♪♫♬

This is a silly, beautiful, and beloved record from 1978. Sally Oldfield comes from a musical family, her brother being Mike Oldfield, whose record Tubular Bells was in the UK top ten for a time after its release in 1973 (and lent a song to the soundtrack of The Exorcist). Sally has a new-age sensibility and a certain dorkiness that I find deeply charming and sincere, and it’s out in full force here on her debut. Water Bearer’s eponymous first track is driven by a rollicking marimba refrain that gives way to shiny synths and classical guitar for the chorus, while Sally sings of an aquarius hottie. The first track exemplifies the astrological, celestial and natural themes of this record, but the deep affection I have for this album also stems from how unabashedly Sally sings about Elves on the next track.

“Songs of the Quendi” is a four-part ballad that is literally about Tolkien’s Elves from The Lord of the Rings (the “Quendi” refers to the name the Elves gave themselves upon first awakening, meaning “those who speak in voices”). The lyrics, often in Elvish, refer to the three rings of power bestowed upon the race of Elves, Galadriel’s return to the Undying Lands, and the Elves’ rich relationship with the land and the forest. Suffice it to say she loves Tolkien!

Paraiso (1978) is an absolutely perfect--if bizzare--summer album. I have listened to it nearly every day this season, driving around in the suffocating Midwestern heat, wishing desperately I lived on the wonky island these tracks seem to narrate. This is the first record where Hosono worked with his future Yellow Magic Orchestra bandmates, Yukihiro Takahashi and Riyuichi Sakamoto, and they bring to it a truly spectacular chemistry and sense of humor that continued to permeate YMO’s entire career. The first track, “Tokyo Rush”, plunks you right into a ripping blues piano and harmonica riff (not to mention a honking clown horn) which results in a cartoony anthem perfect for driving your friends through the city on the way to the beach. It’s hard not to imagine a gorgeous cloudless day, with your feet up on the dash and the wind in your hair--a mood which pops up throughout this album’s inescapable sunniness (especially on tracks like the steel drum-heavy “Shimendoka” and the beachily syncopated “Worry Beads”). Hosono sings in both English and Japanese throuhgout the album, and on “Fujiyama Mama” comically falsettos his way through a swingin’ sixties-style duet with himself. 

For all its silliness, however, there’s an undeniable oddity to these songs that reveals itself the more you get to know them. This record is a remarkable blend of styles, characteristic of Hosono’s musical omnivorousness. He takes Western influences and runs with them, blending funk, jazz, folk, reggae and blues with distinctly Japanese musical tradition (more overt on tracks such as the traditional Okinawan song “Asatoya Yunta”). There is a tongue-in-cheek attitude to Paraiso, especially considering its release in the decade following the rise of the island fantasy sound of lounge exotica. On tracks such as “Femme Fatale”, Hosono distinctly nods to the lounge tradition, but with a twist--the tropical bird sounds in the background are overly compressed, hinting at a canned kind of paradise. On other tracks, however, he leans into real “island” music, flipping the appropriative exotica stereotype on its head. “Shambhala Signal” demonstrates Hosono’s pioneering electronica sound as applied to the ancient Indonesian tradition of Gamelan music, an influence that sticks with him and the rest of Yellow Magic Orchestra throughout their career. It’s interesting to note that this record marks the first time Hosono recorded a track with a synthesizer since he began his career in 1969, especially considering he was later known as a pioneer of electronica. (If you want more synths in the form of a groundbreaking and dissonant soundtrack to a non-existent Bollywood film, seek out Hosono’s subsequent record, Cochin Moon).

Only on the final title track does the record give in to the psychedelia bleeding at the edges of the album’s vision--but only for a minute. Soon, Harry Hosono and The Yellow Magic Band are back at the perfectly tropical pop that makes this record so indelibly listenable. This record’s wonkiness and odd melange of styles are nothing short of charming, and there is a subversive peculiarity to it that only grows the more you listen. It makes for a casually genius album that seems effortless in its inventiveness, and begs to be the soundtrack of your summer.

