Like the majority of bands that first played with electronics, it's hard to discuss Yellow Magic Orchestra without referencing Kraftwerk. However, to combat the homogenization and simplification of modern music's trajectory, one must try. The Japanese group, hugely successful and still influential in their native country, had only minor hits in the Western world during their late 1970s, early 1980s heyday. They're probably more remembered nowadays as one of the first projects of Academy Award-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (the 'Danny Elfman / Oingo Boingo complex'). Nevertheless, their music is worth reappraisal.
YMO's second album, Solid State Survivor, was released in 1979. Although they would release more ambitious (1981's Technodelic) and well-crafted (1983's Naughty Boys) works, it's here that their unique, left-field musical manifesto is best expressed. Indeed, despite the presence and implementation of mile-high stacks of synthesizers and other electronic gadgets, YMO's sound is rooted in composition and performance. Whereas their German counterparts were masters of minimalism, YMO layer and weave. The ‘robotik’ sound of other synth pioneers is tweaked with the inclusion of Sakamoto's classically-trained keyboard runs, Haruomi Hosono's bass stabs, and Yukihiro Takahashi's drum embellishments, as well as traditional Oriental instrumentation.
These contradictions are present on the album's most famous tracks: "Rydeen" is a giddy thrill of synth-pop bliss, with strong melodic lines performed like high-register wind instruments. This hyper consonance and carefree momentum is an unmistakable influence on early Japanese video game music. Equally, "Technopolis," for all its Technology TV Show Theme stylings, is importantly punctuated by a funky bass that rumbles and pops. "Behind the Mask," a psychologically paranoid ‘love song’ straight out of a Philip K. Dick short story ("Is it me/ Is it you/ Behind this mask?"), is almost sabotaged by Sakamoto's use of vocoder, which completely obscures his vocals. The song works -- though, the lack of a strong conventional vocal hook has given birth to horribly overwrought re-imaginings and covers of the song, the most successful of which was recorded by Eric Clapton during his mid-’80s Phil Collins period.
This sense that YMO are, at times, self-sabotaging their easiest bids for pop success is no more evident than on the cover of The Beatles' classic "Day Tripper." What is first a proto-hard rock song -- a prime candidate for the basic moog-and-arpeggiator makeover -- is transformed into an off-kilter mutant. It's almost post-punk in its convulsive rhythms and far ahead of its time in the use of intentional glitching. It could be one of the more prescient tracks on the album. Furthermore, the title track, placed right at the end of side two, is a straightforward New Wave song, containing the album's only full-bodied vocal performance from Yukihiro Takahashi. It comes off as a kinetic tribute to Roxy Music or David Bowie. Here, however, YMO show a mischievousness: the majority of the vocals are drowned out by scratchy, distorted samples in favor of, once again, an instrumental chorus hook.
Solid State Survivor presents all sides of its creator's complexity. YMO are at times synthetic, at times vital; they are frustrating, joyous; willingly accessible, yet defiantly stubborn. In the future, they would craft more one-dimensional, satisfying albums. Technodelic would take the experimental innovation to new depths, just as much as Naughty Boys would feature fully-fledged pop songs, with proper vocal performances from Takahashi to boot. Sakamoto would find better means of expression -- both in his solo compositions and in collaboration with other artists, such as David Sylvian, Alva Noto and Christian Fennesz (in a graceful, atmospheric mode represented here by "Castalia"). On this album, however, YMO display a smörgåsbord-like approach. They move away from Kraftwerk's clinical, futurist kitsch. Instead, they use the synthesizer as a composition aid. The result may not be as iconic as their Germanic contemporaries, but YMO's art shows a great deal more sophistication.
