The LP went out of print quite quickly, but for RSD there will be a new batch: https://recordstoreday.co.uk/release...barbieri-karn/Originally Posted by interbellum
The LP went out of print quite quickly, but for RSD there will be a new batch: https://recordstoreday.co.uk/release...barbieri-karn/
Former Japan-guitarist Robert Dean formed a new band in Costa Rica with singer/guitarist Isaac Moraga: Light Of Day.
The debut-album Dimensions was just released and it's a fine progressive pop-albums.
Here's a review:
This cover of Tomorrow Never Knows is NOT on the album:
^^At the end of the first video we also see a new book on Japan, called Adolescent Alternatives by Stephen Holden.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Japan-Syl...4AAOSwNp1ev5no
Apparently Robert Dean had some more musical activities lately. He worked with Martin Birke, known from Genre Peak, a project that involved Mick Karn. The download Triptych will be released on mini-CD soon with the addition of an 11 minute track. This is ambient guitar-stuff in the vein of Jon Durant.
Soundcloud has the track Amber Field: https://soundcloud.com/lastwordmusicrecords/amber-field
I'm a major fan. I support Japan, all the solo albums and all the side projects. They've gotten a lot of my money over the decades. I love how diverse they are.
I think I first became acquainted with them when the Boston group, The Cars, did a guest DJ spot on a Detroit rock station. They were allowed to pick out the music for an hour and two of the things they played were Kate Bush and Japan -- both new to me. Around that time I was involved with a college radio station where Japan was a station favorite. That further cemented my relationship with the band.
I've grown into a Japan and Japan-related obsessive ever since.
I like the glam era of Japan. When they were on the Ariola/Hansa label and they echoed Roxy Music, David Bowie and Cockney Rebel. First three albums.
When they went on Virgin, with Gentlemen Take Polaroids, I jumped off the train. Too watered-down for my taste.
Most fans have the opposite reaction. I like both periods, although when it was released I thought Gentlemen was the first album where the band didn't make any progress compared to Quiet Life.
B.t.w. the book I mentioned in post #53 is written by someone who has the same opinion as you. He was one of the first fans who followed them to almost every gig in the U.K., but when the group became a major succes he lost interest. The book contains many pictures from those early days, even one on which Sylvian throws his guitar on the ground. Never knew he had a Peter Townsend-habbit
In March a 3CD/1LP re-release of Quiet Life will be re-released: https://www.superdeluxeedition.com/n...-life-box-set/
I LOVE Japan. I actually found out about them on PE back when there was a thread on Mick Karn's cancer diagnosis. Always a fan of the fretless bass, I read through the thread, but the immediate takeaway was that I heard that live version of Kate Bush's "The Wedding List" and wound up instantly becoming a huge fan of hers. The Japan stuff didn't quite grab me, and "Still Life In Mobile Homes" was actually a little too weird for me, which is funny because I like a lot of RIO and other pretty strident stuff. I guess it was a couple of years later that Mick died, and I wound up revisiting his work with Japan, but this time "Methods of Dance" and "Still Life In Mobile Homes" completely blew me away. Getting into Japan was actually sort of a watershed moment for me as a musician and music fan at a time where I thought, and was a bit worried, that my tastes and aesthetic ideals had pretty much matured and solidified into what they were going to be indefinitely. I'm glad to say this wasn't the case. I can see how certain other music set me up for getting to a place where Japan really clicked with me, Kate Bush of course, but also prog forays into synth pop and new wave: Banco's 80s material, Magma's Merci, Stormy Six's Al Volo. And of course Japan led me to a good bit of other music I really love, the spinoff careers and projects of course, but also Yellow Magic Orchestra, Akiko Yano, and Prefab Sprout. As a musician, their music really prompted me to dive back into the world of synthesis and sound design (I'm usually a guitarist), pick up a fretless bass for myself and become somewhat handy with it, and the rhythm section of Karn/Jansen is sort of quintessential, ideal representation I usually have in mind when writing for those instruments.
