» Listings for 2023

1. 2023 Albums Thing 199 - Jellyfish “Bellybutton”

   Posted on 9:10am Friday 20th Oct 2023

   Jellyfish should have been MASSIVE and the fact that they weren’t is yet more proof, were anymore needed, that the great masses of the record buying public wouldn’t recognise greatness if it walked up to them, birth certificate in hand, saying “Hello, I’m Greatness, pleased to meet you”, but those that know, know.

   They released just 2 albums, “Bellybutton” and 1993’s “Spilt Milk”, less than 90 minutes of music in total. I’ve listened to both albums (and the demo’s and the live recordings and the instrumental versions) so often there is barely a note I don’t know intimately. Both albums are utterly faultless. This is intricately constructed pop music but constructed with a sprinkle of fairy dust that sets it head and shoulders above almost everything of its time and just as much that has come after it. Ya had enough of the superlatives yet ? It’s honestly that good. They also looked fantastic, like psychedelic, cartoon Victorian street urchin extras from the Wizard of Oz!

   I’m pretty sure I first heard this album on a record company pre-release cassette that was being handed around the tour bus on a Wonder Stuff US tour. We were all blown away by it. TWS sound engineer Simon Efemey told us later that Jellyfish had all been at a Stuffies show in San Francisco, oh what might have been if those two musical forces had got their heads together.

   “Bellybutton” is a beautifully crafted, scintillatingly executed thing of melodic wonder. Equal parts American sunshine pop, Kansas, Crosby Stills and Nash, Player, Queen, ABBA, Supertramp, Psychedelic Rock, The Monkees and The Chocolate Watch Band, all woven together perfectly by producer Albhy Galuten, the man most famous for creating the first drum loop, on the Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive”. Every song is a highlight, it would be impossible to pick out just one, but I will…

   Jellyfish’s debut single was “The King Is Half Undressed”, a glorious thing made of wobbling keyboards, shimmering guitars and thunderous drums with a chorus to kill for. Then at 2 minutes and 22 seconds in, they fall into a dreamy multi-part harmony vocal interlude before they all come crashing back into the chorus. We went to see them at a long gone club in Birmingham, Goldwyns, in 1991, we were so excited. As the gig progressed singing drummer Andy Sturmer introduced “The King Is Half Undressed”. I remember thinking “I bet they don’t do the 4 part harmony bit” and wondering if they did, would they do it like Queen did the operatic bit in “Bohemian Rhapsody”, by playing a pre-recorded section and then the band picking it back up ? Well, they didn’t do a Queen, they did it, live, absolutely pitch perfectly and it bought the house down, quite incredible. Oh and the video for the single has a Whippet puppy in it and anyone who knows me knows why I love that.

   This is a very recent addition to my collection, this week in fact, and the first time I played it I realised it was my first time hearing it in a non-Digital format (apart from that record company cassette) and my word, not only are the songs faultless this record SOUNDS magnificent. As I said earlier if you know Jellyfish then you know. If you don’t know them, please do me the favour of trusting me, go treat your ears and listen to either, preferably both, of their albums. I honestly envy you hearing them for the first time.

   The King Is Half Undressed - https://youtu.be/AgdgptaBma8?si=VAd5MGhN1Q-TTNiy

2. 2023 Albums Thing 198 - Japan “Assemblage”

   Posted on 9:00am Thursday 19th Oct 2023

   “Assemblage” is a compilation album made up of tracks from Japan’s first 3 albums, released by their original record company, Hansa, around a year after “Gentlemen Take Polaroids”, no doubt hoping to cash-in on some of the success Japan were now having. Side 1 covers tracks from their first 2 albums “Adolescent Sex” and “Obscure Alternatives” when Japan were a very different sounding band from the Euro/Japanese art-rock influenced outfit they developed into. Back then they were digging a much more Glam Rock/New York Dolls era vein with rocky guitars and David Sylvian’s uncharacteristically whiny vocals. There’s nothing approaching outstanding here, the best track is “Suburban Berlin”, which sits somewhere between the Glam stylings and the art-rock sound they developed later, and “Adolescent Sex” a weird mix of synths, dance floor bass and a pseudo metal guitar riff..

   The main interest for me in this album is over on Side 2 where things get much more interesting. Here we have 2 tracks from Japan’s 3rd album “Quiet Life” (the title track and a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrows Parties”) and 3 songs released only as singles, “European Son”, a cover of Smokey & The Miracles “I Second That Emotion” and the big club hit “Life In Tokyo”. This is where Japan’s sound has changed markedly to a more EuroDisco/Berlin/Asian influenced style aimed squarely at the dance floor. Back in the early 80’s an alternative scene was developing around Post Punk and electronic dance music, “Quiet Life” and “Life In Tokyo” became big floorfillers in what we then called the Futurist clubs (Birmingham’s Rum Runner and Romeo & Juliets et al) but eventually became dubbed New Romantic. We weren’t dancing to no Spandau Ballet though, it was Japan, Bowie, Kraftwek, Bauhaus, Krautrock, Yellow Magic Orchestra and Brum’s own Fashiön that were filling the floor.

   Japan’s move to Virgin Records saw them develop their sound further as we already know, but the start of that development can be heard here on Side 2 of “Assemblage”.

