, Shojo Tai | 2 Comments »

Tiny Madonna CDs of Happiness

August 9th, 2020

Madonna
Who’s That Girl (Extended Version)
Causing A Commotion (Silver Screen Mix)
Express Yourself (Non-Stop Express Mix)
Express Yourself (Stop + Go Dubs Mix)
I think I’ve posted rips of all of these before, save for maybe the extended remix of “Who’s That Girl,” but I’m also fairly certain that those old rips were taken from old, used vinyl. These rips were taken from CDs (that were also old and used) and sound much better than my  vinyl rips. Don’t get me wrong, I think that my old vinyl rips sounded damn good, but they got nothing on some crystal clear, not-too-loud, of-the-era CD masters. I should rename this blog “The Lost CD Player” and dedicate myself to tracking down and posting tracks from rare and out-of-print CDs exclusively. Millennials will have to get some CD nostalgia soon, right? I need to capitalize off of that shit.

Not only are these remixes from CDs, but they’re from tiny CDs! Look how tiny they are!

I don’t own many 3-inch CD singles (most of the times the full-size CD singles have the same remixes on them) but I came across these at a massive Madonna sale and had to buy them. They’re so cute. The only downside to buying 3-inch CD singles (aside from them objectively being a waste of money) is that you have to be careful about what kind of CD player you put them in. My computer’s disc drive is one of those that you feed the discs into and they slide in automatically. If I tried to put a 3-inch CD into that, the CD would never be able to leave. I had to buy an external drive. Anything for my Madonna remixes though.

The best thing about posting stone cold classic Madonna is that I don’t have to try that hard when I write about them. Hey, everyone, “Causing A Commotion” and “Express Yourself” are fucking amazing tracks that are near-perfect examples of 80s pop music, did you know that? Good, I don’t have to say any more about them. These remixes are all also very good as well. Extended versions of perfect pop songs are usually also really good. Funny that. Even the dub mix of “Express Yourself” is good. It has a good breakdown halfway through, and that bassline just slaps so much, that’s all you need.

I feel that “Who’s That Girl” is probably the least beloved of all these tunes. And sure, it doesn’t have the instant hook appeal of “Causing A Commotion” or “Express Yourself” but it’s still a banger of a number, even if the movie it came from is dogshit. It also has a great bassline and the drum sound is fantastic. I’m fairly certain that the song was entirely created with synthesizers and other electronic instruments, but it has a slight, hard-to-explain, organic element or feeling to it, like all great synthpop. There’s a lot going on, lots of sounds, effects, and production, but none of it overpowers the rest. The song isn’t necessarily restrained, but all its elements are.

And it has fake steel drums. I love fake steel drums. Makes me think of Super Mario World.

 

Posted in Madonna, remixes | 6 Comments »

Bootlegs, 90s hip hop, 80s synth-pop, 2020s depression

August 2nd, 2020

Sigh. World sucks and I wanna cry all day but instead here’s a hodgepodge of music to listen to with no rhyme or reason as to why I selected any of it.

Rick Wakeman
Space Oddity/Life On Mars (Live in 1997)
As cases began to spike again in Tokyo, the news kept saying that young people were the primary spreaders of the virus this time around. They were also saying that it was best to avoid crowded spaces as much as possible. So, I went to the one place that I knew wouldn’t be crowded, and would have zero young people: the progressive rock record store.

There are actually a few of these in the greatest Tokyo area, but my favorite is World Disque. The Disk Union Progressive store is great, but World Disque has mountains and mountains of oddball shit. Yo, wanna get Renaissance’s Japan-only EP? How about two live EPs by Gong’s current vocalist? Care for multiple Klaus Schulze box sets? This is the store for you.

