1970s 15 Items

• Cover art by famed artist Hiroshi Nagai
• Extensive liner notes and bios
• Compiled by Andy Cabic (Vetiver), Zach Cowie (DJ & music supervisor) and Mark “Frosty” McNeill (dublab)
• 2xLP housed in a deluxe wide spine jacket with over sized fold-out booklet, full color printed inner sleeves, and custom die-cut obi card
• Remastered audio

Pacific Breeze documents Japan’s blast into the stratosphere. By the 1960s, the nation had achieved a postwar miracle, soaring to become the world’s second largest economy. Thriving tech exports sent The Rising Sun over the moon. Its pocket cassette players, bleeping video games, and gleaming cars boomed worldwide, wooing pleasure points and pumping Japanese pockets full of yen.

Japan’s financial buoyancy also permeated its popular culture, birthing an audio analog called City Pop. This new sound arose in the mid ’70s and ruled through the ’80s, channeling the country’s contemporary psyche. It was sophisticated music mirroring Japan’s punch-drunk prosperity. City Pop epitomized the era, providing a soundtrack for emerging urbanites. An optimistic spirit buzzed through the music in neon-bathed, gauzy tableaus coated with groove-heavy strokes.

Pacific Breeze is an expertly compiled collection of choice cuts that range from silky smooth grooves to innovative techno pop bangers and everything in between. Long-revered by crate diggers and adventurous music heads, this music has never been released outside of Japan until now. Including key artists like Taeko Ohnuki and Minako Yoshida, as well as cult favorites Hitomi Tohyama and Hiroshi Sato, the long-awaited release also features newly commissioned cover painting by Tokyo-based artist Hiroshi Nagai, whose iconic images of resort living have graced the covers of many classic City Pop albums of the 1980s.

Many of the key City Pop players evolved from the Japanese New Music scene of the early ’70s, as heard on Light In The Attic’s acclaimed Even a Tree Can Shed Tears: Japanese Folk & Rock 1969-1973, the first release of the ongoing Japan Archival Series. In fact, you could say City Pop set sail with a champagne smash from Happy End, the freakishly talented subversives who included amongst their ranks Haruomi Hosono and Shigeru Suzuki, both featured on this compilation. As Michael K. Bourdaghs noted in his book, Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon, this music was, “Deconstructing the line between imitation and authenticity.” Some of the best City Pop teeters in this zone—easy listening with mutant exotica, tilted techno-pop, and steamy boogie bubbling beneath the gloss.

Drama were the Canadian duo of Eric Simpson (Vocals, Bass Guitar, Guitar) and Don Stagg (Keyboards). Formed in in Mississauga, Ontario in 1978, the pair had previously played together in progressive psych bands Majik and VIIth Temple. Almost every Saturday, Eric and Don would record one song on a TEAC 4 track tape recorder after a couple of takes with very little over dubbing. The pair were influenced by what was playing on the radio during the recording sessions. Everyone else at that time was in a rock or pop band yet Drama were making electronic music. The pair released their debut LP ‘Loneliness’ on Psycho Records in 1979. There were 500 albums made and about 200 ended up in the garbage as band members shuffled from apartment to apartment. This was followed by a 4-track 7” later that year featuring live drums and additional guitar.

Seance Centre says it best, “On Loneliness, the pair traded in their velvet and chord charts for thin ties and a cheap drum-machine. The LP still carries a whiff of patchouli, but the sound stings of solder and electricity, and inhabits a nascent zone somewhere between krautrock and new-wave. The vocal cuts are all clustered on the A-side, starting with an ode to the inefficiency of the Toronto Transit Commission - some things never change! The dystopian sci-fi themes are par for the League, and highlights are the love ballad “Anna King” and the charming “Feable”. The instrumentals on the B-side feel decidedly more Teutonic, and have a certain CBC charm that sounds like JP Decerf recording for Parry Music. It even opens with a slinky stoned Pink Panther.” For this first time vinyl reissue we’ve expanded to a double LP with a bonus album of the 4 songs from Old Hollywood 7” and 9 previously unreleased tracks and demo versions. All songs are remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The vinyl comes housed in a jacket with original photo by Don Stagg taken from his apartment rooftop overlooking Toronto of a young teenager sniffing glue and includes an insert with photos and liner notes by Drama.

Limited edition for Record Store Day 2018!

Konstruktivists are a UK Industrial group formed by Glenn Michael Wallis in 1982 out of the ashes of Heute. In the late '70s/early '80s Wallis was heavily involved with Throbbing Gristle and the Industrial Records crew. Influenced by Krautrock bands like Can, NEU!, Cluster/Harmonia as well as Tuxedomoon, Yello, Chrome, SPK, and early Clock DVA, Glenn began to record his own material. After several cassette releases through Flowmotion under his own name, Konstruktivists’ first LP A Dissembly was released in 1982. To record A Dissembly, Glenn went into IPS Studio in Shepherds Bush, London. Glenn played synthesziers, percussion and vocals, with help from Dave Rouse (guitar), Adrian Grover (piano, tape loops) and Dave Kenny (engineer, treatments, tapes). The equipment used for this album includes a Korg MS-20, Casio MT-40, Roland TR-606 and TB-303, Korg Space Echo 555 and an Eventide Harmonizer previously used by Throbbing Gristle. In the studio was an old broken piano which was recorded with two microphones onto an 18 foot tape loop. Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle modified Glenn’s TR-606 with separate outputs for snare and bass drums to help create the slap back snare sound heard through the album. Konstruktivists create their own brand of Industrial using tape loops and lurching rhythms arched by droning melodies.

All songs have been remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The record is housed in an exact replica of the original jacket, featuring a black and white photograph of a church by Dave Byatt and hand lettering and line drawing by Lorna M. Each copy includes a 2-page double-sided 8×11 insert with liner notes by Glenn Wallis, press clippings, and photos, plus a bonus flexi-disc containing the song “Smack,” which was recorded during the same session as A Dissembly.