I’ve been sitting on this one for a couple months, but it really has come into my regular rotation, so I wanted to write a short post on it. I’ve been doing a lot of writing for my job lately and this record has served as a perfect soundtrack for that kind of focused work. Quiet and slightly melancholy late-nineties IDM, with a bit of a wonky leftfield attitude. Some of this is small and glitchy, some expansive and haunting, but it’s all a little understated. If you like the kind of brainy-and-not-too-danceable work of Seefeel or Boards of Canada, this is for you.

In 1996, sixteen-year-old Jasmin Wagner--using the stage name Blümchen (“little flower”)--released her debut album Herzfrequenz (“heart rate”), which immediately captivated the rave-obsessed German youth of the 1990s. This blisteringly optimistic record pings between seemingly disparate moods with a deeply manic energy--jumping from sweet melodies about love and flowers to acid, breakbeat or gabber samples effortlessly. Blümchen embodies a corny kind of earnestness that may seem naive to some but which I find incredibly charming--and which is embodied perfectly by that amazing cover art! There are some weak spots on this album (I find the Queen cover very confusing) but  “Herz an Herz” and “Boomerang” are ear worms that are basically impossible not to dance to. These songs were made for DDR.

Herzfrequenz and other trance/hardcore really taps into one of the things I love most about dance music--like disco, it dares to dream of a better world, of a utopia full of love and community and people getting together just to get down. Halfway through “Liebe Liebe”, the cheerful synthesizer gives way to a darker acid beat and the sounds of a wild crowd as Blümchen cheers them on--to dance, to love, to be free. This record takes you by the hand and drags you into the middle of the dance floor, where it’s too dark to see anything but flashing lights and too feverish for any self-consciousness. It makes so much sense to me that, before she was Blümchen, Jasmin Wagner was a cheerleader. This is a record that feels like it’s on your side, pumping you up with a raving energy suitable to keep you out till the wee hours of the morning.

Here’s the music video for “Herz an Herz” featuring the love story of Jimmy & Patsy “who met in the internet”. 

Here’s a mix I made for those dark february nights. Experimenting with field recordings, talk tracks, and trying to get things to sound good together that rightfully should not be next to each other. Featuring a throwback to my freak-folk days, my favorite stereolab b-side, and a lot of nice fuzzy lo-fi folk etc. Give it a listen while on a walk or puttering around your cosy room--preferably with a hot cup of tea!

The title is from a Diane Seuss poem called I Have Lived My Whole Life in a Painting Called Paradise, which you can read here.

tracklist:

1) spells by jenny hval

2) poplar moon by fursaxa

3) 記憶は遠い by les rallizes dénudés

4) open heart by weyes blood

5) constellations by duster

6) aphanisis by heldon

7) rose hip november by vashti bunyan

8) branca by carioca

9) sad chicago organ by stereolab

10) bruma by nuno canavarro

11) the heart sleeps by woo

12) in a long white room by all in one

13) winter comes by suzanne menzel

14) winter: sleep by claire hamill

I have been thinking a lot lately about the increasingly popular term “speculative fiction”--media and texts that imagine different possibilities of the future or of our current understanding the world. I am specifically drawn to those engaged with real issues that affect our lived experiences--historical trauma, gender dynamics, racial oppression, and other kinds of real inequality. Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness strikes me as a perfect example of this--it serves to imagine the extensive consequences of living in a society without gender, and how alien our gendered experience would seem in comparison.

