Hey. This announcement is only for the Berliners, but if you live in the neighboring cities or countries, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Japan Takeover, an event I’ve designed and organized, is back for the 3rd edition at Berlin’s legendary queer bar, Möbel Olfe! Woot woot.

Our concept is simple. There’s just one rule: nothing but pure grooves, all made in Japan.

DJs:
Kayuka
NOB
Nihon no Jazz
Teshi

📍Möbel Olfe
Reichberger Straße 177, Berlin
⏰ 21:00 - end

Save it on RA

Bonus round: Notes on a flyer design

I would like all of my posters to look genuine and hand-made. That’s why at Teshi’s Fine Hour, AI-generated images are strictly prohibited. It’s also fun for me to source inspirations and interesting references. For our first round, I referred to Lost in Translation image I found online.

I actually do not know if this is made by a fan or if it’s an official image, but gosh, I love this. When two languages are presented, your eyes are drawn immediately to the one you understand more. It evokes an experience of being elsewhere: a country you don’t understand the language of, a place you feel othered. And when you find someone with whom you share something you understand, you cherish the connection through it. And that’s why I made this.

I wanted our second flyer to look cheekier, but it required many revisions. As you can see from the design above, I have great ideas, but lesser designing skills. The more complex the design, the more assistance I need from friends. And luckily, many are talented graphic designers. And I was pretty ambitious on this one.

I wanted to recreate a Japanese vinyl cover with an obi. I chose Pegmo’s self-titled first album.

I mean, this cover has everything. It’s cheeky, and the drawing is delightfully amateurish. The hyper detailed Obi, which includes too many taglines and too much information, like the price and tracklists. So maximum. That’s why I made this.

And for our latest, I used an art magazine I purchased when I was in Japan two years ago. It listed many interesting, ground-breaking poster designs from 1930’s! While flipping through the pages, my eyes are fixated on this mannequin exhibition poster from 1935.

This is superb. English is used as merely a decoration. If you’re a Japanese speaker, your eyes immediately go to the information on the left. A little hand-drawn blue and orange scarf adds so much charm.

Anyway! If you’re around this Saturday in Berlin, stop by, chat with us, and let’s dance.

Ciao.

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“It’s better to let it out than never, because one day someone will find you. “ - This is what my producer told me when we were making music in Tokyo. We were hungry. We wanted our music to be heard. We tried. But in the competitive climate back then, it wasn’t that easy. His words still encouraged me. Someday, somehow, a little piece of disco music we released will find the right time.

Take Vashti Bunyan, a Scottish singer-songwriter whose 1970 album, Just Another Diamond Day, was a commercial failure, causing her to leave the music industry. However, during the neo-folk movement of the early 2000s, the album was unearthed as a cult classic, which revived her career as a result.

Take Linda Perhacs. Her 1970s debut, Parallelograms, was another unfortunate commercial flop. The label did not push her either. She left music and became a dental hygienist. The album is now regarded as a psychedelic folk masterpiece.

One day, the time will come. And recently, it came to the classically trained Japanese pianist Yumiko Morioka. When the British label Métron contacted Morioka to request a reissue of her first and only album, Resonance, she was stunned. She recalls the moment: “I had forgotten about the album for so long. I even asked them, ‘Why?’”

Resonance was released in 1987 on Akira Ito’s Green and Water label. The record failed to sell upon release. She was disappointed. By 1994, Morioka had relocated to America, and her solo music career had given way to the joys of starting a family and her new life in California.

What Morioka did not know was that over the last 10 years, the album had been gaining a new audience outside of Japan through blog posts and YouTube album uploads. Finally, Resonance was reissued in 2020, 33 years after its initial release, by Métron. But what makes the album so special?

Once you hit play, it’s crystal clear. There’s something timeless about Resonance. Gentle and patient piano melodies are guided by velvet sheets of soft synth pads. The sounds of nature are present throughout. Your surroundings transform into a calm space. You’re completely transported to a new place. When asked about why nature is important, she answered: “Nature is timeless in a way. And definitely, nature doesn’t care about the trend.”

I caught up with Yumiko Morioka for an email interview about how the album was made, the secret behind the original artwork, her connection to nature, and how she made people not want to leave the restroom.

Teshi’s Fine Hour (TFH): Resonance was released in 1987 through Akira Ito’s Green and Water label. How did the album come about?

Morioka : I was a close friend with Akira, and I used to hang around at his studio. One day, he asked me if I wanted to release a piano album. and I said “YES”.

TFH: This was your first album. Do you remember how you felt when you first saw the physical copy?

Morioka : I was very happy, because finally I made something I wanted to do, instead of writing pop songs for earning bread.

TFH: What was the reception like when the album was released?

Morioka : Not so good. I don’t remember earning much money from it. It was frustrating for me that I could not earn money for what I really wanted to do, but I was able to get lots of money from commercial music I was making which my heart was not so into.

TFH: Many of the song titles suggest a connection to nature, with references to the moon, greenery, sea wind, komorebi, and so on. When you were writing the album, did you have a clear concept or atmosphere in mind?

Morioka : I was so tired from the commercial music industry back then, and the way to keep myself sane was to escape in nature. I used to do lots of scuba diving, and I moved out of Tokyo and lived by the ocean. So, my surroundings were amazingly beautiful. I spent lots of time by the ocean, and it definitely influenced me and my music.

TFH: There is a timeless quality to your compositions and to the way Resonance sounds. Listening back to the album now, how do you feel about it?

Morioka : Well, nature is timeless in a way. And definitely, nature doesn’t care about the trend. The natural sounds are perfect as they are. No egos or pretentiousness of any kind. And I have such a big respect for nature and I would be happy if I could get closer to it somehow. I try to be gone when I do my music. So something else could come through me and take over the music. That is my way of making and playing my music. I am like a medium.

TFH: The press release mentions that your music was often heard in the background of Japanese television documentaries and in maternity clinics. Was that something you expected when you made the album?

Morioka : No. I didn’t have any expectations. I was shocked to hear someone tell me that one of the tracks was used for a porno video. You’ll never know. Someone had a great imagination, I guess.

TFH: Could you tell me about the original artwork, which features a photograph by Tadayuki Naito? You also wrote about the photograph in an Instagram post. What was it about that image that spoke to you?

Morioka : A friend of mine was designing Naito’s photo book, and he introduced me to Naito. I was too shy to ask him to let him use his photo for my album. Because, many of his photos have been used for the jackets of Miles Davis, the king of Jazz. I have been a huge fan of his photography, especially his black and white photos of zebras in Africa. But, he also took many beautiful colored photos from all over the world.

He was always somewhere travelling to take photos of nature and people at remote locations. Naito listened to my music, and showed me some photos , and I found this cute photo which I fell in love with immediately. I begged him to let me use this photo, and he kindly said “yes”.

TFH: How did your life change after the release of your first album?

Morioka : I thought I failed. Nobody was interested in Resonance when it first came out. So, I even forgot about it after a while. I felt disappointment, because I felt like I was not accepted as an artist.

TFH: But Resonance has resurfaced through blog posts, YouTube algorithms, and the growing international interest in Japanese ambient music, often referred to as Kankyo Ongaku. Were you surprised to see the album find a new audience decades later?

Morioka : I was very surprised when the British label, Métron contacted me about reissuing. I have forgotten about the album for so long, and I even asked them “Why?” I guess when you live long enough, you’ll encounter some unexpected surprises.

TFH: You once mentioned that space and time seemed to move at a different speed back then. Why do you think so many people today are drawn to music that rewards patient and focused listening, like Resonance?

