I am an avid longtime collector of 70s/80s Japanese Synthpop music, and being based in Europe that always proved to be quite some task, particularly in the pre-internet shopping days. You had to start from scratch, mostly starting with Yellow Magic Orchestra and their affiliated labels like Yen, Monad or Alfa, and you studied the credits of every record and learnt about new artists, crosslinks and local scenes. But finding those records in some continental crates was a rare and lucky occasion, and then when internet offered more purchasing options, it appeared to be a rather pricey habit because of shipping costs and Japanese sellers who were perfectly aware that their items were considerably out of reach beyond their own soil. But it also became very apparent that their was way more to discover, and it was well worth trying. Still, the Japanese music scene was frustratingly hermetic. I had gathered a collection over the years, but regularly you came across sellers with pages and pages of offers, complete with listening clips, and you had to admit that you were not scratching the surface, you were not even near it. I could have bought the bulk of it if possible, it all sounded fantastic, but it was not possible, and as I tried to at least learn about the artists I read in the item descriptions via web search engines, information was very scarce. For a nation so obsessed with technological progress and cultural information, there was mysteriously little given away to the outside world, only a few hideously designed websites by American or European enthusiasts who lived in Japan and fell in love with what they heard. I was really glad they made the effort, but their discographies, as thorough as they were, offered not much beyond artists I already knew about, and sooner or later every such site disappeared from sight again, only to be replaced by, well, not much else. I’m perfectly convinced that a well researched book about Japanese music would sell profitable quantities, there must be more people like me, but it can only be written by a Japanese author.
And then it always fascinated me that it was well acknowledged that Japan contributed a lot to electronic music in said period of time, but once House came along in the mid to late 80’s, and Techno shortly after, there were so few notable Nippon producers reacting to it. And as the Chicago pioneers operated mainly on musical equipment built in Japan and later neglected for the international bargain market, it was even more curious that those sounds originated so far away from where they were originally developed. No matter how hard you tried, the Japanese equivalent to the early House music masters was nowhere to be found. But you had this feeling there just had to be someone.
Years later a good friend of mine, a serious Deep House completist collector, pointed out that there were some interesting releases by Japanese artists on Hisa Ishioka’s King Street Sounds, a New York based label established in 1993, which was inspired by the Paradise Garage experience. He investigated further and found Ishioka’s sub-label BPM Records, which from 1991 on showcased a small wealth of Japanese producers taking on the trademark mellow but crisp Big Apple Deep House style established on imprints like Nu Groove, Strictly Rhythm, Nervous and a plethora of smaller labels. The producer with the most credits was Soichi Terada, and he also seemed to have the most distinctive signature sound. It is known that Larry Levan toured Japan at the end of his career, and even shortly before is death, and there must have been some interaction with the local scene, as he remixed Terada’s gorgeous 1989 track „Sunshower“ two years later, as did fellow New York DJ legend Mark Kamins. So there he was at last, the House music master from Japan. He even had his own label, called Far East Recordings, and though it only had a small back catalogue the few sound bits I could track down had me locking target on every single one of them. Terada’s sound admittedly owed a lot to its US prototypes, the whole lush smoothness of it, but it also had a weirdly bouncing funk, and more importantly, it had all this charming humour to its melodies and arrangements, and this all-embracing both respectful and freeform use of Western influences interpreted with Japanese music traditions I so fell in love with the first time I ever heard YMO.
But the other parallel was that it was as hard to find as any other record I had in my Nippon wantslist, or even worse. At least the releases pre-House were pressed in suffcient runs, but these were only done in quantities of a few hundred. Enter this fine compilation, which although interest in Nippon House had increased over the years, appeared a bit out of the blue. It was put together by my friend Hunee, a DJ and music enthusiast with a fine tendency to dig that little deeper, and he managed to secure all the essential tracks by Soichi Terada and his frequent collaborator Shinichiro Yokota. And even when reissues of rare records are quite common these days, this is really something special. Now someone please do that complete collection of Koizumix Production tracks, and make me an even happier man.
Pablo Gad – Hard Times Dub Achterbahn D’Amour – Königsstr. (SW. Remix) Willis Anne – Untitled Lena Willikens – Mari Ori Reckonwrong – Hansie C.C. Not – Untitled Lohhof – Midway Moodswings (Terekke Remix) X – Untitled The Maghreban – Green Apple Florian Kupfer – Discotags Kai Alcé – Rockin K-Tel Orson + Skratch – Untitled Leigh Dickson – Praise (Baby Ford Mix) Perbec – Chaser Translate – City Slicker Marquis Hawkes – The Way Isanlar – Kime Ne (Ricardo Villalobos Version 1) Hashman Deejay – Samba DJ Sprinkles & Mark Fell – Insights Ken Gill – Love Moon DJ Sotofett – Nimbus Mix Simone White – Flowers In May (Kassem Mosse Version) Stump Valley – Caruso Plaza – Night Lines (Moon B Extra Nocturnal Mix) Aphex Twin – diskhat1 Patrick Cowley & Jorge Socarras – She Had Her Nerve
Lushus Daim & The Pretty Vein – The One You Love (Disconet) Elevation – Traitor (Razormaid) The Weather Girls – No One Can You Love More Than Me (Disconet) Risque – Starlight (Disconet) Natasha – AM-FM (Disconet) Colonel Abrams – Over And Over (Disconet) Swing Out Sister – Surrender (Disconet) Eighth Wonder – I’m Not Scared (Razormaid) Propaganda – P Machinery/Frozen Faces (Razormaid) Propaganda – Dr. Mabuse (Razormaid) Do Piano – Alone (Razormaid) Cabaret Voltaire – Sensoria (Razormaid) Skipworth & Turner – Thinking About Your Love (Disconet) Alphonse Mouzon – I’m Glad That You’re Here (Disconet) Miquel Brown – Close To Perfection (Lightspeed) Bucks Fizz – I Hear Talk (Disconet) Cabaret Voltaire – Don’t Argue (Razormaid) Pet Shop Boys – West End Girls (Razormaid) Miami Sound Machine – Falling In Love (Uh-Oh) (Disconet) Grace Jones – Pull Up to The Bumper (Disconet) Was (Not Was) – Robot Girl (Razormaid) Kid Creole – Endicott (Razormaid) Pet Shop Boys – Domino Dancing (Hot Tracks) Risco Connection – Ain’t No Stopping Us Now (C.S.) Sparks – With All My Might (Disconet)
I really don’t like all these convenience product edits of rare or popular Disco and Synthpop material. With a bit of experience and practice you can learn the skills necessary to handle the original irregularities of drummers or sloppy rhythm programming, and maintain the already well executed aspects of the original arrangement over the DJ service straightness of most edits. I like people who deconstruct the source material and turn it into something else, even if it is only a respectful variation. I just do not see much merit in keeping the original and just streamlining it for better mixing. I am perfectly aware that this criticism may seem pointless, as most of today’s club setups for mixing are designed to have the choice what to play next as the only task left for the DJ, if at all. I have Zager and Evans’ In The Year 2525 in my head, predicting “some machine is doing that for you”.