You might like this album too, its Percy Jones on bass (playng in Karn mode)
Weirdly, the same applies to me, but I was drawn very quickly into Japan's discography because I was playing fretless bass exclusively at the time.
bassist in Papangu, a zeuhl metal band from Brazil https://papangu.bandcamp.com/album/holoceno
As previously stated , re visited Japan having heard Polytown, and Bestial Cluster. I prefer Karn away from Japan actually , just personal preference, but I think he and Jansen are a complete unique and sort of upside down rhythm section. Karen's autobiog is fascinating, he was training to be a Psychotherapist before he died.
I do like that album! I of course found out about it due to Masami Tsuchiya's involvement with Japan as a live guitarist on their last tour. None of the other Ippu-Do albums, or Tsuchiya's solo Rice Music really grabbed my attention, but I'd be willing to revisit
It's the only Ippu Do album with Percy Jones.
Masami Tsuchiya's other projects didn't catch me either, too 'popular', but his cover of this Zombies tune is great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjdOKKBv6iA
Percy Jones also performes on Live And Zen with Ippu-Do. On that album they cover Time Of The Season too.
I have the Ippu-Do boxset Magic Vox and the Tsuchiya boxset Solo Vox Epic Years. It's true a lot of the other stuff is quite poppy, but the musicians like Mick Karn, Percy Jones, Steve Jansen, Ryuichi Sakamoto and many others have a lot to offer.
Thanks - I will check out 'Live and Zen.'
Got this set last weekend and played the Live At Budokan 27/03/1980-disk first. Although the band is in great shape, it's clearly an audience-recording (also according to the booklet). All those screaming girls can make you crazy (not in the good sense). Obviously this was also the reason Richard Barbieri wasn't happy with the set as he told in a recent interview with the Dutch magazine iO Pages; when he spoke about it with BMG, they didn't talk to him anymore.
The second disk, called "A Quieter Life" contain 81 minutes (!) of well sounding alternative mixes & rarities. Yeah, some songs are several times on this CD, but because they aren't placed after each other but in random order it's not a problem for me. Funny how the arrangement of "I Second That Emotion", especially Karn's bass, remind me of "Histoire De Melody Nelson" the now 50 years old album by Serge Gainsbourg.
Here's a track from the live-album. Great bass-playing!
Japan's David Sylvian and the Mellotron: https://stevejansen.bandcamp.com/mer...ios-london-197
The whole shebang
Here's an old track Steve Jansen and Yukihiro Takahashi recorded in the early 80s, but didn't use. Jansen reworked the demo with singer Marco Machera and now it almost sounds like a lost Japan-song:
https://soundcloud.com/istevejansen/...2-osLrLg4dVo9w
Have long been a fan of Japan's members but strangely never really listened much to Japan. I do have Oil on Canvas on CD, I must revisit it sometime. Started my journey when I discovered Sylvian's Gone to Earth and it remains one of my all time favourite albums (particularly the ambient record). I was lucky to see him perform twice. Once on the Slow Fire tour (solo) in London in 1995 and again on the Everything and Nothing tour (with a band including Steve Jansen) in Utrecht in 2001. Both shows were amazing.
I discovered Jansen, Barbieri & Karn after purchasing the excellent Beginning to Melt CD and have followed most of their output since. I remember going to see Indian drummer Trilok Gurtu perform in London years ago (supported by David Torn) and during the break between acts, I looked around the theatre and spotted Bill Bruford. I couldn't resist and went up to say hello. He told me to sit and we had a short chat. I told him I was from Australia and what a big fan I was of his work and had tickets to see him with King Crimson in a few months time. He was so lovely and accomodating and while sitting with him, I turned around and mentioned to him that I noticed Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri a few rows back. He said he thought he had maybe recognised them. A great memory.
^^^Great story! Thanks for sharing. I guess you know Bill Bruford and Mick Karn played together live in the David Torn-band during the Cloud About Mercury-tour, as recorded by German TV.
About Oil On Canvas: although the band didn't play anything from the first two records, it shows pretty much all the music Japan could play: ambient, funky, complex, poppy, classic.
Bruford also played with Mick Karn & David Torn on part of the live Polytown tour, in place of Terry Bozzio.
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Wow, I didn't know that. Can't remember I read about it both Karn's and Bruford's autobiographies, so I have to refresh my memory
Speaking of David Sylvian, he also published an old track recently. It's an unused demo for the Nine Horses Project, called Isn't That Me?
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