Morioka : I think everything is faster than it used to be. We can get information instantly with the technology we didn’t have back then. People spend hours with computers and showered by bluelight and information. Our mind can’t slow down even after we finish working.

I hear people have trouble falling asleep, even the physical body is dead tired. We are over stimulated and have difficulties slowing down. I think this is the reason why people want to hear more ambient music, and being interested in the slowlife concept to balance ourselves. When you listen to music like ”Resonance”, it is so slow and the space between the notes will force you to slow down your system and breathe deeper.

TFH: The reissue has introduced your music to a new generation of listeners and brought you many new opportunities, including a performance at the Royal Albert Hall. What was it like to perform overseas and meet listeners who had discovered your music so many years after it was originally released?

Morioka : It is strange to think that I am just starting my real life now, in spite of my physical age. I thought I would be very nervous, playing in London after all these years, but now I know how to disappear when I play. Something else comes in and my fingers start moving. It sounds spooky, but it really is how it is. So, I just let the music come through me and let it flow. Not much effort there. But it took me a long time to get here. I am here, but not here exactly. I hope you know what I mean.

TFH: You made Music for the Restrooms, music designed to be played in the restrooms at Thailand’s Wonderfruit festival, with Nick Luscombe and James Greer. How did that collaboration come about? And for those who haven’t heard it, how would you describe the music?

Morioka : I met Nick in Tokyo for his BBC Radio interviews. We became good friends and we started to collaborate together.

I think “Music for Rest Rooms” is the best musical work I have done so far. It is much more abstract than Resonance. It’s all improvisational, so it’s different every time we perform, which is so great. Currently we are looking for the right label to release. But, if you play in your bathroom, it definitely makes you stay in the bathroom longer. Because it takes you to the journey elsewhere. I got the reviews from people who listened to this music in Reethaus in Berlin, people didn’t want to leave the room afterward, and they literally had to be kicked out for the second round.

TFH: What’s next for Yumiko Morioka? I understand you have a new solo album coming out soon. What made you return to making music after such a long period?

Morioka : I am also a chocolatier. I make chocolates to sell. Chocolates and music, what else do you need in life?

Although, my music life is becoming so busy and full these days. I just got confirmation that my collaboration album, called “Fermentation” is coming out soon from Métron and Kankyo Records. It is a collaboration with H Takahashi, Jun Hoshino, and Cole Pulice. It is a musical story about the process of fermentation. Jun Hoshino is a didgeridoo player and he also is a miso maker. He found out that the harmonic sound helps make his miso taste better. So, he has been experimenting playing his didgeridoo, during the fermentation period. Didgeridoo is an instrument full of harmonics. Anyway, we got attracted to the world of microbes and H Takahashi and I started to record , imagining how the microbes dance and transform during the process of fermentation. Also, I recently recorded with the legendary guitarist, Bill Nelson when I was in England.

I have been doing this project, called “X64”. It’s the 64 repetition of the sequence. I have been warming up this project for a long time. I will collaborate with many different artists and will make an album soon. And I am slowly preparing for the next solo album. I will continuously focus on the space between the notes. In Japan, we call this “MA” (間). MA is not empty or nothingness. It’s full of information, which has not been downloaded yet. So, I will keep working on this . Since last year, suddenly I started to download all kinds of ideas and sounds. So, I am just following my steps to see where it is going to take me next.

TFH: What are some albums or artists that people might be surprised to hear you enjoy?

Morioka : I still love classical music after all these years. During My morning tea time, I often play the Ravel String Quartet.

And when my friends come over for dinner, I play London Grammar, and Agnes Obell in the background. It’s beautiful and soothing.

Follow Yumiko Morioka
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Purchase ‘Resonance’ on Bandcamp

If you like my work and support me, here’s the link to buy me coffee :)

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Hey guys,

I’m archiving my past radio show episodes recently. Today, I am sharing with you the first episode I made for Radio Alhara, ‘Rolling 80’s: When City Pop Went Off Rails’.

It’s about the term I invented. EXPERIMENTAL CITY POP.

City pop is fun. It evokes the palm tree fantasies and urban love stories you never experienced in the 80’s. A perfect holiday furnished with palm trees, a turquoise ocean, and technicolor drive-throughs. Neon-lights, flash lights, illustrated by funky bass-lines.

But did you know that while producers were making those visions come true sonically, there were purveyors, most notably Mariah’s Yasuaki Shimizu and Masanori Sasaji, experimenting in studios to create something a little… off the beaten paths? I call it Experimental City Pop.

Stream now from the link above.

And if you want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee from the link below.

Buy me coffee

Tracklist:

Follow Teshi's Fine Hour Instagram for daily music reccomendations.

Enigmatic, prolific and full of wonders. These are some of the words I use to describe Susumu Yokota. He speaks to us through music. Sometimes it is a conversation between you and him in your living room. Sometimes it is a whisper on an intimate dance floor with your friend.

To understand Yokota is to explore his music deeper and deeper. And this week, I presented an entire hour of Susumu Yokota’s Acid House records on Radio Alhara. So I could share the experience with you.

Yokota had many aliases; Tenshin, Bamboo Shoot, Yin & Yang, Prism, Ebi, Frankfurt Tokyo Connection, to name a few. I do not have with me how he differentiated himself on each project, but he says it rather perfectly on the cover art of Ebi, which literally means shrimp in Japanese.

‘My Definition of Techno-House is a Shrimp’.

Maybe that is it. Its eyes a cymbal, head a snare, and tails ＝ claps. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe not.

Feel free to tune in! And as always, thank you for listening.
If you liked my work, want to support me, your support is always appreciated it ☕️

Buy me coffee

Tracklist:

1. In the Beginning - Yokota
   From Frankfurt-Tokyo-Connection

2. Zen - Ebi
   From Ebi Zen

3. Sei - Ebi
   From Ebi Zen

4. Zenmai - Susumu Yokota
   From Acid Mt. Fuji

5. Akafuji - Susumu Yokota
   From Acid Mt. Fuji

6. Ohayo Float - Bamboo Data
   From Tone of Water, Colors of J-sky

7. Falling Rain - Bamboo Data
   From Tone of Water, Colors of J-sky

8. Little Comets - Stevia
   From Fruits of the Room

9. Sensitive Plant - Stevia
   From Fruits of the Room

10. Anime beat - Anima Mundi
    From Anima:Beat

11. Step beat - Anima Mundi
    From Anima:Beat

12. Rabbit Earing - Susumu Yokota
    From Will

Hey.

One of my monthly pleasures is curate a playlist for Radio AlHara, a Palestinian online radio station broadcasting from Bethlehem since its launch in March 2020.

And this month I am presenting music by Susumu Yokota, only the focus is solely on his Acid House journey.

Through his many, many aliases, we explore the wonders and psychedelic fantasia of Yokota’s dance music.

Tune in today July 27th from 19:00 CET & 20:00 Bethlehem time.

Stream now

Tracklist:

1. In the Beginning - Yokota

2. Zen - Ebi

3. Sei - Ebi

4. Zenmai - Susumu Yokota

5. Akafuji - Susumu Yokota

6. Ohayo Float - Bamboo Data

7. Falling Rain - Bamboo Data

8. Little comets - Stevia

9. Sensitive plant - Stevia

10. Anime beat - Anima Mundi

11. Step beat - Anima Mundi

12. Rabbit Earing - Susumu Yokota

Bossa Nova - a genre that originated in Brazil, a child of jazz and samba, nurtured by João Gilberto. It is really really popular in Japan. You can hear its influence across genres: Crossover Jazz, City Pop, and even video game music.

