Yellow Magic Orchestra - s/t

Name: Yellow Magic Orchestra
Album: s/t
Year: 1979
Style: Chip Music, Electronic Pop, Techno
Similar Bands: Hot Butter, Chromolodeon, The Advantage, Ghostwriters, Bruce Haack, Cornelius, Kraftwerk
"One-Word" Review: Atari Disco
Based Out Of: Tokyo Japan
Label: Horizon, A&M, ALFA Records

 Cover, Record

Back, Record

Yellow Magic Orchestra (1979)

1. Computer Game "Theme from the Circus" 6:38
2. Firecracker 0:02
3. Simoon 6:28
4. Cosmic Surfin' 4:27
5. Computer Game "Theme From Invader" 1:00 /
6. Yellow Magic (Tong Poo) 6:20
7. La Femme Chinoise 6:05
8. Bridge Over Troubled Music 1:00
9. Mad Pierrot 4:22

Album Rating (1-10): 8.0

Members & Other Bands:

• Harry Hosono - Producer
• Kunihiko Murai - Executive Producer
• Tommy Li Puma - Supervisor
• Ryuichu Sakamoto - Keys, Electronics, Percussion, Orchestration, Happy End, others)
• Yukihiro Takahashi - Drums, Percussion, Electronics, Vox (Sadistic Mika Band, others)
• Haruomi Hosono - Bass, Electronics, Keys, Arrangements (Happy End, Yosui Inoue, Osamu Kitajima many  more)
• Hideki Matstake - Micro Computer Programmer (Isao Tomita, Akhihabara Electric Circus, Beat Musik, NML: No More Landmine, Oriental mechanic Band, Purple Project)
• Shunichi Hashimoto - Vox (Izumi Kobayashi)
• Masayoshi Takanaka - Electric Guitar (Bacco, Brush!?, Flied Egg, Sadistic Mika Band, Sadistics)
• Tomoko Nunoi - Sexy Vox
• Nori Yoshizawa - Engineer
• Atsushi Saito - Engineer
• Al Schmidt - Mixing
• Mike Reese - Mastering
• Shunsuke Miyazumi - Recording Coordinator
• Roland Young - Art Direction
• Amy Nagasawa - Design
• Chuck Beeson - Design
• Lou Beach - Cover Art
• Masayoshi Sukita - Back Cover

Unknown-ness: At the time of buying this record, i had not heard of them. The image looks like it is going to be Asian computer sci-fi: with the wires pouring out of the sunglasses-laden Geisha's head. From a PC standpoint, the name seems to be a little racist, amplified by the yellow highlighted suits on the back of the record. But what do I know?

Album Review: So YMO is one of the first bands to include the electronic noised from what sound like Atari games into modern music, which leans disco for the time. Today, it's referred to chip music: folks that include 8 bit sound into their compositions. Their pioneering expands beyond that into J-Pop, Electro-Pop, SynthWave and techno. Their name is apparently satire of Japan's obsession with Black magic in the late 70's. The idea was to fuse oriental exotica with modern electronics. A section of Simoon sounds a lot like Ween's Mexican instrumental Fiesta.

Stand Out Track: Computer Game "Theme from the Circus", Firecracker

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Plushgun - s/t ep

Name: Plushgun

Album: s/t ep

Year: 2008

Style: Electro-Pop, Chip Music

Similar Bands: Steve Burns, Bicycle, Marxy, Lincoln, OMD, Grandaddy

One Word Review: Twee-Rave

Based Out Of: Brooklyn, NY

Label: Tommy Boy

 Plushgun - Front and Back

Plushgun - Centerfold & CD

Plushgun (2008)

1. Just Impolite 3:48
2. 14 Candles 4:14
3. How We Roll 4:02
4. Without a Light 3:37

Album Review (1-10): 9.0

Members & Other Bands:
Daniel Ingala - writer
Beth Newell - Art

Unknown-ness: I've never heard of this band when I got the album. But based on the artwork: Nintendo controller and a bird, I imagine this is some cutesy hipster shit. But when I saw the artwork, I still had to pick it up from the pawn shop I found it in and see what it was like.

Album Review: I remember seeing that this band was playing a bar nearby and even through I had listened to the EP a few times and liked what I heard, I was unable to make it out. They are still active, planning to release their third album sometime this year (2015). Much of their early popularity is attributed to being involved in a popular webseries called We Need Girlfriends, and that was supported by other songs being featured in other shows and commercials.

“Just Impolite” was featured in a Comcast commercial as well as MTV's The City. The song begins with a pulsing synth crystal beat and light heart-thumping drum. The lyrics, set back and distorted with a little polite fuzziness, follow the catchy rollicking beat. The harmless, precious and delicate vocals glide along, and feel organically intuitive.
“14 Candles” fades up with a twinkling Walkmen like synth, and the synth drum beat feels like it is right out of Megaman. As the song reaches the chorus, the drum beat picks up adding the electronic snare. The vocals speed up, but still remain cool and calm. A second female voice is added echoing the lead, giving depth to the song and a male-female paring that supports the lyrical feeling.
“How We Roll” was featured on MTV's Real World Brooklyn series. It starts with a Japanese-anime like zoomy synth, creating an urgent electro dance pop experience. The vocals are rushed, reminding me a little of Tullycraft, but still retain a clear purposeful collectiveness. The urgency in the backing synth drives the song, with other 8-bit effects (promoting the use of the Nintendo controller on the front?) are employed in the song. Immensely danceable, the music could create a genre of entertainment and listeners called Twee-Rave
“Without a Light” fades up as well, with grand synth effects that interweave, and feel right at home having listened to the first three tracks. Then a steady driving beat begins, and OMD like synth hooks take form. The coldness in the vocals mixed with the electro music makes me think of what Grandaddy cold do if they went in a dance direction. The song exhausts itself in segments, reverting to a quiet, ambient section, building up energy to start over again. This song feels more anthemic than the rest of the album by a very small margin.

Stand Out Track: Just Impolite
How We Roll

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