Another perfect example of this kind of speculative fiction comes in the form of the Detroit techno/house group Drexciya, comprised of members James Stinson and Gerald Donald. A lot of ink has been spilled about this project, but their music is something I think even more people should be listening to and thinking about. According to the mythology constructed by the artists, Drexciya is the name of a country within the Black Atlantic, a network of underwater societies whose inhabitants are descended from the unborn children of pregnant African women thrown over the side of slave ships. Their fetuses learned to breathe in the water of the womb, and later the water of the Atlantic ocean, and developed an extremely technologically advanced society under the waves. The sounds on the album build into this narrative--the Drexciyans have perfected sonic weapons in their war against other nations of the Black Atlantic. Certain songs also feature audio of daily life (see “Bubble Metropolis” from 1993 for Drexciyan aquabahn traffic-control).

This kind of speculative fiction is extremely powerful. It takes the unimaginable trauma of millions of Africans and re-frames the narrative as one of gained power, as well as highlighting the similarities between the kidnapping of Africans and the kind of alien invasion so often featured in traditional science fiction. Science fiction speculates about the worst possible outcomes--armageddon, apocalypse, hostile invasion--when these unimaginables have historically been reality for millions. I think Mark Sinker sums it up perfectly in his 1992 essay “Loving the Alien” (which you can read in its entirety here):

“The ships landed long ago: they already laid waste whole societies, abducted and genetically altered swathes of citizenry, imposed without surcease their values. Africa and America -and so by extension Europe and Asia - are already in their various ways Alien Nation. No return to normal is possible: what "normal" is there to return to? Part of the story of black music (the affirmative, soul-gospel aspect) has always been this - that losing everything except basic dignity and decency is potentially a survivable disaster.”

Ok so--this seems like a lot of hefty intellectual weight to be carried by what is, at its core, a dance record. But there’s a lot of intellectually hefty dance music, from Afrofuturist techno to DJ Sprinkles’ Midtown 120 Blues (maybe the subject of a future post on this blog). I think it’s important to recognize that music like this can wrestle with big ideas just as effectively as something you’d find in a sound installation in an art museum, or in a critical theory essay. Perhaps even more so, because its philosophical heft kind of sneaks up on you.

There is so much to say about this record’s place in Afrofuturist worldbuilding traditions, in Detroit techno music, etc… but what does it sound like? From the moment you are dropped into the intro’s chanting drone and bubbly speech samples, the deep dark ocean imagery comes to mind easily. Acid-y breakbeat with submarine pings really set this record firmly in a 90s tradition of dance music. Some of these songs (“Andreaen Sand Dunes”) are built upon very pretty synth riffs, whereas others are rooted in more abrasive mechanical whirring (“Drifting into a Time of No Future”). Throughout the record, however, funk and disco remain bubbling below the surface, infusing this record with just straight-out fun (“Jazzy Fluids” has this great moment of silence followed by an adorable tinkly synth line… great stuff). Do yourself a favor and next time you need to really focus on something (or boogie) slap this record on.

The song featured below is not on this record--it was recorded in 1992--but it was part of a larger re-release of older singles of theirs, and it’s my favorite song they recorded, so I had to share.

A bit of an oddball--but a good time, nonetheless. This is a record that’s all over the place--at times silly, scary, and beautiful--but which still manages to build up an exotic sonic world. Minimalist composer Kay Hoffman traveled to Italy in the mid-70s, meeting Welsh soprano Jacqueline Darby and Gaio Chiochio and Arturo Stalteri of Pierrot Lunaire. The result of their collaboration is a melange of medieval music, jazz, and 70s psychedelic folk that feels strangely dated and avant-garde at the same time. This record was intended to be released in the late 70s, but the label backed away from it at the last minute, and it ultimately wasn’t released until 1985--making it a misfit in any singular time period.

Both Hoffman and Darby sing on this record-- in Latin, of course. There are beautiful sections of troubadour-like flute, moody oboe, field recordings of crickets, and bong-like bubbling. “Exorcism” includes demonic Latin incantations and echoing laughter, with a gorgeous tinkling bell and piano motif at the end. Throughout the record, harpsichord, classical guitar, flutes and horns (“Sonus Dulcis Lyrae”)  lead to a familiarly medieval sound, but psychedelic guitar, jazz drums and synth riffs (“Langueo Vacillantis”) plonk it firmly into 1970s and beyond. “Mai Tanz” straight-up rips, in a court jester kind of way. I listen to this song really loud, and you should, too.

