As he nears 80, the tireless driving force behind the Yellow Magic Orchestra releases his twenty-third solo album: a brief collection of idiosyncratic tracks with hints of folk and classical influences, and above all, still imbued with a bold spirit of exploration.
Yet, boasting a discography of more than sixty solo records, whether in bands, for cinema, or for advertising, seven long years separate Haruomi Hosono’s latest album: Hochono House (2019). An album that carried the aura of a farewell, since it closed the loop by reimagining his first solo record, published forty-five years earlier, the cult object Hosono House.
But, buoyed by a revived breeze and a new wave of creativity, the septuagenarian now seems to shed the trappings of a prolific career spanning six decades to embark on an artistic metamorphosis: never quite the same, yet somewhere always the Yellow Magic Orchestra adventurer we cherished. Symbolically, this returns to the studio under the title Yours Sincerely (“Sincerely Yours”), a phrase that speaks as much of the modesty of this small twenty-five-minute record as of the renewal it embodies.
This unbroken link between the Haruomi Hosono of the past and the present takes shape as a holistic approach, making Yours Sincerely an album that feels both very familiar and, at the same time, quite surprising within the expansive discography of the Japanese pioneer. Although not reducible to a single genre, Hosono’s music has largely unfolded through stylistic exercises around Western (notably American) music of the last century. Funk at times, blues on other occasions, surf rock, country, a hint of jazz, and infused with tropicalism and exotica, he has, in many respects, anticipated (or reinterpreted) much of the pop of the 20th century.
Pocket Disc
Nevertheless, Yours Sincerely departs from this fruitful method. Inspired, according to the principal figure himself, by feelings of compassion and mercy, Haruomi Hosono’s twenty-third solo album is less programmatic than it is exploratory. Here a reimagining of Beethoven’s 9th, there a title track that awakens long-buried memories of Hosono House (Sincerely), at the close an ambient piece (Anemo Wheel), everywhere field recordings (Happy Holiday, To a Wild Rose) or lightly tropicalist accents (Aayurveda, M for Mandala).
All these digressions invite listeners to wander along the same side paths Hosono has long walked. In that vein, Rojiura (Walking Vibration) and, above all, the softly whispered Humming “Dream of Love”—reworking Franz Liszt—encapsulate the essence of Yours Sincerely: a perhaps cautious attempt to reconnect with oneself and with the core of one’s own music, embracing lightness, roaming, and experimental form. A second youth.
Yours Sincerely (Ghostly International/Modulor). Release on September 11.
