Testpattern — Techno Age

from Après-Midi (1982)

Gorgeous technopop from Japan… half video game soundtrack, half zen meditation.

Tipped off to this masterpiece by YingYangs.

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.

Roberto Cacciapaglia — My Time

from The Ann Steel Album (1979)

This song is the best thing I’ve heard in months. It’s from a one-off collaboration between American-born model Ann Steel, who sings like a beautiful robot, and Roberto Cacciapaglia, a Milanese pianist, composer and computer music scholar. The chugging electronic beats he created here are hypnotizingly good. Pre-natal Stereolab.

Stored on the shelves of my memory / My thoughts are in perfect array
My life runs smooth like a highway / billboards show me the way
My way of life has the glamour / of an artificial neon ad
I need overwhelming information / for a complete shopping list
Acrylic colours oscillate my eyes / when i walk down a drugstore aisle

Stored on the shelves of my memory / My thoughts are in perfect array
I learn do it yourself cybernetics / While I’m jogging on a rolling tray
I love my weekends in the pure air / On the heights of the Eiffel tower
My time my time I love my time

Agata Morio — Submarine

from Norimono Zukan (1980)

Heard this track on Liz Berg’s show this morning. It’s from Japanese folkie Agata Morio’s 1980 album Norimono Zukan, aka Transportation Encyclopedia. Don’t be fooled, though. This sounds nothing like folk—it’s one of the 11 LPs issed on the underground “techno-pop” label Vanity Records:

“Vanity Records in Osaka was one of the unforgettable hallmarks of the early Japanese underground music scene of the late-70′s. This label was founded by Yuzuru Agi, the music critic/editor of ROCK MAGAZINE. Agi was a sort of alternative visionary with a superb talent to assess new musical modes at a time when blues and West Coast-style rock still dominated the local music scene…Inspired by punk and the flood of indie labels that swept New York and London, Agi started Vanity Records in 1978, releasing 11 LPs, 3 singles, 12 flexis, and 6 cassettes between ’78 and ’82 (each release limited to 300-500 copies).”

- Satoru Higashiseto from Music No. 2, 1998, via Dave Knapik

Someone over at Direct Waves says the Morio track might actually be a cover (the music, at least) of the 1979 Joy Division track ‘She’s Lost Control‘… it’s a dead ringer.