I was right, no crowds and I (being 40 years old) was, without question the youngest person there. I correctly (sigh) assumed that cases were going to spike further in the following weeks, and treated myself to several records since I knew I wouldn’t be going out again shopping anytime in the near future. I picked up some of Arthur Brown’s Kingdom Come (great), Birth Control (also great), Robert Wyatt (uneven but good) and an album by Darryl Way’s Wolf (surprisingly good).

I also bought a Rick Wakeman 6 CD “official bootleg” boxset for a steal that ended up being exceptionally great. Not only were the performances (which ranged from the mid-70s to the early 90s) all utterly fantastic, but most of it sounded very good too. Sure, they’re bootlegs so they’re a little more bassy and muffled than official recordings, but as I got into the groove I didn’t notice it all that much, especially since Wakeman’s amazing keyboard always seems to shine through any mix and sound crystal clear.

So, there I was, at home getting drunk on absinthe, listening to Rick Wakeman bootlegs, and browsing Discogs when…okay look, long story short I just got another five CD box set of Rick Wakeman bootlegs in the mail and I’m expecting another 16 CD box set of more bootlegs any day now.

Shut up. We all cope with stress in different ways. I apparently cope with copious keyboard solos and absinthe. I can think of more dangerous combinations.

The above is from an exceptionally good sounding bootleg (I think it’s a soundboard or radio recording) from a show in 1997. This medley of Bowie tunes isn’t like the one that he released on piano after Bowie’s death, it’s a full band recording complete with vocals. It’s a good version, even without Bowie. I wish I could pick up who the singer is, but Rick rattles off his name so quickly at the end that I can never make it out. If anyone knows, fill me in!

 

P.M. Dawn
Reality Used To Be A Friend Of Mine (Club Mix)
Mostly sharing for the title. 100% relatable. Although, let’s be real, I don’t think that’s been true since 1999.

Is there a lot of low-key chill hip-hop these days? Excluding Juice WRLD, his lyrics were dogshit and his samples atrocious. I’ve heard a bit of Travis Scott and dig that sometimes. I especially love “Sick Mode” because I can get down on any track that gets you hype about napping. I’ve also listened a bit to Swae Lee. I really dig his delivery and can tell he has a ton of talent, but he’s almost too chill. Not enough melody sometimes. Also, that’s totally music for taking benzos to, let’s be real.

Anyways, this song is cool and probably also good for taking benzos to. Man, I wish I still had some benzos. Yeah, they’re horribly addictive and the comedown is rough, but sleeping for 10 hours straight is AWESOME.

 

Imitation
Thermo Limbo
Exotic Dance
I wrote about Imitation a while back after I happened upon their fantastic first album Original. Since then, I was able to track down their third album, which wasn’t as good as their stellar debut, but still pretty good. I’m still on the hunt for their second one, Muscle And Heat. I suspect that it might be the rarest of the bunch, since the only copy online I can find right now goes for $60. I’m not paying that much for a used LP from the 80s without getting a chance to hear it first, so I’m going to wait until I actually see it in person (if I can ever go to a record store again, sigh).

Anyways, while I haven’t been able to track down that album, I was able to score this 12″ single, which features two songs from the record. “Thermo Limbo” is the better one of the bunch, which a dope beat and good groove, but the out-there spacey “Exotic Dance” is also good. These tracks feature fellow 80s j-pop idol Sandii on back-up vocals, and I bet that they share a bit more with her as well. These sound a lot like Sandii songs, with a slight Hawaiian bent and a cool mixture of traditional and electronic elements. I love this stuff. It’s always my jam.

Posted in Imitation, live, P.M. Dawn, Rick Wakeman | 3 Comments »

Obscure synthesizers and amazing suits

July 21st, 2020

Graziano Mandozzi – Bach Handel 300 (complete album)
Sometimes I want to write about something even though I’m woefully lacking in the knowledge to do so. Here’s one of those times. Apologies for omissions or errors. Correct me (politely) in the comments!