Curious, I decided to do a little history digging. And boy, what a fascinating journey it took! It all starts with a charming moustached guy, Sadao Watanabe. But before we get into that, here’s a brief section on the history of Bossa Nova.

A brief section on Bossa Nova History

In 1958 in Brazil, the first Bossa Nova record, Chega de Saudade, appeared on the album Canção do Amor Demais, helping João Gilberto gain attention in the scene. By the time the Black Orpheus soundtrack was released, America’s jazz musicians had taken Bossa Nova home, where it was welcomed with curiosity and a very positive reception.

We Japanese love shiny new things as much as Americans do. Astonishingly, as early as 1962, a song called Akira de Bossa Nova by the Japanese actor Akira Kobayashi was released. Is it really an authentic Bossa Nova song? No, it’s not. But that’s how little we actually knew about Bossa Nova.

When Bossa Nova was reaching its peak popularity with Getz/Gilberto (“The Girl from Ipanema”) along with The Astrud Gilberto Album, Japanese saxophonist Sadao Watanabe went to Berklee College of Music in 1962.

Sadao Watanabe and the birth of Bossa-kayo

After touring with American jazz musicians who had become infatuated with Bossa Nova, Watanabe returned home in 1965 and began releasing a series of Bossa Nova albums, triggering a huge Bossa Nova boom in Japan.

Seeing the opportunity, Japanese pop producers hired him as a composer to create Bossa-kayō, Japanese pop songs influenced by Bossa Nova. Therefore, while Bossa Nova’s international boom eventually faded as the Beatles’ heavy 8-beat sound grew in popularity, it remained strong in Japan.

Why Japanese love Bossa Nova

Bossa Nova’s urban, melancholic, and minimal vibes struck a chord with the Japanese heart. Its sophisticated urban feel had a perfect affinity with the City Pop movement of the 1970s. An album by the Milky Way, reissued this year by WeWantSounds, contains Bossa Nova covers of popular songs. A City Pop diva Yumi Arai also interpreted Chega de Saudade in her hit “Ano Hi ni Kaeritai.”

In the 1990s, Japan experienced a stylish café boom, and Bossa Nova became firmly established as sophisticated background music. Sadao Watanabe’s introduction of the genre, its exposure through kayōkyoku, and the café boom all helped Bossa Nova take root in Japan.

Because of this unique history, many fascinating offshoots of the genre were born. Here are five of my favorites.

5 Alternative Bossa Nova Records from Japan

Novo - Shiroi Mori

In 1973, a 5-piece group broke up shortly after releasing 2 singles, but their authentic Brazillian groove was not unnoticed. Sérgio Mendes was apparently a fan of them, giving them a letter of recommendation alongside the single release.

Oriental Bossa Sounds

Jazz fusion was big in the late 60’s. Some genius thought that combining traditional Japanese instruments like Shakuhachi and Koto with Bossa Nova would be an amazing idea. Well, this is stunning. The group was fronted by Hozan Yamamoto on shakuhachi, Katsuya Yokoyama also on shakuhachi, and Tadao Sawai on koto, and backed by the New Herd Orchestra led by saxophonist and clarinetist Toshiyuki Miyama.

Lamp - Heyano Madobe

Over the past years, Lamp became an internet sensation. ‘Heyano Madobe’ is featured in their debut album ‘Soyokaze Apartment 201’. Revisiting this after writing this article, I now understand its appeal clearer. The Japanese indie-pop sensibility and Bossa Nova is a perfect marriage.

Jun Miyake - Innocent Bossa In the Mirror

A Japanese composer Jun Miyake enjoys fusing two genres together. To explore the concept of ‘innocence’ he chose Bossa Nova because he ‘knew nothing about it’. He thought approaching the genre with pure intent to create music that is unknown to him, would be truly innocent. Miyake is joined by Arto Lindsay and Vinicius Cantuaria as writing partners. This music is pure magic.

K.K. Slider (Toru Minegishi) - K. K. Bossa

Just because it is sang by a fictional dog living in the animal crossing world, it does not make it a bad music. In fact, this is a seriously hard-hitting piece of Bossa Nova! Composer Minegishi Toru is known for his Zelda Soundtracks and some best composed tracks on Animal Crossing. If you have a doubt, hit play.

As always, thank you so much for tuning in to Teshi’s Fine Hour. If you have not followed me yet, hit subscribe from the little button below.

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Ciao!

Hey friends, family, and fellow music nerd kids.

I’ll be on a radio show tomorrow and I’m quite excited about it…because I get to play whatever the f*** we want! That means, my Japan filter is detached. Expect some oddities and favorites that might surprise you all.

Details

61 Colours: 2 hour B2B2B special | kidkanevil, Teshi & Black Sumo
June 30 - 12:00 on Refuge Worldwide

Producer/DJ and laptop music geek kidkanevil has developed a distinctive and progressive sound over the years, gleefully joining the dots between beats, bass, hip-hop, jazz, jungle, anime OSTs, video game music, and beyond.

This month, he is joined by special guests/friends/rivals in the soundclash - all things beats and bass connoisseur KRTS aka Black Sumo and Berlin’s nerdiest music nerd from Japan, Teshi (me!) - for a 2 hour anything goes B2B epic, unplanned, unscripted and unpredictable!

Stream on Refuge Worldwide

Do you know Better Days? No, I don’t mean literally. It’s actually the name of a record label founded in 1977 as a sub-label of Japan Columbia. They specialized in releasing left-field crossover and fusion albums. Though their run was rather short, with the label closing in 1986, it became the vehicle for many aspiring musicians to polish their craft.

For example, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s pre-YMO debut album was released on this label.

So how did it start? According to an interview with the current Better Days representative, the label was created specifically so that the Japanese king of blues, Makoto Kubota, could release an album, Lucky Old Sun, with Yuyake-Gakudan.

Around the same time, jazz guitarist Kazumi Watanabe was looking for a label. Better Days was asked to release Olive’s Step, and as if by fate, Ryuichi Sakamoto was one of the session musicians on the album. That’s how he came to release his own debut on Better Days.

Almost all of the artists on Better Days were essentially newcomers, and many of them were making music in genres that were still largely unrecognized in Japan. At the time, the records barely sold. However…

Roppongi Pit Inn, which would later become known as the holy ground of fusion, along with Columbia’s recording studios, became an experimental playground for young musicians who would go on to shape Japanese popular music. Kazumi Watanabe, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tatsuro Yamashita, Minako Yoshida, and Akiko Yano, for example (wow!). It was here that the distance between fusion, techno, and J-pop gradually disappeared, eventually leading to a unique blend of all three.

During the 1980s, Better Days released many albums by forward-thinking artists, including Joe Hisaishi’s Mkwaju Ensemble, Colored Music, and Mariah, featuring Yasuaki Shimizu and Masanori Sasaji (wow!!).

According to the same interview, the concept behind Better Days was simple. They wanted to create an environment where artists had the freedom to do whatever they wanted and give them a place to release their work. That’s why the catalog spans such a wide range of genres and relentless energy. Putting creativity before profit creates great works of art, apparently.

In recent years, more and more Better Days releases have been reissued overseas, giving a glimpse of just how highly the label is highly regarded outside Japan.

So, are you ready? Because I’ve picked some of my favorite Better Days releases for you to kick-start your Better Days journey. Let’s go.

A Thousand Knives by Ryuichi Sakamoto

While still a student at University, Ryuichi Sakamoto began taking freelance music gigs. A record label eventually approached him about making an album, which became his 1978 debut. According to Sakamoto himself, since he was still an unknown musician, he considered it something like a business card introducing who he was.