When DJs began to make their own edits of tracks they liked to play in the late 70s, better mixing purposes admittedly played a role. But mostly the editing process was determined by personal preferences concerning the arrangement of a track, not determined by the aim to reduce every track to the same groove and functionality, regardless of arrangement. So they took out tape and scissors, and made intros end up in a kick drum in time, extended or cut breaks and other parts, dropped instruments or vocals they did not like, and often improved the source with individual versions and interpretations.
Many daring edits of that era were officially released, but the most radical approaches were to be found in the catalogues of the remix services. Disconet led the way in 1977, and soon all over the US and Europe DJs and producers were splicing reel-to-reels to let a certain track shine in the best possible way, and the remix services like hot Tracks, Razormaid, Ultimix, Art Of Mix, C.S., Landspeed and countless others gathered the results and distributed them back to the clubs. The records compiling the edits often contained original tracks and medleys as well, and tracks were segued to make the work for the DJ easier, who often played for hours on end in those days, several nights a week. The selection of the tracks per release was often frustrating. With a few sublime reworks there were also tracks included that were well cheesy to begin with, and did not get better after being worked on. Eurodance cheese, weird rock songs trying to cross over to the dance market, and lots of one hit wonders, with questionable hits. There was no other reason for the tracklisting than songs being pushed regardless of quality, and of course the individual taste of the editor at work. The edits also varied in quality, a lot were even rather crude, or as forgettable as the original material. But there were also a lot of edits that reconstructed what they were given to work with to a whole new level. Take Razormaid’s edit of the Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls for example. The intro is easier to mix in their version, but were the official Shep Pettibone remix arguably sacrifices the song’s special appeal for dancefloor credentials, Razormaid manage to keep the tension by rearranging the elements and still achieve a track that works a treat in a club context.
I’ve been collecting remix service records for quite some time now, and starting with Hot Wax 026, I would like to dedicate an irregular series of shows to my personal favourites in that field.
As I checked Hot Wax 025’s tracklist for a record to highlight I couldn’t help noticing three records of Japanese origin. All three are very fine examples of artists with their own signature sound. Soichi Terada was doing House in Japan from the late 80’s on, when there very few cohorts around him. It is quite strange that the country that developed so much equipment that House and Techno were based on in their respective pioneering days, led to such little output in that field, whereas from the late 70’s to the late 80’s there were almost too many great artists to follow track. And for a music enthusiast outside of Japan, information and actual releases were always hard to come by, too. Now Terada’s rare back catalogue will be compiled to shine a light on the small but very fine according Nippon House scene, which unfortunately did not develop much further from those years. A good part of the local scene was wholly absorbed by the international success of the glossy Nippon version of Lounge, Acid Jazz and New York big room House, and it seemed not to be a fertile time for subtleties (and if Japanese culture adapts foreign culture it adapts it thoroughly, and it may last a while as well). So there surely are some gems to be found, but there is also a bulk which is a charmingly weird interpretation of Western club sounds of the boisterous and booming era as House entered the big rooms and became widely recognized in the mainstream stakes, and the tons of styles that were recycled, sampled and mutated in the process only added to the confusion.
Shinichi Atobe on the other hand landed a record on Hard Wax’s seminal Chain Reaction imprint just a few years later, and it certainly had its kudos, but then it was also perfectly available for years, and only became a rare item as the interest in Japanese electronic music was on the rise again more recently. So a perfect timing to release “Butterly Effect”, previously unreleased recordings that display a fine talent for deep atmospherics and which do not seem to care what happened in all those years. And even in times where many labels, producers and their respective fanbase do not care much either, this release stands out from the rest, and the praise seems well deserved.
Takuya Matsumoto started his career around the same time as Atobe, but he appeared on my radar only a few years back, when I coincidentally stumbled upon a few releases on the Iero label. At first I thought he was taking a decidedly psychedelic look on the Detroit House legacy, but I soon learnt that he was aiming elsewhere really, and he might have the potential to become a property for some time to come.
I hope that there is much more to discover where all of the above came from, and I hope it does not sound as what is happening elsewhere in this world. We need that!
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