Yoshinori Sunahara---He's a complete genius.
By MUSE

n a year when the most ambitious beats have come from Japan, Yoshinori Sunahara has delivered some of the most enticing and intoxicating of them. Leagues catches up with our main man Yosh in Toyko.
Yoshinori Sunahara is the latest digital pop kid to bring the sound of Jap Club-Pop to the masses. Some say he's a complete genius, some say he's the living embodiment of the global pop sensibility, and some say he's a bit of a fruit-loop. If this year's "TAKE OFF AND LANDING" album is anything to go by, we reckon he's all three.
It's up there with CORNELIUS' "FANTASMA" for its genre-busting structure, pop soul and attention to detail. Unlike so many of his Western peers, listening to Yoshinori's record is not an experience in transient fashion. It's a project over-flowing with love and care and a little obsession. A step forward from his "Crossover" album, on which he took his cue from the sophisticated blueprints of artists such as MASSIVE ATTACK and Towa Tei, "Take Off" is possibly the most stunningly produced electronic record of '98. Never languishing in one nuance for too long, Yosh is constantly soldering his favourite bits of the last forty years of pop, leaping from plush orchestrated space-pop to languid hot-tub soul to trippy house, introducing break-beats to Calypso and coming up with steel drum 'n' bass.
The album opens with a track entitled "Information of TUA (Tokyo Underground Airport)". In Japan, the record was preceded by a forty minute promotional CD and picture disc with full details of how the proposed underground airport structure would operate, including everything from the materials inside the terminal halls to the piped music (Gershwin, Walter Carlos, Partridge Family) to the actual restaurant menus (TUA-Allstar Veggie Pizza)! It's no joke folks. This man has a lot of air miles to get through. Tell 'em Yosh.
"Narita International Airport is Tokyo's busiest airport but it's said to be the 'World's farthest airport'. It's very inconvenient to get to so I imagined constructing an underground airport in Shinjuku. It turned out to be a good idea so it became a record. That's the record, "Tokyo Underground Airport". The record was made with a scenario, that it's a piece of memorabilia/novelty that gets passed out to the people at the opening day of the airport. It's a 12" picture record with a booklet type jacket. The tracks are composed of airport background music and narration and works as a collage that describes that underground airport. This album was actually sold limitedly and it worked as a preview for the "Take Off" album."
In Europe, German label Bungalow Records (the label also behind those excellent Sushi compilations) release Yosh's music. Run by the DJ duo Le Hammond Inferno (AKA Marcus and Holger), Bungalow became fascinated with the Japanese Club-Pop sound after the boys discovered the wonders of Shibuya on a DJing excursion. As Marcus explains, to understand the meticulous nature of someone like Yoshinori, one must understand the importance of music in Japan.
You can hear that they totally enjoy what they are doing. They play around with music more than the western world. In Japan people love music more than we do. Even record sellers in big chain stores like HMV Tokyo are music loving people who know much about the scenes. That's why the walls at HMV Japan are not destroyed by Tina Turner Posters but by big CORNELIUS stuff. Music industry people in Japan just take more risks. For example, the biggest shopping mall in Nagoay called Parco decided to release a CD for the opening of their new shop. It has 11 floors and is incredibly big so they asked a small Indie Label called Escalator to compile the compilation. One track for each floor. I'm sure here in Germany it would be EMI compiling it."
As for the jet-set kid Yoshinori, he'll continue to soak up the sounds that fill his headspace without a thought for fashionable culture. "I think the common feeling that the world have from our generation is very important. I'm not sure how I'm being influenced by popular culture. I just know that I'm influenced by 'something' in the everyday life."

HIS RELEASES:
Title: Music For Robot For Music
Label: BUNGALOW (GERMANY)
Format: 12"
Catalog Number: BUNG 28
Four track EP, Producer, featuring a title track (off his Crossover album), plus 2 remixes and 1 add'l track.