The album brings together everything that interested him at the time, including classical, jazz, reggae, bossa nova, and pop. The styling for the album cover was done by the absolute charmer Yukihiro Takahashi. Isn’t he lovely?

Kylyn by Kazumi Watanabe

Released in 1979, Kylyn was Katsumi Watanabe's ninth album. Of its nine tracks, six were produced by Sakamoto, while the remaining three were produced by Watanabe and Sakamoto together. Featuring then-young but already exceptional musicians like Shuichi "Ponta" Murakami, Yukihiro Takahashi, Akiko Yano, and Yasuaki Shimizu, the album stands as the peak of Japan-made fusion jazz.

Pecker Power by Pecker

Released in 1980 by percussionist Masahito "Pecker" Hashida, this album is often labeled as Japan's first dub album. It grew out of sessions with The Wailers at Bob Marley's Tuff Gong Studio and with Sly & Robbie at Channel One Studio. Alongside Japanese musicians including Minako Yoshida and Kenji Omura, the album also features many renowned Jamaican musicians.

Shinu Toki wa Betsu by Wha-Ha-Ha

I heard someone describe Wha-Ha-Ha as a "martial arts techno unit," and I thought that was so oddly fitting lol. With Akira Sakata, Shuichi Chino, Mishio Ogawa, and Shigenori Kamiya, the band is packed with an incredible lineup of powerhouse musicians. It's like a group of virtuoso individuals picked up a bunch of digital toys and, while having the time of their lives, threw every bit of their talent at one another in a serious musical showdown. It's basically Super Smash Bros. for musicians.

Mkwaju by Mkwaju Ensemble

These days, Joe Hisaishi kinda became Studio Ghibli soundtracks guy, but he was once part of Mkwaju Ensemble, where he and Midori Takada explored the minimalist music championed by composers like Philip Glass. Released in 1981, this was the group's debut album, offering beautifully crafted percussive ambient music. It's surprising to see that Better Days even covered music like this one.

Utakata No hibi by Mariah

The final masterpiece by Mariah, the experimental music group led by Yasuaki Shimizu. Released in 1983, it is a wonderfully strange album with technical prowess filled with studio magic. It blends synth-pop, jazz fusion, and progressive rock, filtered through new wave lenses. The group went on to produce many experimental city pop songs for other artists. Read more about it here.

Hello fellow music lovers,

thank you for tuning into Teshi’s Fine Hour, a Berlin-based listening session that celebrates hyper specific genres of music created by me, Teshi. Berlin’s nerdiest music nerd. On each episode we welcome a guest to highlight a lesser-known slice of music history that is overlooked or under-appreciated.

Our 9th episode took place on May 22 at Berlin’s new culture space in Atemporal at their home in Friedrichshain.

For this session, we were joined by Bruno, aka Max Binski, who is a music producer as well as an impressive record collector, to talk about the evolution of avant-garde animation soundtracks that pushed animation music into bold and unexpected territory.

Before we recap 50 years of boundary-pushing anime soundtracks, here’s the setlist provided by Bruno.

Belladonna of Sadness and Her Psychedelic Nightmares

We started our talk with 1973’s psycho-sexual drama Belladonna of Sadness, directed by Eiichi Yamamoto. For the soundtrack, Tokyo avant-garde jazz pianist and composer Masahiko Sato was summoned. The result is a fantastic collision of orchestral strings and choir, while weeping fuzz guitar, organ, and an explosive jazz rhythm section. It is an interesting fusion of baroque, prog rock, and free jazz motifs that enlivens this watercolor tableau of an ominous witch-hunting story.

Bruno notes

Pairs explicit adult and erotic political content with uncompromising jazz-psych scoring, positioning animation as a valid platform for serious experimental music in the early 70s.

Mecha & Space War Ambiance

Animation production Sunrise, most known for creating the Gundam series, was not afraid to weave human-centric drama into super robot spectacles. They mixed space war and politics, and the soundscape had to follow a similar balance of seriousness and excitement as giant robots fighting to save the world.

For Heavy Metal L-Gaim, they incorporated the sounds of a late 70s and early 80s fusion band, with melodic brass and strings over tight drum-and-bass grooves and synth leads.

As for 1987’s Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Yellow Magic Orchestra member and Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence composer Ryuichi Sakamoto was hired to provide lush orchestral harmonic writing colored by 80s synth timbres and temple music ambience, giving the animation an almost spiritual weight.

Bruno adds:

Sakamoto approached the film like a prestige live-action project, aiming specifically to avoid “anime clichés” in the music. It is one of the first anime features to bring in a globally renowned art-house composer, signaling to both Japanese and international audiences that anime can carry the same musical weight as serious cinema.

Borderlessness of Cyber Punk Anime

At this point, we all know the Akira bike slide. Whether you’ve seen it or not, no one can deny the cultural significance of Akira, with biker gangs driving around Neo-Tokyo amid psychic children and apocalyptic destruction. It became a turning point for adult-oriented animation.

To musically embody the cyberpunk universe, Geinoh Yamashirogumi, a huge choral collective blending professional and amateur singers, was assigned. Bruno says of the soundtrack’s composition:

Large parts of the score were written from storyboards and concepts instead of finished scenes. Some sequences were edited around the music rather than the usual other way around. It treats the soundtrack as a standalone ritual work that the film has to live up to, merging world music, avant-choral practice, and cyberpunk imagery into a single overwhelming statement.

And like a long reverberation, the cyberpunk blueprint Geinoh Yamashirogumi and director Katsuhiro Otomo created inspired the meditative and sacred soundscapes of many films, including Patlabor 2 and Ghost in the Shell, whose key track merged Bulgarian-style harmony with a Japanese wedding song.

Bruno surprised all of us with an international distribution-only end theme for GIS: a curious U2 and Brian Eno collaboration, Passengers ‘One Minute Warning’.

Real Fictions

Animations are fictional. These animated figures do not exist in real life. However, when 1995 OVA Macross Plus used Sharon Apple, an AI virtual idol, as a central narrative, its music came alive. Four songs that appeared in the movie were released as an EP titled Cream P-U-F (lol).

Bruno adds:

It pioneers the fictional AI pop star as a serious album project, decades before virtual idols and film-tied fictional pop-star albums became normal.

Idols blurring the line between reality and dreams. Well, isn’t that Perfect Blue, reportedly the first animated psycho-horror of existential panic? The hallucinatory world is embodied perfectly with an eerie ambient piece by Masahiro Ikumi.

Jazz & Hip-Hop: Music Takes Center Stage

For shows like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, music doesn’t support the story. It is structured around it. The series is cut to the score rather than the score being written after, making the band an invisible co-director. It seems to be the guiding principle of both series creator Shinichirō Watanabe. And when you hear the intro of Cowboy Bebop, you have to agree.

You Don’t Have to Be Japanese

When Animatrix producer Michael Arias was set to direct Taiyō Matsumoto’s iconic manga Tekkonkinkreet, he asked the experimental electronic duo Plaid from the UK to soundtrack the movie. This was headline news for fans of European experimental electronica. A top-tier Warp-school electronic act scoring anime directly. What!

This might have paved the way for Western musicians entering anime. 2024’s long-anticipated horror anime Uzumaki employed Hereditary composer Colin Stetson, while another Watanabe joint, Lazarus, luxuriously birthed three separate full-length soundtracks from Floating Points, Kamasi Washington, and Bonobo.

