Avant-pop Japanase psych easy-listening. Tweet FacebookRelated posts: Bodi Bill Feat. Siriusmo - I Like Holden Caulfield Snow Beard - Electronic Composition Sun Ra And His Astro-Solar Infinity Arkestra - To Nature's God Gene F. Steiker & Larry S. Chengges - In Green Pastures Rob Jo Star Band - Blood Flower
It seems that everyone is loving Yellow Magic Orchestra at the moment. I've been trying to figure out why there's such an explosion of YMO related tunes floating around recently, but all I can settle on is that Japanese tunes are in vogue as the next, relatively untapped source of rare grooves and beats due to language differences. Italo and Euro beats are naturally more comfortable to mine through, but Japanese music history has been seemingly left untouched. Regardless, here's some tunes from solo ventures from Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto (both of YMO) if you haven't stumbled [...]

Henri Rousseau never went to the Jungle. He spent all his days in Paris and surrounds, meticulously painting images of nature that were anything but 'natural'. He copied his designs from botanical gardens, zoo pamphlets, and children's books, depicting animals that would never be seen in the same environment. Once he even painted a hand of bananas growing upside down. His paintings are naive, flat and disjointed. This playlist is a musical equivalent to Rousseau paintings - "Jungle" music made by westerners. Electronic emulation of african sounds, drum machines instead of djembé. Starts off mellow before moving into more disjointed territory. [...]

It takes a special bass player to get a solo perch up on the 'blague. Or in this case, a visionary who happened to work the low side. I suppose this could be considered a curiosity for those who know Haruomi "Harry" Hosono mainly from his pioneering electronic work. But this is quite the classy groover, which goes to show that 1973 was 1973 just about anywhere. Haruomi Hosono - Rose & Beast

Haruomi Hosono with Friends Of Earth - Alternative 3 Pretty abstract stuff here from Harry, but ultimately successful (I think) as a self-contained piece of music. Recorded and mixed digitally October-November, 1984, Tokyo. bonus beats: Kurtis Blow - AJ Scratch (1984)

Haruomi Hosono - Sports Men (細野晴臣 - スポーツマン) The world of YMO and related configurations is such a rich musical seam; the dedicated seeker may mine at length and continue to reap sumptuous delights. available on compact disc

Haruomi Hosono - Sports Men (細野晴臣 - スポーツマン) The world of YMO and related configurations is such a rich musical seam; the dedicated seeker may mine at length and continue to reap sumptuous delights. available on compact disc

Pic: Travess Smalley @ Poster Company Outer Space - Memory Bomb ( buy ) Outer Space is a project by John Elliott of Emeralds. His self-titled LP is simply stunning. Three years in the making, armed with an array of synthesizers and the methods of a couple of mid-20th century electronic music composers. Really cannot wait to see Emeralds at Unsound in a couple of weeks. [...]

Emmett presents: "The Waiting Is The Hardest Part" Spring-Summer Megamix 2010 Face A Grandstand - Soul Stage Orchestra Hilly Fields (1892) - Nick Nicely Just For Me - Manfred Mann Skyline - Norman Greenbaum Zoo Gang - Paul McCartney The John Scene - Tigers On Vaseline Face B Morpha Too (rough mix) - Big Star [...]
Haruomi Hosono - Harry the lion >> the perfect song to begin 2009 (and any year in fact!) soooo grooooooovy ! Yellow Magic Orchestra. Tighten Up [SoulTrain.1980] par capitainfunkk -- Special thanks to Doctor Disco
Haruomi Hosono - Harry the lion >> the perfect song to begin 2009 (and any year in fact!) soooo grooooooovy ! Yellow Magic Orchestra. Tighten Up [SoulTrain.1980] par capitainfunkk -- Special thanks to Doctor Disco
Haruomi Hosono - Harry the lion >> the perfect song to begin 2009 (and any year in fact!) soooo grooooooovy ! Yellow Magic Orchestra. Tighten Up [SoulTrain.1980] par capitainfunkk -- Special thanks to Doctor Disco
I've realized, over the last twelve months, that Saturdays and Sundays are pretty much useless as far as content is concerned, because my readership drops over 100 visitors per day on the weekends. That's what Saturdays are (and always will be unless something amazing happens following Friday's post) world news stories, and Sundays are (for now) going to remain Sunday Mix Tape day. If you want to curate a Mix Tape, all you have to do is put one together, archive the files (.zip or .rar) and use MediaFire to upload it to the Internet. Send me a link to [...]

• Two beer-related news stories in one day? It must be Memorial Day weekend! I can't wait to go to work for seven hours and watch people strolling through the door with that look of complete and utter relaxation spread across their ugly faces. I'm not bitter about having to work on major holidays, trust me. So, yeah. Article number one speaks to the fact that in this "economic downturn" the price of brewing beer has risen, but the actual cost of beer has not. I guess that makes booze just about the only thing in this world that is [...]