Bach Handel 300 is a collection of synthesizer covers of compositions by (duh) Bach and Handel. It was originally released on by the influential and prestigious Deutsche Grammophone record label in 1985. Now, if you’re like me and you obsess over synthesizer covers of classical compositions, that date probably surprises you. Most classical synth albums came out in the first half of the 70s, all of them riding the coat tails of Wendy Carlos’ legendary Switched On Bach album. By the mid-80s, the novelty of the format had long worn off. Even in Japan, where synth covers albums seemed to be much more popular, I don’t see many from after 1978.

But this one probably had a very specific reason for existing; I think it was serving a commercial for the synthesizers used on the album. This album doesn’t feature Moogs, nor Korgs, nor any early digital synthesizers like the Fairlight or Synclavier. This album was made entirely on PPG Wave synthesizers. PPG was a German company. Deutsche Grammophone was a German label (duh) so, yeah, the synergy makes sense.

Never heard of the PPG synthesizer? Me neither! But apparently they were used a bit by synthpop acts of the era, if the Wikipedia page is to be believed. I’m not very good at picking up individual synths in songs aside from old-school moogs and the Synclavier, so I couldn’t tell you which songs have good examples of the PPG Wave, but I know they’re out there.

The PPG Wave was a different style of synthesizer. While the synths of the 80s were almost exclusively pure analog, and the synths of the 80s were digital affairs, the PGG Wave series were something in-between, analog/digital hybrids that provided a wide range of sounds with superior audio quality. They were apparently groundbreaking in a few different ways, but again, this is not my element so I’m not going to speak too much about it. But I will definitely say that the PPG has a unique sound that reminds me of analog synths of the 70s, with the variety and range of the 80s digital stuff. You get your warped, ghostly analog sounds alongside your crystal clear, bright, 80s notes. It also has a grit to it that was probably to its detriment at the time, but gives it a unique quality now that makes it stand apart from the cleaner all-digital synths of the era. I have another classical synthesizer album from the same year called Bachbusters. It’s on all digital synthesizers. It’s boring as hell. This one has way more personality.

But it never did reach the popularity of those other synths, sadly. This album came out in 1985, and PPG went belly-up just two years later. A lot of PPG systems still seem to be out there though, so if you dig the sound on this album head over to YouTube and you’ll find more examples of the sounds it can create.

I just realize that I’ve spent over 500 words going over the synthesizers used on this album but I haven’t even mentioned the man playing them! The man with a fantastic mustache and wonderful suit, exuding the confidence that only a man surrounded by thousands of dollars of digital equipment can.

That would be one Graziano Mandozzi, credited on the album as simply “Mandozzi” like he’s synth Prince or something. Ballsy move. I respect it. A Swiss composer, Mandozzi has a short, but insanely interesting discography that I hope to dig into more. He has an album called Masada that was recently released on vinyl and digitally via Bandcamp that is just insane. It’s some funk/jazz/experimental/psych rock monstrosity that was apparently the soundtrack to a ballet?! How anyone danced to it is beyond me. It’s rad as hell though. If you download this and like it, do the right thing and go buy that album to show support. Digital copies are cheap, and the vinyl comes with a download code.

I feel like I end all my posts recently in the same way, but I hope you all are doing well out there. Things are really scary right now, especially in the states. If you can, stay home, listen to stupid records like this and get drunk. That’s what I’ve been doing and it usually works for me.

Posted in Complete Albums, Mandozzi | 2 Comments »

Yumi Yato Yay!

July 12th, 2020

Yumi Yato
Makin’ It
Eat You Up
Follow Me
Cupid Girl
Cupid Girl (Rollercoaster Version)

Yumi Yato is one of those artists that I stumble upon, get really into, and then hit a brick wall when it comes to finding out damn near anything about them. I feel that it’s safe to assume that she wasn’t all that popular, but developed a cult following years later. I parsed this out by seeing that she has an extensive Japanese wikipedia page, and many audio rips on YouTube, but no normal person in Japan that I’ve talked to has any idea who the hell she is, and original copies of her sole album and few singles go for a fortune on Discogs.