Flower Has Bloomed

Asa-Chang & Junray’s 2001 single “Hana (Flower)” was remixed into multiple versions as the ending theme for the experimental anime series Aku no Hana (Flowers of Evil). What it teaches us, along with all of the songs from the past 50 years of anime soundtracks that Bruno generously presented, is that avant-garde anime soundtracks push genre expectations, help contextualize narratives through sound, and elevate the viewing experience. It stands alone as a great piece of music, yet remains inseparable from the visuals.

I hope this listening session tickled your musical curiosities and gave you inspiration. Until next time… ciao!

Oh! If you’re new here, hit the subscribe button to keep yourself updated on new sessions and playlists.

Hello hello music lovers,

Have you heard the news? Our favorite pop auteur Haruomi Hosono is releasing his first album in 7 years called Yours Truly from Ghostly International this September, featuring guest appearances from Harry’s House resident Harry Styles, the loveably dorky Mac DeMarco and Ginger Root. And more, reportedly!

If you have been following my feed, you know I am a huge fan of Haruomi Hosono. So just like I have done with Hosono’s former band-mate Ryuichi Sakamoto, I compiled J-pop songs that were produced and/or written by Haruomi Hosono for Berlin’s new community radio, Yaraka Radio.

Don’t miss it! Even if you must miss it, don’t worry. I will share it on Instagram with a link to the streaming site.

Here’s the details.

Teshi’s Fine Hour presents
Hosono House: Produced by Haruomi Hosono

When?
May 27 (Tuesday) from 15:00 CET
Where?
Yaraka Radio (link)

Hi magical music lovers,

Teshi’s Fine Hour is back and it is happening on May 22.

For those who are new… Teshi’s Fine Hour is a listening session dedicated to hyper-specific genres of music. Each episode features a guest to discuss a moment in popular music history that is often overlooked or underappreciated.

For our next episode, we are joined by Max Binski, a Berlin-based record collector and producer, to explore avant-garde anime soundtracks that pushed animation music into bold and unexpected territory.

Together, we will look at genre-bending scores that sonically illustrated avant-garde anime, including Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Belladonna of Sadness.

Date: May 22
Door opens: 18:00
Talk Begins: 19:00

Location: Atemporal
Boxhagener Str. 96, 10245 Berlin
Entrance: €10

Ticket link is below.
Seat number is limited so grab yours fast!

Get ticket on RA

Get ticket on Dice

Hey, I have a new obsession I want to share with you. it is Digital Trip.

Digital Trip is a series of animation soundtracks released by Japan Columbia from 1981 until 1986. The title often ends with “Synthesizer Fantasy.” As far as I have checked, there are more than 50 Digital Trip releases.

The concept of Digital Trip, though it indeed sounds pretty trippy, is quite clear: performing anime soundtracks with synthesizers. 1981 was the year Yellow Magic Orchestra reached the peak of their popularity, and many synthesizer-infused “techno pop” songs were dominating the charts. Besides, synthesizer music itself was not an original concept. We had Isao Tomita to thank for that. It was easy for Japanese listeners to accept the idea.

Whether you were a creator or a listener, we were all collectively excited about the new sounds of synthesizers. That was the moment when Digital Trip was dropped

The very first album in the series, Digital Trip: Adieu Galaxy Express 999, Synthesizer Fantasy, was initially released simply as a new album by Osamu Shoji. But it became an unexpected hit. This article assumes that its success encouraged the record company to develop it into a full series.

After that, imaginative soundtracks began to appear, including soundtracks for comics that had not yet been animated. These were the so called “image albums.” You can read my substack about image albums here.

The reconstructions continued. Hit series such as Lupin the Third, Gundam, Cat’s Eye, and Captain Harlock were reimagined. What is interesting is that creators like Osamu Shoji, Junko Miyagi, and Jun Fukamachi took really took artistic freedom in interpreting the original compositions, drawing on genres such as funk, jazz, and even progressive rock.

Digital Trip expanded the imagery of visual works such as animation and comics into an entirely new musical world using the latest technology. Their attempt to recreate worlds through sound is still very exciting. Here we have selected five recommended works from the series that embody this idea. Enjoy.

Foreword: Isao Tomita - Snowflakes Are Dancing

Gotta mention the OG! Though you can argue that ‘Switched on Bach’ by Wendy Carlos may be the pioneer of the synthethizer album concept, this one still holds up.

Junko Miyagi - Battle from Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa

Digital Trip from Hayao Miyazaki’s first outing: Nausicaa: The Valley of the Wind. Junko really took liberty in her composition on this one. Thrilling stuff.

Akira Ito - Brāhmaṇa from Digital Trip Buddha

As far as I am concerned, a comic series Buddha by Osamu Tezuka was never animated. The whole album quite trippy, but the key track here is definitely the album starter. It mixes funk, psychedelic rock and follows a mysterious synthesizer lead.

Shoji Osamu - La Femme Fatale from Digital Trip Adieu Galaxy Express 999

A synthesizer symphony of an iconic Sci-Fi animation, the Galaxy Express 999 by Reiji Matsumoto. Moody ambiance using waterly and ghostly synth-pads.

Akira Ito - Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi

An image album Aimed to enhance your reading experience. Funky basslines and celestial synth illustrate the world of the original comic.

Jun Fukamachi - Ramu no Love Song from Digital Trip Urusei Yatsura

Let's end it on high with Jun Fukamachi’s reimagination of the famous theme song from Urusei Yatsura, a popular slapstick comic/animation series by Inuyasha cartoonist, Rumiko Takahashi. Compared to the original’s hyper-pop energy, it sounds surprisingly restrained, allowing a fuller and repeated listen.

So yeah, what do you think?

Hope it tickles your musical inspiration a little bit.

Hi guys,

n upcoming guided listening session of the latest album from aus isoda, Interwoven, released from WRWTFWW records is coming this Saturday on April 25.

Interwoven is a latest collaboration album from the Japanese electronic producer aus and a renowned musician Ken Isoda, whose minimalist masterpiece Oscillation Circuit received worldwide acclaim over the years.

Drawing on Isoda’s deep legacy (notably his legendary work on Oscilation Circuit – Série Réflexion 1 from mythical label Sound Process) and fused with aus’ spellbinding melodies, Interwoven is ethereal healing sound: lingering piano, soft cinematic synths, field recordings that feel like whispered memories, while flutes and saxophone pass by, bringing a subtle breath of wind and the warmth of human touch.

This is music for those who cherish the delicate beauty of life — and for fans of Satoshi Ashikawa, Midori Takada, Satsuki Shibano, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Takashi Kokubo, Brian Eno… lovers of nature, reflection, and daydreams.

RSVP quick! Only a few seats left.

RSVP

Date: April 25
Location: Atemporal
Boxhagener Str. 96, 10245 Berlin

Door opens: 17:00
Listening starts: 18:00
Entrance fee: 5 Euro

Hello hello music lovers,

thank you for tuning into Teshi’s Fine Hour, a Berlin-based listening session that celebrates hyper specific genres of music created by me, Teshi. Berlin’s nerdiest music nerd. On each episode we welcome a guest to highlight a lesser-known slice of music history that is overlooked or under-appreciated.

Our eighth episode took place on April 12 at Berlin’s top-notch listening bar, Unkompress.

For this session, we welcomed Florian, a Berlin based journalist and curator, to talk about the roots of Ambient music, a long stretched, endless tone and rhythm that has created mood and soothed listeners since 1917.

Before we recap our event, here’s the playlist.