Title: Crossover
Label: BUNGALOW (GERMANY)
Format: CD
Catalog Number: BUNG 32 CD
"Yoshinori Sunahara is one third of the very successful Japanese techno-band Denki Groove. While Denki Groove live fast and fly high (180 BPM), the 27-year old programmer and DJ decided to balance this by starting a more personal, comparably quiet solo-career to balance in his life. On his first longplay Crossover Sunahara is looking for new, elegant ways in modern club-music. His stylish sounds remind of mastermind-projects like 808 State, Towa Tei or Massive Attack. There are housy and very trippy beats but they only shine through a very widespread orchestration. Calypso-drums, weird samples, noisy pieces and 'fat' orchestra-arrangements make Crossover an amusing trip through modern music and Yoshinori Sunahara's unique soul."

Title: Crossover
Label: BUNGALOW (GERMANY)
Format: LP
Catalog Number: BUNG 32 LP

Title: Take Off And Landing
Label: BUNGALOW (GERMANY)
Format: 2LP
Catalog Number: BUNG 41 LP
Double vinyl, gatefold edition.

Title: Journey Beyond The Stars
Label: BUNGALOW (GERMANY)
Format: 12"
Catalog Number: BUNG 43
"Joining his highly acclaimed album Take Off And Landing, Bungalow releases an exclusive 12" with two remixed of 'Journey...'. Patrick Pulsinger and the new excellent Ladomat-artist Turner will produce their version of this weird house/intelligent techno stomper. Also included is a new version of th even weirder killer-track 'No Sun'."

Title: Pan Am-The Sound of 70s
Label: BUNGALOW (GERMANY)
Format: LP
Catalog Number: BUNG 70LP
"We are looking at Yoshinori Sunahara's glorious completion of his trilogy about flying. After Tokyo Underground Airport and Take Off And Landing he now presents Pan Am - The Sound of 70s. For his record, Yoshinori Sunahara had the idea of developing a complete circle all demonstrated with music. The first piece, an orchestral piece, symbolizes the sunrise (start) while the CD ends with a song for the sunset (landing). Yoshinori found these two orchestra pieces on an old totally scratched Pan-Am-flexi from the 70s. Typical for a maniac like him, he ordered a 33 piece orchestra into his studio to re-record this track. All conducted by Japanese orchestra master Kazunori Miyake. Apart from that, his trip takes us through the day in a downbeat tempo. This time he added more of his fusion preferences, all integrated into Yoshinori's unique mixture of break sounds somewhere between house, dub and hip hop. Dreamy Fender Rhodes, jazzy guitars, dubby beats, are all formed into the distinctive Sunahara sound universe. But this time one a lot more homogenic and less distorted and fragmented than his last album: A new sound that sometimes reminds one of Jazzanova, but he doesn't hide that his roots are in the techno field ('Well, I come from Techno.'). Even the crystal-clear sound of a coin falling on a glass table is used as a break and makes perfect sense. Soft seventies tunes face off against constantly hard, electronically distorted sounds and brutal breaks. This contradiction prevents the record from becoming to soft and jazzy. With his fourth album the Japanese sound magician has come up with his - so far - most complete version of his vision."

Title: Love Beat
Label: BUNGALOW (GERMANY)
Format: 12"
Catalog Number: BUNG 71
"Welcome back, as the Japanese airport-fetishist and sound-genius Yohsinori Sunahara touches down again. First class, naturally. This time he returns with a summery downbeat tune that may never escape your ears again. On Love Beat, Yoshinori mixes his trademark weird and unexpected breaks into a smooth and mellow track. This is his style. And this is his Style! You'll also find two remixes on this 12". First, French sound wizards Bass Mati speed the tune up and build up a strong plot, ending in a brutal guitar lick of absolutely hypnotising proportions. Then Leftfield favorites World of Apples sneak in with a remix in the traditional remix sense."

SOUNDCLIP:

'2300 HAWAII from Sushi 4004.