There are times where the fantasy built up by these sounds is pushed a little too far, and it can take you out of the world it is leading you into. At it’s best, however, it’s a gorgeous experiment in revisiting the music of the past with the knowledge and bias of the present.

heres a mixtape i made for my friends while i was in italy and germany last summer so that they did not forget me.

a mix of some japanese synth pop from the 80s, electronic tuareg jams from an art installation i saw in venice, and pretty german house.

Very rarely does an album come paired with an essay, but The West Against The People has a companion essay that addresses concepts of “the West”, increasing reliance on technology and capitalistic economic structures. You can read it here. Even without knowing of Mary Ocher’s knowledge of socioeconomic theory, there’s something deeply intellectual about this album. Though based in Berlin, there seems to be nothing tying Ocher to any one place musically, and yet something inexplicably worldly about her sound.

Ocher grew up in Tel Aviv and Russia, and her work speaks to a global range of influences. But the thing that makes me personally excited about this album is that she seems to exist outside of the usual framework of genre and influence. Though “outsider art” implies a lack of formal education of the artist and I’m not sure that applies in this case, there’s something “outsider” about Ocher that makes her sound so enchanting. You’re not going to get it anywhere else.

The West Against The People oscillates between soft tenderness (“The Endlessness (Song for Young Xenophobes)”) and raw, plodding meditations on fear (“My Executioner”). Ocher employs the percussive talents of two drummers collectively known as Your Government, especially on the first half of the album, which is overall more aggressive than the second half. Her voice floats celestial above the discord, even when distorted on tracks like “To The Light”. She crafts a haunting mood out of unlikely elements like synthpop (“Arms”) and house (“The Becoming”), giving The West Against The People a refreshing, bizarre, and entirely unique sound.

You can listen to the album on Spotify.

Japan in the 1970s through the 1980s was characterized by intense urbanization and economic growth, and many people moved into urban centers like Osaka and Tokyo. Yuppies drove around the shiny, clean cities of Japan on their way to work, clubs, or shopping centers, and they needed something to listen to on their car stereos while they did! This is where シティーポップ, or “city pop” comes in: a western-influenced, laid-back, smooth-jazz-and-boogie-fusion with a little bit of disco thrown in. Once you hear the mellow strains of city pop, it’s easy to imagine how it was inspired by a sunny day in Tokyo, during a time of affluence and growth, where the world seemed bright and full of possibility.

Since this is my first post on this blog, I wanted to start with a record that I feel embodies the sort of attitude I strive for: optimistic, fun, and heartfelt; a sunny disposition with a smile. This is a record that’s perfect for driving around on a sunny day with big puffy clouds above you and somebody nice in the passenger seat.

Taeko Ohnuki (大貫妙子) began her career with the band SUGAR BABE, whose members counted j-pop royalty Tatsuro Yamashita, among other influential musicians. SUGAR BABE broke up after only one release (SONGS, which I will surely feature later on), but all the members went on to have solo careers. While SUNSHOWER isn’t Ohnuki’s first solo record, I think it’s my favorite of her early works. Released in 1977, it’s a prime example of city pop and the sort of attitude embodied by j-pop at the time. Her voice is clear and bright, and the big-band disco sound really lends itself to the sunny mood of the record. My favorite track, and probably the most famous, is “The City” (都会), on which Ohnuki’s voice really shines against its lilting clarinet and funky synth backdrop. Also–with the 70s coming back in style and all–the album art is definitely fashion inspiration, at least for me!!

At the time of SUNSHOWER’s release, Ohnuki’s career as a singer and songwriter was just getting started, but she went on to collaborate with some of Japan’s most influential musicians such as Ryuichi Sakamoto and other members of Yellow Magic Orchestra.