From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
Subject: YMO's new collection CD
Summary: "Japanese gentlemen, stand up, PLEASE!" --Haruomi Hosono
Organization: Atomic City
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 17:39:05 GMT


The new YMO collection from Alfa Records in Japan, Techno Bible, has five
CDs of their music with a 200-page book. My main gripes: the book is almost
entirely in Japanese, so I can't get anything out of it, and for someone
who knows their catalog as well as I do, Techno Bible is not repeat NOT
a substitute for owning the entire YMO catalog on CD, unlike the excellent
Asylum CD sets from Alfa (which compiled EVERYTHING Gary Numan did until
he formed his own label). If, however, you are a fan of techno music and
dance-pop, and would like to get a snootful of one of the great founding
bands of the movement (as important in their own way as Kraftwerk and 
Tangerine Dream), I recommend it highly.

The set showcases, in approximately evenhanded treatment, the band's
three stages (early, with traditional instruments mixed with
bleep-bloop modular synths and Syndrums (TM), middle, politically
relevant headsmash dance music, and late, oozingly sexy dance/romance
trax with piano and Sakamoto's and Takahashi's crooning). The band's
refusal to take itself seriously is well-documented as well, including
a live version of their hideously mutated cover of the Beatles' "Day
Tripper" (you can hear the audience going, "HUH?!"), a remake of
Archie Bell and the Drells' "Tighten Up" that out-Devoes Devo, and the
lovely song "Pure Jam," which has a sweet, echoed four-part vocal
harmony singing, "This has to be the ugliest piece of bread I've ever
eaten...."  Besides the three CDs of the three periods, there is a CD
of live tracks and a CD of remixes by many of the now-famous artists
who were inspired by YMO (Orb, etc.).

While the whole set was good, I was particularly fond of the live
stuff, which they do very well. Only a small bit of what is on Techno
Bible comes from their 1983 farewell concert album, After Service
(GRIPE: the CD of After Service throws away at least two songs, maybe
three, from the original double LP, to fit on one CD. FEH!); the rest
is from a recently released CD of a 1979 tour called FakerHolic. The
band tours with Akiko Yano, later Mrs. Ryuichi Sakamoto, vocalist in
her own right and guest on Thomas Dolby's first album ("Radio Silence"
and the woman to whom Magnus Pyke refers when he cries, "Good heavens,
Miss Sakamoto-- you're BEAUTIFUL!"), and guitarist Kazumi Watanabe,
who had not yet established himself as a jazz-fusion guitar godling.
The net effect is almost exactly like Allan Holdsworth backing up
Kraftwerk with K*te B*sh as a chick singer. WEIRD!

Metlay sez check it out if you can afford the $90 it'll set you back.
Otherwise, look for their live stuff on CD (After Service, FakerHolic,
Public Pressure) and start from there. Word. (Kanji?)

Anyone want to volunteer to help me translate this *&%&$! book?

-- 
metlay            | and she's a master of return hitting          
atomic city       | giving rhythm to her posts
                  | so you read her and think hey it sounds good
metlay@netcom.com | and wish her posts had a soundtrack too    (f. ercolessi)
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