Hear This: Recent Music
Hiroshi Yoshimura – Green
Over the past couple of years, I’ve increasingly explored music that I think of as possessing a certain spaciousness. So, think the likes of Brian Eno and his brother, Roger Eno. Ambient music in general of course, but also, some of what I see very dubiously labelled ‘Classical Crossover.’ I’ve listened to the Polish composer Hania Rani more than any other artist over the last year, and a lot of music from the Manchester-based label Gondwana – a label that leans towards modern jazz, but under which Hania Rani also releases most of her work (most recently including the soundtrack to the movie. Sentimental Value).
Recently, I was listening to Guy Garvey’s BBC Radio 6 show, during which he interviewed Elizabeth Alker, author of Everything We Do Is Music: How 20th Century Classical Music Shaped Pop. It was Alker who introduced me to the music of Hiroshi Yoshimura, a key figure in late 20th Century Japanese electronic music. Yoshimura’s experimental ambient excursions were in part a reaction to the chaos and claustrophobia of Tokyo street life, a means of creating personal headspace. You can feel in his sound the influence of Eno’s early ambient works, and in turn you can feel the impact Yoshimura’s work had on Ryuichi Sakamoto – particularly through the title track of Green.
Each of the tracks on Green features at least one EE in its one-word title: Sleep, Sheep, Feet, Street, etc. It’s clever, playful work, and between this and the newly re-released Flora, Yoshimura, who died in 2003 at age 63, appears to be gaining a new and wider audience.
Green - Hiroshi Yoshimura on Bandcamp:
Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development
Was there ever a more unlikely band/artist name than Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development? And yet, it’s that very name that led me to discovering this inspired project, the creation of Gordon Chapman-Fox.
Warrington and Runcorn are both northern English towns, situated loosely between Liverpool and Manchester. For me then, close to home. Warrington and Runcorn were Designed New Towns, housing estates built with utopian ideals which quickly fell short and lapsed, as these things inevitably do, into failed depressing monolithic townscapes.
The sound of the music is redolent of a sophisticated, decidedly cinematic 80’s instrumental synth music. This is no accident – part of the story being told is of the moment Margaret Thatcher’s government abandoned these housing projects, withdrew funds, allowing them to lapse into disrepair, incomplete. So, 1980’s then.
In thinking about this music, I was very happy to come up with a phrase describing it as ‘Retro-Futuristic’ - only to visit the artists’ website later and see it described exactly that way; apparently, I’d inadvertently lifted the phrase during earlier reading. So much for that then – though the description holds!
There is something utterly heroic and singular to me in this project’s specificity. More importantly, the music is simply compelling: it sounds good. As a project, it is fully realized – the albums artwork is all of a perfect piece, brilliantly art directed and crafted.
So far, I’ve bought a couple of albums on vinyl and streamed just about all of it. Still, I want to dig deeper, read more, come to a fuller understanding and pay homage to the wonderful compulsion that is Warrington Runcorn New Development.
If you want to learn more, links below:
Artist Website:
Music on Bandcamp:
Excellent Introductory article: https://walkerart.org/magazine/the-haunting-call-of-concrete-the-warrington-runcorn-new-town-development-plan/
Department of Recommendations #1: Ode To Boy - Yazoo
Since we’re already 80’s synth pop adjacent, this recommendation...
Yazoo, comprised of Vince Clark and Alison Moyet, produced only two complete studio albums, neither of which contained Situation, the song for which they are best known in the US (they are also more widely known here as ‘Yaz,’ but let’s not...).
Despite such a limited output, their record label had the temerity to release a ‘Best of...’ album, which is absurd and yet oddly great. Both the studio albums, Upstairs at Eric’s and You and Me Both are excellent records, almost entirely devoid of filler, and yet the ‘Best of..’ almost imagines what a single Yazoo record, distilled to its very essence, might have sounded like.
Ode to Boy was initially released as a single B-side (A-side, The Other Side of Love is greatly inferior). It is immaculately produced, one of those songs that demands to be listened to through decent headphones so that you can feel the sounds bouncing back and forth from one channel to the other. Alison Moyet wrote the lyrics, which, set against the rich, mysterious minimalist beats, represent a heightened poetry.
Interestingly, Moyet re-recorded the song as a solo artist, and if you weren’t familiar with the original, you might think it a pretty good semi-acoustic rocker. The later version is all about the vocal performance though, whereas in the original everything works in service of the exquisite songwriting.
Ode To Boy: lyrics by Alison Moyet
When he moves I watch him from behind
He turns and laughter flickers in his eyes
Intent and direct when he speaks
I watch his lips
And when he drives
I love to watch his hand
White and smooth, almost feminine
Almost American
I have to watch him
In his face age descends on youth
Exaggeration on the truth
He caught me looking then
But soon his eyes forgot
And everything he seems to do
Reflects just another shade of blue
I saw him searching into you and ached a while
I watch his lips caress the glass
His fingers stroke its stem and pass
To lift a cigarette at last
He dries his eyes
From a shadow by the stair
I watch as he weeps unaware
That I’m in awe of his despair
In his face age descends on youth
Exaggeration on the truth
He caught me looking then
But soon his eyes forgot
And everything he seems to do
Reflects just another shade of blue
I saw him searching into you and ached a while
When he moves I watch him from behind
He turns and laughter flickers in his eyes
Intent and direct when he speaks
I watch his lips
And when he drives I love to watch his hand
White and smooth, almost feminine
Almost American
I have to watch him
In his face age descends on youth
Exaggeration on the truth
He caught me looking then
But soon his eyes forgot
And everything he seems to do
Reflects just another shade of blue
I saw him searching into you and ached a while