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Japan

Tony L

Tony L

Administrator
A thread to marvel at the god-like genius that was Japan (the band, though the country is plenty cool too).

I'm sitting listening to a lovely early Japanese VDP CD of Quiet Life that dropped through the door earlier and it really is wonderful. I've always focused on Gentlemen Take Polaroids, Tin Drum and the Japan in all but name Rain Tree Crow album, all stunning, but Quiet Life is a winner too (I have actually got it on vinyl too, I've just not played it for ages!).

I've just taken a punt on the first two albums (I spotted another couple of tidy looking early VDP CDs on eBay from Japan) as I can't remember anything about those and I may as well complete the set (I never had these on vinyl). IIRC they are rather more edgy and 'new-wave', it will be interesting to reevaluate them. The thing that is so impressive is the rest of the band is up to the astonishing standard of the sadly missed Mick Karn, and that really is saying something. They seem woefully overlooked these days, I guess because they had such a strong visual image, but these guys are some of the best musos of their era IMHO.
 
100% agree, spent my college and poly days (remember them?) with Japan, however can i ask what the VDP CD means? Some special issue? I have all that era on mint vinyl so Im glad i kept it. RIP Mick Karn also, did I read he had problems funding his treatment or something.

Anyway, good topic
 
love them, albeit the first 2 sound like a different band. Try the live album Oil On Canvas.
 
One of my favourite bands.
If you listen to the Assemblage album, you can hear how the band progress from their early rock beginnings through some syncopated reggae type rhythms to the more minimal, synth lead sound they ended up with.
Fantastic playing, creative sounds & some interesting cover versions as well.
Top band.
 
Love the band!

A nice cut of Quiet Life is the MOV red vinyl 3 LP set which has all the 12" remixes as well as the studio album.
 
I have them all (including Rain Tree Crow) except for Obscure Alternatives, which I've actually never even heard. I'm off to youtube to remedy that.
 
Whoa, this is great!

I always forget the extent to which Japan were really just a giant scary monster of a bass player and his talented and fashionable sidemen.
 
God I love Quiet Life. Mick Karn was brilliant on that album; great little sax stabs and bass lines on tracks like Halloween and Alien, which have these fantastic dynamic layers that manage to make the most of guitar and synth together. Rob Dean is an underrated guitarist too.

The early albums have been a decadent fetish of mine since teenage. I'm interested to know what you make of them Tony. I love Rhodesia, Wish You Were Black, Love is Infectious, in fact most of those songs which still retain this festering and outmoded glamour that seemed to become an embarrassment for David Sylvian, but live for me in sort of undead way.

Assemblage is essential too; if only for 'Stateline', which is probably the snarliest track of Sylvian's oeuvre.
 
6 Music is a good gauge of how badly ignored they are. They are never on. Depeche Mode and Talk Talk are on every week. They were the best of the new wave crossovers to new romantics in my opinion.

I loved Japan. Sylvian was the only new romantic that copied Bowie well....haha. And he looked like Bowie on the Young Americans cover. And he was a unique singer.
 
Formative band for me. Loved the first album and then Quiet Life led to new sounds and opened a clubby, funky path. That voice is beautiful.
 
Martin D said:
100% agree, spent my college and poly days (remember them?) with Japan, however can i ask what the VDP CD means?
Click to expand...

Sorry, it's just the first part of the catalogue number for a very large range of mid-80s Japanese first-issue rock and pop CDs. VDJ is the equivalent range for jazz. From a mastering perspective they are usually unsurpassed to this day, really nice sounding discs. They tend to be flat transfers of the master tapes without additional compression or bad EQ choices, often rather quiet in level so you have to crank the amp a bit, but the dynamic range is intact and not squashed. They are becoming increasingly collectable, as are West German 'targets' etc from the same era, but it is still possible to find them for reasonable money if one hunts around. I'm on a mission...
 
Time for a video surely:


It goes without saying that Mick Karn is the coolest bass player ever but the rest of the band is shit-hot too. Steve Jansen just kills those poly-rhythms, and where the hell did they find that guitarist?

I first heard them as a teenager in the 80s but I don't think my musical taste was sophisticated enough to get just how good they were. A great band that we should hear more of on the radio. I'd love to see a BBC4 documentary about them.

PS: How do I embed video in my post?
 
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I think I've said this before on another thread but a few years ago I heard Tin Drum on a big guns and big money system with a billion dollar cartridge and I'm still in shock at Steve Jansens incredible drum sound on that record. I'd been listening to that album since the early 80s and I hadn't an inkling of the impact that the drums have on The Art of Parties and Talking Drum.
 
There's a few OGWT videos on YouTube.
I remember queuing up overnight to get tickets to see them in London, maybe the Lyceum? Fantastic show, inventive & creative musicianship. I was under 20 yrs old at the time & their music left a massive impression on me. I know we can tend to wallow in our own nostalgia but I struggle to think of many recent acts that are as innovative now as they were then.
Matt.
 
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