RYUICHI SAKAMOTO

Quirky Japanese synthpop invention, finally back in print

When Kraftwerk’s music landed in the USA, it set into motion a chain of events that would lead to the birth of Chicago house and Detroit techno. When it landed in Japan, Kraftwerk’s elektronisch music paved the way for a very different pop revolution. Released mere months before the debut album by his parent band Yellow Magic Orchestra, Thousand Knives Of finds Sakomoto – a talented young Tokyo session musician with a taste for the avant-garde – sketching out the rudiments of YMO’S synthpop sound while indulging in a few eccentricities along the way. The opening “Thousand Knives” commences with Sakomoto reciting a Mao Zedong poem through a vocoder, while the following “Island Of Woods” is a strange 10-minute excursion into exploratory synth and exotic sound collage, poised somewhere between the city and the jungle. Matters come a little more into focus on the second side. “Das Neue Japanische Elektronische” welds Kraftwerk’s stiff robotic rhythms to a melody borrowed from Japanese folk music, while “Plastic Bamboo” and future Yellow Magic Orchestra live staple “The End Of Asia” are bubbly synthpop numbers that show off Sakamoto’s love for a playful melody. It’s not quite essential – too varied, too many rough edges – but Thousand Knives Of feels genuinely experimental, the sound of a young master at play.

Extras: 6/10. Obi strip, sleevenotes.