Haruomi Hosono, Suzuki Shigeru, Tatsuro Yamashita — Passion Flower

from Pacific (1978)

Aw yeah. Three incomparable instrumentalists, one sparkling disco rhinestone. You might call this elevator music. But it’s the kind you’d hear as you breeze out of the elevator at your Hanalei Bay resort, hiding behind your Ray-Bans, and someone hands you a coconut with a straw in it. Oh yes.

Jiro over at the fantastic Ying Yangs hooked me up with this album and I thank him warmly from my cabana.

Urban Dance — Alienlover

from Ceramic Dance (1986)

This…is the FUTURE. Well ok actually, it’s 1986—incredible Japanese techno-pop that sounds like it could have come out yesterday. What is up with those crazy guitar loops? Amazing stuff, really.

Urban Dance is headed by Shinobu Narita, who handles electronics, guitar and vocals. And as many trailblazing projects are, this EP was produced with help from Haruomi Hosono.

Read more here, in Japanese. WaxMask has the follow-up album to this EP.

• 01 Pom Pom - Untitled // Sans Soleil - Welcome To Tokyo
• 02 Yellow Magic Orchestra - Light in Darkness
• 03 Hiroshi Sato - Awakening
• 04 Wally Badarou - Endless Race
• 05 Mariah - 心臓の扉 
• 06 Sparks - My Other Voice
• 07 Haruomi Hosono - Body Snatchers
• 08 Yellow Magic Orchestra - Gradated Grey
• 09 Yukihiro Takahashi - It’s Gonna Work Out
• 10 Sandii & The Sunsetz - Dreams of Immigrants
• 11 James Ferraro - Dubai Dream Tone

http://soundcloud.com/greenraymusic/greetings-from-tokyo-bay

http://www.mediafire.com/?bnfo7afsh7ff160

Haruomi Hosono — Libble Rabble

from Video Game Music (1984)

Here’s one for vintage arcade game enthusiasts: a 1984 album of video game music, mostly from early Namco games like Libble Rabble, a 16-bitter in which your task is to harvest mushrooms. Nobuyuki Ohnogi wrote this track, Harry arranged it. Check out some screenplay, too.

Haruomi Hosono/Bon Voyage Co. — Exotica Lullaby

from Taian Yōkō (泰安洋行) (1976)

Elevator-grade tropical reggae from the one and only Harry “The Crown” Hosono (as he refers to himself on the cover). I would pay top dollar to go on a cruise with Hosono at the helm of the house band. Mai tai, anyone?

This album follows Hosono’s other foray into exotica, 1975’s Tropical Dandy — another palm-swaying delight.

Japanese music nerds: head over to the Voodoo Vault immediately to find this and other rarities.

Sandii — Drip Dry Eyes

from Eating Pleasure (1980)

This is wild — disco-reggae from Japanese/Hawaiian singer Sandii and synth wizard Haruomi Hosono, who produced and arranged the album. (Most of the playing here is by Hosono and his bandmates in Yellow Magic Orchestra.) The wardrobe styling on the cover is apt for the album’s title, I suppose… lettuce cups?

Feel like I’ve been through a washing machine
I’m all washed up and ready to drown
You just locked me in, and took me for a spin
With your drip dry eyes…

Haruomi Hosono — Chattanooga Choo Choo

from Tropical Dandy (1975)

All aboard you tropical dandies! Grab your vinyl Samsonite… throw on your Panama hat… undo a few buttons on your floral shirt. Haruomi Hosono is most famous as a founding member, along with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi, of the pioneering Japanese electronic group Yellow Magic Orchestra.

But this album catches Hosono between his stints as psych rocker and electronic dial-twister, moonlighting instead as a tropical jetsetter, playing his ultra-cheesy brand of ‘exotica‘—wanna-be tropical music with wave sounds, flutes, vibraphones and the like, played by someone with a sock tan. Pair this with a piña colada and you’re in business.

If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you check out dublab’s fu-ku-kai mix, where I first heard this track.