That, and my boyfriend has never heard of her, and he knows his 80 idols.

I assume her albums go for a bit online because nothing of hers was in-print or available on CD until last year, when a 2CD set comprised of her album and all her single tracks was released here in Japan. That’s how I found her, picking up the CD on the strong recommendation of the guy at Mecano, the synthpop music store in Nakano Broadway.

He knew I loved synth and sampler-heavy 80s pop and figured I would dig this. He figured right. Because while her album is good, not great, but very good 80s Japanese pop music, the bonus single tracks are fucking fire. They have all the synths. Give me all the synths. I need more synths. It’s the only way I can feel anything anymore.

The album proper came out first, the bonus tracks are from singles that came out later. They have an energy and an inventiveness that the album itself lacks. And the songs are just better. They’re catchier with better hooks and stronger melodies. “Makin’ It” is a killer track. It sounds like a theme song to a lost 80s sitcom about “makin’ it” in the big city. Or maybe it could have been used as a track to a raunchy teen sex comedy about “makin’ it” in a much more carnal fashion. “Follow Me” follows (hah) in the footsteps of “Makin’ It,” and is just as frantic and frenetic as that tune. The tempo never stops and it never gives you a chance to rest. It’s hard to listen to either track while sitting down. I’m tapping my feet so hard that my downstairs neighbors are liable to kill me. Or maybe I’m just drunk and have too much energy from being pent up in the house all day/week/month/year WHO KNOWS?!?!

“Eat Me Up” is a bit slower, but also a bit more emotional and powerful. Of the tracks I’m sharing tonight, Yano’s vocals are the strongest here. If this isn’t a touch song it’s definitely a “I need that ass” song. Good synth/sequencer/samplers here. Sounds like Erasure.

It’s actually hard to compare these tracks to Western pop music of the era. These singles all came out in 1985 or 1986. I’ve recently been writing a lot about music from that same time. Very little of it sounds like this. In mid-80s America, we were down with Dire Straits, Duran Duran and Mr. Mister. The biggest synthpop song of the year was “Take On Me,” and let’s be real that was because of the video. We just weren’t the audience for stuff like this. We were still giving hit records to John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. We couldn’t take “Follow Me” and its layers upon layers upon layers of every computer, keyboard, and drum pad imaginable. England was giving The Art Of Noise hits in the 80s, maybe they would’ve been receptive to this stuff more.

Of these tracks, the only one that sounds like it could’ve been in a hit in America to me is “Cupid Girl.” It’s a little slower and a little more restrained. The synth keyboards are scaled back just a touch and it’s mostly just percussion and bass, a bit like a slower Madonna tune. And the melody has a melancholy feel that gives the song a slightly somber feel that’s definitely lacking on the other, hyper-energetic tracks. Of course, I have no idea how well if fared in Japan. Maybe it was her biggest hit! It’s a solid tune, but I prefer the “Rollercoaster Version” it takes the song and beats the fucking shit out of it. Sampled elements are chopped up and repeated, breakdowns are extended, some fucking record scratches thrown in for no damn reason. It’s crazy. It makes no sense. I love it.

Strangely enough, Yoshihiro Kunimoto, who brought us the game music remixes of my last post, worked on all of these tracks as well. I did not plan that. I swear. Cosmic synthpop powers are at work to make this coincidence happen. It makes sense though, his synth work on those tracks was top-notch, he would’ve had to have been an in-demand session guy at the time.

Also, he’s not the only game music connection on these tracks! All of Yumi’s songs were produced by Kyoji Kato, who went onto produce a lot of Yuzo Koshiro’s work, including the Streets Of Rage soundtracks!

Small world.

Or, more accurately, Japan is a small country with a small music industry.

Posted in Yumi Yato | 3 Comments »

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