   Life In Tokyo - https://youtu.be/nsbrw9Y6_ng?si=rcnh-k8cSHAW98ba

3. 2023 Albums Thing 197 - Japan “Gentlemen Take Polaroids”

   Posted on 9:00am Wednesday 18th Oct 2023

   We’ve all said it, ”oh yeah, cool” “or that’s cool”, but what does it mean ? In America it’s a commonly used thing, in “Happy Days” everything the Fonz did had to be cool, there’s a whole song in “West Side Story” about it, “Boy, boy, crazy boy, Get cool, boy”.  The emergence of the likes of Miles Davis in the 1950’s has taken on the title of one of Miles’ albums “The Birth Of The Cool”. In 60’s Mod London the ultimate aim was to be “cool”, whether because you had the sharpest suit, the shoes everyone else needed, the best dance moves, the best record collection or the scooter all others envied…cool was it.

   “Gentlemen Take Polaroids” is so cool there are icebergs that throw it frequent, envious glances.

   Singer David Sylvian had morphed from some straggle haired Glam Rocker into the beautiful bastard offspring of Bowie, Bolan and Ferry, Mick Karn had no frets on his bass and looked like he may be, but almost certainly wasn’t, Japanese (he was,in reality, Greek-2Cypriot) and who knew, or cared, about the others (sorry Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri and Rob Dean). “Gentlemen Take Polaroids” was a further development of the Berlin-Bowie/Euro art-rock style Japan had begun to develop on “Quiet Life”, this time cooler, with an atmosphere of smoky Jazz in 30’s Berlin clubs about it, albeit with added synthesisers.

   “Swing” is my favourite track on this album. It’s so laid back it should be falling over. Mick Karn’s bass line is hypnotic and driving your hips to crazy gyrations all at the same time, while it stabs and glides and pops around the song. Sylvian’s voice is the most soothing thing you’ve ever heard and when he tells you to “Relax and swing” that’s exactly what you want to do. I was unjustly harsh in dismissing the rest of the band outside of Sylvian and Karn earlier. They are of course vital to the whole. Steve Jansen (David Sylvian’s brother for those who didn’t know) drums up a great performance here with dragging hi-hats and an incessant 4 beat drum fill, Richard Barbieri’s keyboards are vital to this song mainly filling in where Rob Dean’s guitars aren’t as they have been seriously stripped back since their earlier albums when he drove the band.

   The title track runs “Swing” a close second in the cool-but-groovy hybrid stakes. With a look and a voice that tells you he could think he may the most beautiful human alive (look at that cover shot where he’s gazing out wistfully from beneath an umbrella in a thunderstorm, all white pan-face and cheekbones) it’s quite surprising to hear Sylvian sing “Now there's a girl about town, I’d like to know, I’d like to slip away with you”. It’s almost impossible to believe that a guy with the confidence and, well, cool to sing like this over these lush backing tracks hasn’t had this girl rushing up to him already. There’s also definitely an Oboe on this track, the only appearance of an Oboe on an album I own other than one by Julian Cope.

   “Burning Bridges” is an almost instrumental, there’s a couple vocal lines near the end” but it’s a bit too “Side 2 of Bowie’s “Low”…” for comfort. “My New Career” is a little more uptempo but not too much. “Methods Of Dance” is absolutely pitched at the dancefloor. Mick Karn’s bass is a thing to behold, all elastic and twitchy, smoothing though some sections while punching itself right into the middle of others.

   “Methods Of Dance” not only opens Side 2 but the title was borrowed for at least 2 volumes of a compilation series by Virgin showcasing 80’s dance music in their catalogue. I bought them at the time because of the Japan song title but then was introduced to a whole host of new artists like Can, Richard Strange, D.A.F and Cowboys International. 

   There then follows a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t The Peculiar” with Japan twisting and mangling Marvin’s Motown groover into an avant grade, almost African drum driven torch song. The penultimate song is “Nightporter”. Most casual observers of Japan would likely cite “Ghosts”, from their next album “Tin Drum”, as the song of the bands they know best, and it is a great one, a lush ballad beautifully sung by Sylvian. “Nightporter” knocks it over the trees and out of the park. Where “Ghosts” is great, “Nightporter” is stunning. A love song, a song of loss and longing (“I'll watch for a sign, And if I should ever again cross your mind, I’ll sit in my room and wait until nightlife begins”)masterfully sung by Sylvian with accompaniment by piano, synths and what sounds like a cello. The sound swells for the choruses but no more instruments, a full and lush arrangement. when that Oboe seems to return and the song gently comes to rest. It’s quite wonderful.

   “Taking Islands In Africa” is a lyric from “Swing” here expanded into a full song for the final track. It’s important in that it features keyboards parts by Ryuichi Sakamoto of Yellow Magic Orchestra who Japan (the band) had met when they toured Japan (the country) earlier in 1980. The musical collaboration between Sylvian and Sakamoto continued and grew right up until Sakamoto’s passing in 2023, but it all started here.

   The music on this record conjures vivid pictures of cool boys in immaculate baggy suits and skinny leather ties, dancing with beautiful girls in pencil skirts and stilettos, moving with the music but with a minimum of effort (sweating will ruin the make-up girls, and boys), all while smoking Gauloise in long cigarette holders and sipping champagne in dark basement clubs. Up on the stage in that club would either be Japan or Miles Davis playing “So What”. I close my eyes and I see it clearly. “Gentlemen Take Polaroids” could hold its own with “Kind Of Blue” in a competition to name the coolest record ever made.

   Swing - https://youtu.be/ahtyVegPVjE?si=bTaLeIa4KNF_w4oN