art pop

Mebae Miyahara: Portfolio (1986)

2018/05/18

Now, I finally feel that we’re ready for an album like Mebae Miyahara’s Port･fo･lio. But first a huge thanks to Giacomo Lee for sharing it with me and, by extension, with us. Full of wonderfully gorgeous, lilting tropical techno-pop, Port･fo･lio should instantly remind you of all those artists you might have heard in the recent Walearic…
Mecano: Ya Viene El Sol (1984)

2018/05/15

What a shining moment. It took Mecano two albums to properly shake off being also-rans, to truly get to what made (or would make) them special. Mecano’s Ya Viene El Sol is an electro-pop album but it’s also one slippery enough to fit many other styles and genres, yet still come off as theirs. Outside…
Romie Singh: Masters (1986)

2018/05/01

Romie Singh’s Masters is more than just one killer 12” dub plate surrounded by lord knows what. Masters is a wonderful reminder of the bit of delightful weirdness that Romie was able to capture in a bottle, some months in Hamburg, in 1986. Masters was an early collection of proto-future Pop from someone who managed…
Kazutoki Umezu: Diva (1988)

2018/04/27

It’s not often you stumble upon an album quite like this one. A huge debt of thanks goes out to a fellow reader, Francis, for sharing Kazutoki Umezu’s Diva with me (the first of two, from him, I’ll share with you). I’m still grinning from end to end just looking at the credits of this…
Mix: 10. The Sound Fantastic (Guest Mix by Giacomo Lee)

2018/03/27

Guest Mix by Giacomo Lee Editor’s Note: As always, it’s exciting to see what FOND/SOUND readers are listening to and where they are in their own musical journey. Today, I’m pleased to share Giacomo Lee‘s (author of the novel Funereal, music and culture journalist for Long Live Vinyl, VICE, Little White Lies and more) mix…
Terry Day Featuring Laura Davis: Look At Me (1987)

2018/03/20

From French record label Nato comes another wonderful batch of Jazz not Jazz. Look At Me, the debut from English multi-instrumentalist Terry Day, is unlike little else he would be known for. Surprisingly romantic, ragged but in a very smooth, put-together way, and (on the great bits) sounding not that dissimilar to the work of Paul…
Real Fish: テナン Tenon (1985)

2018/03/16

I might be stringing myself out there but it’s due time for me to bring up the unbridled, unheralded genius of Seiji Toda — and to be more specific: Real Fish’s Tenon. Much like Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside, one listen to a Seiji Toda group — Shi-Shonen, Real Fish, or Fairchild — or his production…
Maki Asakawa: Nothing At All To Lose (1988)

2018/03/09

There always come a point in your life when you just have to say: “fuck it”…and lead with your heart. The late great icon frequently seen in black and white, with smoky cigarette in hand, had lead the life of someone unmoored by her origins in Japan. Deeply tied and influenced by American Jazz and…
Magical Power Mako: mAgicAl compUteR MusiC (1985)

2018/03/02

Am I allowed to punt on this one? Literally, it’s all there — right on the album cover. Magical computer music by Magical Power Mako. I’ll never top this description. Just one look at the album cover puts you there — a smoldering Makoto Kurita surrounded by a shoji panel, two TVs playing VHS tapes, two…
Mick Karn: Titles (1982)

2018/02/20

It’s hard for me to separate Mick’s past from the work you’ll hear in Titles. Still impossibly underrated and unaccounted for — compared to the actual influence he put in motion — there is just something truly unique found in the late Mick Karn’s bass technique, musicality, and ideas. Titles, his first solo work after leaving Japan,…