1. Ulla Straus: „Creepy Girl“ (from: Foam, 2022)

2. Erik Satie, Reinbert de Leeuw: „Gnossiennes Nr. 1“ (from: Frühe

3. Unknown Artists: „Le Ramayana“ (from: Bali Eternel, 1974/1980)

4. Terry Riley: „Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band“ (from: A Rainbow In Curved Air, 1969)

5. Miles Davis: „He Loved Him Madly“ (from: Get Up With It, 1974)

6. Jon Hassell/Brian Eno: „Delta Rain Dream“ (from: Fourth World Vol. 1 -

7. Joanna Brouk: „Aurora“ (from: Sounds Of The Sea, 1981/2023)

8. Midori Takada: „Crossing“ (from: Through The Looking Glass, 1983)

9. The KLF: „3AM Somewhere Out Of Beaumont“ (from: Chill Out, 1990)

10. Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement: „Killer Whales Sleep With One Eye Open“ (from: Killer Whale Atmospheres, 2023)

Music as Furniture

The night began with a cozy and fuzzy number by Ulla Straus. The music is relaxed, freely and slowly taking its pace, stretching itself out with endless repetitions. Would you call this Ambient music? The ultimate question is: What exactly is Ambient music?

Florian explains that the root of Ambient should come from Erik Satie, when he composed pieces designed to be part of a room’s atmosphere rather than actively listened to. He called it Furniture Music (or in French, musique d’ameublement). They were purposely made very simple and repetitive, so the audience could carry on talking. Put simply, it’s music designed to be ignored.

Gamelan’s Endless Inspiration

Little is known that Erik Satie was heavily influenced by the Javanese Gamelan music he heard at the 1889 Paris Exposition. To illustrate this, Florian played a recording of Gamelan music from 1974. The music sounds hypnotic, repetitive, and devoid of Western harmonic structures. Florian finds a thread that ties this to the ambient music we know today.

Terry Riley’s epochal classic A Rainbow In Curved Air (1969) inherits the DNA of Satie and Gamelan while incorporating experimentation in the studio. “This was played in the chill out room in clubs,” Florian fondly remembers.

Miles Davis, in the meantime, took a minimalist approach to set a spiritual tone with the spacious and minimal composition on Get Up With It (1974).

That Ambient Guy

Brian Eno defined ambient music as “as ignorable as it is interesting” in 1975. It is designed to sit in the background. It creates the atmosphere of a space rather than demanding attention from listeners. Doesn’t it sound just like Furniture Music?

However, this is where the term Ambient music started to take shape. Cross pollinating with genres like post rock, jazz, classical and musique concrète, music that creates atmosphere and mood came to be called Ambient.

Kankyo Ongaku

In Japan during the economic boom of the 80s, the country started to invest heavily in the arts. This included the use of background or environmental music in public spaces in Tokyo. Clients like Muji, Sanyo and Seiko commissioned artists to create soundtracks for their adverts.

This was called Kankyo Ongaku (environmental music). Although she was not directly part of the Kankyo Ongaku movement, Florian introduced Midori Takada to draw a connection to Indonesian Gamelan music, which clearly inspired her.

Taking Off & Landing

Ambient music evolved as it expanded its purpose into healing, relaxation, spirituality and spaces that required certain atmospheres. The fuzzy, cozy and stretched out nature of Ambient music was perfect for chill out rooms in clubs. The kings of chill out, The KLF, sonically painted stories by collaging samples and fuzzy synth pads to create atmosphere.

What is Ambient Music?

So what is Ambient music? Is it defined by the listeners or by the creators who make the music? The definition of Ambient music is as ambiguous and shapeless as the music itself. Its flexibility allows for genre cross pollination.

Aphex Twin released Selected Ambient Works, birthing a new genre of Ambient House. Sunn O))) stretched out heavy low frequencies to create drone and ambient metal. Ambient music does not have to be light and cheerful. It can also be dark, like the last song Florian picked. A piece by Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement is an unsettling, eerie number.

Ambient is formless and ever changing, and we as listeners can simply lean on it.

I hope this listening session tickled your musical curiosities and gave you inspiration. Until next time… ciao!

Oh! If you’re new here, hit the subscribe button to keep yourself updated on new sessions and playlists.

Subscribe now

Hello fellow music lovers,

thank you for tuning into Teshi’s Fine Hour, a Berlin-based listening session that celebrates hyper specific genres of music created by me, Teshi. Berlin’s nerdiest music nerd. On each episode we welcome a guest to highlight a lesser-known slice of music history that is overlooked or underappreciated.

Our seventh episode took place on March 28 at Berlin’s new culture space in Atemporal at their home in Friedrichshain.

For this session, we welcomed Crizia, a Refuge Worldwide resident and a certified music lover to talk about the Paisley Underground, a short-lived music scene in the 80’s Los Angeles, that revived the psychedelic sounds of Rock’n’Roll from the 60’s.

Before we recap our event, here’s the playlist.

1. X - Soul Kitchen (The Doors cover)

2. 13th Floor Elevators - You’re Gonna Miss Me

3. Count Five - Psychotic Reaction

4. The Seeds - Pushin’ Too Hard

5. The Byrds - Mr. Tambourine Man

6. The Byrds - Eight Miles High

7. The Dream Syndicate - Tell Me When It’s Over

8. The Dream Syndicate - When You Smile

9. The Three O’Clock - Jet Fighter

10. The Three O’Clock - When Lighting Starts

11. The Bangles - Going Down to Liverpool (Katrina and The Waves cover)

12. The Bangles - All About You

13. Rain Parade - Talking In My Sleep

14. Danny & Dusty - Songs for the Dreamers

The Beginning

So what is the Paisley Underground?

The Paisley Underground was a psychedelic rock revival that emerged in Los Angeles from the early to mid-1980s. It was a relatively small community. When a band lost a bassist or needed support, friends from neighboring bands would step in, sometimes helping temporarily, sometimes joining the band altogether. According to Crizia, many women were also involved, and because the scene grew out of the punk movement of the time, it also carried a certain queer sensibility.

X’s cover of “Soul Kitchen” by The Doors perfectly captures this mix of elements. Punk energy collides with the psychedelic guitar sounds heard in 1960s rock. It feels like a perfect symbol of the Paisley Underground.

The Inspirations

Members of the Paisley Underground were in their twenties at the time. The sounds that influenced them were bands like The Byrds, The Velvet Underground, and underground punk. These were all rebellious sounds that their parents’ generation had listened to. I find it fascinating that the children rediscovered this music, became curious about it, and translated it into their own style.

Crizia brought along a compilation called Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968, a collection of hidden gems from the early psychedelic rock era. We listened to three tracks from the album. Among them, Count Five stood out as a masterpiece that fused punk energy with psychedelic sound.

It is impossible to talk about the Paisley Underground without mentioning The Byrds. What these bands drew from them was the jangly 12-string guitar sound that would later influence guitar pop for decades. And endless psychedelic guitar solos brought out the impulse and attitude of punk. “Eight Miles High”, inspired by an attempt to translate John Coltrane’s saxophone work into guitar form, remains one of the defining songs of psychedelic rock.

The Fantastic Four

According to interviews with members of The Bangles, four bands in particular were close friends: The Bangles, Rain Parade, The Three O’Clock, and The Dream Syndicate. Looking at their influence and popularity in later generations, it seems clear that these four groups formed the core of the Paisley Underground.

The Dream Syndicate

One song that often represents the Paisley Underground is “Tell Me When It’s Over” by The Dream Syndicate. The atmosphere of the sound recalls The Velvet Underground’s White Light / White Heat, while Steve Wynn’s vocal delivery echoes Lou Reed’s languid drawn-out vocal style.

