Yellow Magic Orchestra - Solid State Survivor (1979)

For fans of Kraftwerk; except replace their serious, post-apocolyptic angular modalities with YMO's bubbly, cosmopolitan Tokyo cityscape video game world. 

It's neon and anime and fun.    
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Solid State Survivor (1979; Alfa Records)

Clive Tanaka y Su Orquesta - Jet Set Siempre No. 1 (2010)

I can find literally no info on Clive Tanaka; his website has March 2nd as the release date for this (originally in cassette-only format! The digital will be released on January 11th of next year) and then there's nothing of a personal nature at all. Very rarely do I read about a record and feel implored to seek it out, download it, listen to it three times in a row and immediately post it here, but there's an undeniable charm to the sounds on this album and the gravity that's pulling me to it.

All I can say is that this is going to be at the top of (or at the least one of my three favorite records this year); it's a chill-wavey lo-fi electropop synth-funk hot mess.

Sort of like Daft Punk meeting Toro y Moi in 1987 to audio track a Jazzercise VHS tape. 

Clive Tanaka y Su Orquesta - Jet Set Siempre No. 1 (2010; Tall Corn Music)

Todosantos - Aeropuerto (2005)

When I was starting out trying to be a music writer, a friend sent me a website that was hiring and urged me to apply. I didn't get the gig, but I became a fan of their fair and diplomatic reviews (probably because they weren't trying to become some massive money-making media conglomerate like that one named after a piece of farm equipment). One review was of this band from Caracas, Venezuela; Todosantos and their album Aeropuerto. I listened to their posted tracks and quickly ordered the physical copy, I had to jump some minor hurdles with the shipping costs and my lousy Spanish while corresponding with their record label, but it arrived a week later.

I'm thinking this album was made in response to (or on the heels of) all the other successful electro-pop albums of the early part of the decade- The Postal Service's Give Up, The Notwist's Neon Golden, múm's Finally We Are No One and Manitoba's Up In Flames, with a decidedly post-punk/glitch edge to it.

Anyway, enjoy one of the coolest electro albums to come from abroad this past decade...

Todosantos - Aeropuerto (2005; La Superagencia)