Yellow Magic Orchestra - Yellow Magic Orchestra

Any time you hear stuff about the beginnings of electronic music it tends to focus on the likes of Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder, but this lot are often looked over. They formed in Japan in 1978 and quickly released this album of "techno electronica" with a side dose of exotica.

My introduction to them came via a 1992 compilation called Hi-tech/No Crime which featured re-workings by the likes of 808 State, Orbital, LFO etc. This got me working backwards to grab the original versions, some tracks being featured here.

There's an undercurrent of video games sounds as well, as you'll especially notice on the two short Computer Game tracks. This is the original Japanese version of the album - a cleaned up, over produced version came out for the Yanks, with a different sleeve but I never bothered with it.

I went to see founder member Ryuichi Sakamoto a few years ago at the Edinburgh Playhouse and he was magnificent - a true pioneer. Go check it oot...



Yellow Magic Orchestra - Yellow Magic Orchestra
A1 - Computer Game "Theme From The Circus"
A2 - Firecracker
A3 - Simoon
A4 - Cosmic Surfin'
A5 - Computer Game "Theme From The Invader"
B1 - Tong Poo
B2 - La Femme Chinoise
B3 - Bridge Over Troubled Music
B4 - Mad Pierrot
B5 - Acrobat

Buy it here