The Three O’clock

Although the Paisley Underground is often described as a psychedelic rock revival, each band had its own musical identity. The Three O’Clock leaned more toward guitar pop. Prince was a huge fan. He later released a song called Paisley Park and named his own label Paisley Park Records and even wrote songs for The Bangles, contributing significantly to raising popularity of the Paisley Underground bands.

The Bangles

Most people know The Bangles because they became a globally famous band. Songs like “Manic Monday”, written by Prince, and “Walk Like an Egyptian” are pop classics that almost anyone can hum. They were also part of the Paisley Underground, which I didn’t know either!

Rain Parade

At one point, Crizia played the opening of a song and asked the audience if they could recognize it. It was the unmistakable intro to Mazzy Star’s dream pop classic “Fade Into You”. The guitarist on that track was David Roback from Rain Parade. Their song “Talking in My Sleep” also captures a drifting, half-awake sonic world, like being inside a daydream, reflecting the drowsy atmosphere of Los Angeles.

The End (was the beginning)

The Paisley Underground began as a small community of musicians in Los Angeles. But as the bands became more popular, they started touring more widely. The original sense of community gradually faded, and the scene eventually dissolved. Its life lasted only about four years.

Yet during that short time it produced major bands like The Bangles, and its influence on psychedelic and dream pop artists is immeasurable.

The Paisley Underground is often remembered simply as a revival of 1960s psychedelic rock. But I believe the legacy it left behind is not only the sound. It is also the strong spirit of community, musicians supporting one another and pushing each other forward.

The final track Crizia selected was “Songs for the Dreamers” by Danny & Dusty. The song comes from an album reportedly recorded in one drunken night. A song dedicated to dreamers. Isn’t this a perfect song to finish the night?

I hope this listening session tickled your musical curiosities and gave you inspiration. Until next time… ciao!

Oh! If you’re new here, hit the subscribe button to keep yourself updated on new sessions and playlists.

Subscribe now

Bonus Round!

Here are some of the songs Crizia had in mind to play.

1. True West - Hollywood Holiday

2. Green On Red - Lost World

3. Long Ryders - Ivory Tower

4. Game Theory - 24

5. Pandoras - In and out of My Life (In a day)

6. Thin White Rope - Down In The Desert

7. The Things - Coloured Heaven

8. The Steppes - See You Around

Crizia also played this compilation album…
Twisted Dream Machine: The Paisley Underground California’s Psychedelic Renaissance: 1982-1986

Teshi’s Fine Hour is a listening session dedicated to hyper-specific genres of music. Each episode features a guest who highlights a moment in popular music history that is often overlooked or under-appreciated.

For this session, we’re joined by Florian Sievers, a Berlin-based journalist, author, and culture curator, to explore the history of ambient music.

From the early experiment of “furniture music” by Erik Satie to Indonesian Gamelan, from atmospheric deep cuts by Miles Davis to 1980s New Age music, we examine how ambient music evolved across different genres and decades, and how its sound resonates with modern listeners today.

Date: April 12
Door opens: 18:00
Talk Begins: 19:00

Where?
Unkompress
Fichtestrasse 23, 10967 Berlin

Entrance: €5

Limited to 20 seats
RSVP required.

RSVP now

About Florian Sievers:
Florian Sievers is a Berlin-based journalist who writes about economics as well as music and art. He was one of the editors of Groove magazine for electronic music and has among others written and co-edited the book “Ten Cities” about the history of club culture, public sphere and urban spaces in five African and five European cities. Florian is an avid record collector and has delved deep into the African roots of genres from Hip-Hop to Techno, having done on the ground research and record digging from Lagos/Nigeria to Addis Ababa/Ethiopia. Since his 2000s chill-out room experiences at raves he cherishes Ambient music’s manifoldness and mind-altering depth.

Hello fellow music lovers,

How’s it going? Today I am announcing you the next Teshi’s Fine Hour, taking place on March 28. With an exclusive subscriber only RSVP link, of course.

For this session, we’re joined by Crizia, Berlin’s certified music lover and resident DJ at Refuge Worldwide, to explore the psychedelic revival that emerged in 1980s Los Angeles: the Paisley Underground.

We are also happy to host this event at a new culture space in Friedrichshain Atemporal. It is a pretty darn cool place! Check it out here.

See the details below, and RSVP away, as you please :)

Teshi’s Fine Hour: L.A. Reverie: The Paisley Underground 82-86 with Crizia
When: March 28
Door opens: 15:00
Talk begins: 17:00 *ish
Where: Atemporal
Boxhagener Str. 96, 10245 Berlin

RSVP now

Entrance: €5
Limited to 30 seats — first come, first served.

See you then!

Hello fellow music lovers,

thank you for tuning into Teshi’s Fine Hour, a Berlin-based listening session that celebrates hyper specific genres of music created by me, Teshi. Berlin’s nerdiest music nerd. On each episode we welcome a guest to highlight a lesser-known slice of music history that is overlooked or underappreciated.

Our sixth episode took place on February 25 at Berlin’s community-online Radio station, Refuge Worldwide at their home in Neukölln.

For this session, I invited kidkanevil, a beat maker and beat chaser extraordinaire, and a resident DJ at Refuge Worldwide, to talk about 16-bit video game music, focusing on two consoles, the SNES and the Sega Mega Drive. We also thought it would be a good opportunity to finally put an end to the feud. So who is ultimately cooler, Nintendo or Sonic? Let’s decide sonically.

Before we find out the result, here’s the playlist from the evening.

1. Yuzo Koshiro – Go Straight – Streets of Rage 2

2. Attila Dobos / András Magyari / David Javelosa / Andy Armer – Title Theme – Ecco the Dolphin: The Tides of Time

3. John Baker – Funky Alien – ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron

4. Matt Furniss – Stage One – Alien 3

5. Hajime Hirasawa – Main Theme – Star Fox

6. Hiroki Kikuta – Soul of the Night – Secret of Mana

7. David Wise – Aquatic Ambience – Donkey Kong Country

8. Koji Kondo – Hyrule Field Theme – The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

9. Koji Kondo – Super Mario Bros Theme Remix – Super Mario World

10. Soyo Oka – Mario Circuit – Super Mario Kart

11. Junichi Masuda – Fire Cave – Mario & Wario

12. Masato Nakamura – Green Hill Zone – Sonic the Hedgehog

13. Masato Nakamura – Chemical Plant Zone – Sonic the Hedgehog 2

14. Bradley Buxer – Ice Cap Zone – Sonic the Hedgehog 3

15. Yoko Shimomura – Ryu’s Theme – Street Fighter II

16. Hiroshi Kawaguchi – Tonight’s Campaign – Ninja Burai Densetsu

17. Nobuo Uematsu – Dancing Mad – Final Fantasy VI

18. Jesper Kyd – Crystal Space – Sub-Terrania

19. David Wise – Stickerbush Symphony – Donkey Kong Country 2

20. Jon Holland – Day Three: Tidal Surge – Vectorman

21. Yasunori Mitsuda – A Presentiment / Chrono Trigger – Chrono Trigger

22. Yasunori Mitsuda – Wind Scene – Chrono Trigger

Part 1: Sega Megadrive vs Super Nintendo

To understand who is cooler, we first have to understand who they are. Personally I never played the Sega Megadrive. I have been Team Mario from the start. But that is not how we fight. kidkanevil patiently explained the specs of these two consoles, starting with the Sega Megadrive.

Sega Megadrive (1988)

The Sega Mega Drive was the first console that aggressively put “16-BIT” on the front as a branding tactic. Their focus was on speed and a bad boy attitude. Why it was called Super Aladdin Boy in South Korea, we still do not know.

The Megadrive sound came from two chips:

• Yamaha YM2612 FM synthesizer (6-note polyphony)

• Texas Instruments PSG (square waves and noise)

This bad boy had 8KB of audio RAM, which meant composers had to work with serious limitations. But these constraints produced a distinctive electronic sound that felt similar to club music and early techno.

kidkanevil found a perfect analogy for composing on the Megadrive sound chips.

They painted the Sistine Chapel using crayons.

Super Nintendo (1990)

Nintendo is family friendly. After all, they called their console the Family Computer. Their sonic approach reflected that niceness nicely.

• 64KB audio RAM

• Sony-designed SPC700 sound chip

• 8 sampled voices with stereo and effects

This allowed orchestral, detailed soundtracks with sampled instruments than pure synthesis.

It is not an overstatement to say that if the Megadrive is a garage band, the SNES is an orchestra.

Part 2: Mario vs Sonic

To decide who is cooler, we also have to look at their mascots. Nintendo’s mascot Mario, created by Shigeru Miyamoto, is a jumpy Koopa-hopping superhuman. He was family friendly and mostly harmless, much like the console itself.

In response to the friendly moustache, Sega’s Yuji Naka and Naoto Ohshima wanted to create something equally absurd. A bright blue rolling creature with attitude who runs at supersonic speeds. Sonic. A little digging on the internet revealed Sonic could have been a rabbit, or even a bird.

Thankfully he became a hedgehog.

Unlike Mario, Sonic was cool, streetwise, and impatient.

kidkanevil continues:

These contrasting characters not only summarised the tone differences of these two companies and their branding, but of the machines and their music also.

How Mario sounded

Mario games often featured bright, melodic soundtracks influenced by jazz, Latin music, and pop.

Alongside this iconic tune, kidkanevil played a jazz-fusion song the composer Koji Kondo used as an inspiration. Wowzer!

How Sonic Sounded

Sonic’s music leaned toward pop, funk, and electronic influences. Masato Nakamura from the J-pop band Dreams Come True composed Sonic’s early soundtracks, creating legendary tracks like this.

Dreams come true later created a J-pop single based on this track. Listen to it at your own discretion. Rumor also has it that Sonic super fan Michael Jackson wanted to be involved in the soundtrack for Sonic the Hedgehog 3. It apparently did not happen officially, but his team did contribute, and the result sounds about as Dangerous as it gets.

Part 3: Street Fighter II

Street Fighter II is an important game not only for changing fighting games forever, but also for comparing the sound of both consoles since it was released on each of them.

It was composed by Yoko Shimomura, an icon of video game music.

Shimomura started working at Capcom after learning piano from the age of five. Her family did not approve of her career choice. After all those expensive music lessons, you end up making music for video games?

Composers were not given a choice about which games to work on. Their names were not credited while working at Capcom. They were also part of a mostly female sound team and band called Alph Lyla because Capcom thought it’d be cool.

Now back to Street Fighter II.

Shimomura used the game’s worldwide locations as inspiration. The future Kingdom Hearts composer referenced the musical character of each region, even though she had never left Japan at the time. The famous voice samples and sound effects were recorded by random Capcom staff members rather than professional voice actors. Still, well done!

The music was originally composed for the arcade version and later ported to SNES and Megadrive. It first appeared on SNES because Nintendo had exclusivity with Capcom, so Sega players had to wait a year.

SNES

Sega Megadrive

Part 4: Who Wins?

So we have compared Nintendo and Sega through their 16-bit consoles. Now it is time to decide which one wins the gold medal for the coolest console of the century.

Is it the bad boy? Or the nice boy?

kidkanevil chose three tracks from Sega, and I picked three tracks for Nintendo

Before playing an eight-minute opus, kidkanevil, the bad boy, perfectly summed up the difference between the two sounds.

If SNES music is John Williams, Megadrive music is John Carpenter.

But to be fair, his life was already on the edge after I punched him with a 17 operatic suite by Nobuo Uematsu, the legendary Final Fantasy composer who combined Baroque, opera, and prog rock. To be fairer, I only played the last suite.

After each track, the audience voted with applause. I thought the Nintendo fans clapped louder, but the Sega fans definitely clapped harder.

In the end it does not really matter who is cooler. As kidkanevil says:

The human brain can only hear around 3-6 sounds at a time, so matches the technology’s capability.

That is why 16-bit video game music sounds so good. It captures the romance, excitement, and nostalgia of the past, much like classic film soundtracks.

I hope this listening session tickled your musical curiosities and gave you inspiration. Until next time… ciao!

Oh! If you’re new here, hit the subscribe button to keep yourself updated on new sessions and playlists.

Subscribe now

Japan Takeover is back again at Berlin’s legendary bar Möbel Olfe on March 14! The group of J-groove masters is going to play jazzy, funky, soulful-y, and city-poppy tunes to make you swing and swoon. Lettsu vibe.

Date: March 14 (Sat)
Time: 21:00 - 3:00
Location: Möbel Olfe
Reichenberger Str. 177, 10999 Berlin

DJs:

Kayuka
Nihon No Jazz
Nob
Teshi

Flyer design inspired by Pegmo’s lovely cover.

What I absolutely love about going to record stores in Japan is finding records that I would never be able to find on streaming platforms. Quite often, I run into vinyl records with cartoon covers. Wait, do I know this manga? Has it ever been animated? I quickly browse Wiki. Nope, it hasn’t. It turns out to be an image album.

What is an image album? It is an album that sonically represents different media, including manga, novels, and even magazines. It serves as a musical accompaniment that enhances your reading experience. It is a unique piece of merchandise that pleases loyal fans. Apparently, sales of manga image albums often helped push the production and release of their anime adaptations.

There is also another kind of image album. For Hayao Miyazaki’s debut animated feature, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Joe Hisaishi was asked to create an image album inspired by Miyazaki’s original manga. The result was “鳥の人 (A Bird Person),” which led to him composing the actual soundtrack.

Here are five of my favorite image albums that I have discovered lately.

The Adventure of Kindaichi Kosuke

A masterpiece image album in the crossover and fusion style. It translates the world of the detective series Kindaichi Kosuke, created by novelist Seishi Yokomizo, into sound. With Japanese traditional instruments and layers of female chorus woven throughout, it is full of inventive touches and continues to captivate listeners around the world.

Mobile Police Patlabor Image Sound-Track Album Vol.1 Interface

An image album that expresses the popular Patlabor series through sound. The composer is Kenji Kawai, who also created the soundtrack for Mamoru Oshii’s film Ghost in the Shell. A remarkable piece that lets you fully enjoy his smooth, flowing synth sound.

MU - Image Album

An image album somehow released by the magazine Mu, commonly known as the “Super Mystery Magazine,” which enjoys intense cult-followings in Japan. So wild to think a magazine can make an image album. Dive in to the dark crystal eerie world that only a magazine devoted to the occult and paranormal phenomena could create.

Masanori Sasaji - Crystal Dragon Image Album

An image album based on the manga Crystal☆Dragon by Yuho Ashibe. It was handled by Masanori Sasaji, the central figure of Japan’s renowned fusion band Mariah, the guy who was creating lot of Experimental City Pop. He served as producer, composer, arranger, and keyboardist here. Bizzaro European-flavored synthesizer fantasy shaped by progressive rock influences.

Goro Ohmi - Niji-Shinden Image Album

A masterpiece of new-age ambient music featuring a guest gamelan performer. This one also has an original manga it’s based on. It’s something you’ll want to listen to while soaking in the hot bath.

So yeah, what do you think?

I am super curious if the concept of image album exists outside of Japan. Is there one like that in your home country? Let me know in the comments!