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18 oktober 2015

Akiko Yano: Tong Poo

 

 

This 60-year old lady, Akiko Yano, is one of the grandes dames of the Japanese alternative pop scene. Her debut album from 1976, ‘Japanese Girl‘ is on place 26 in Rolling Stone Japan’s top-100 of Japanese rock albums and she collaborated with a whole range of musicians from all over the world, such as David Sylvian, Thomas Dolby and Pat Metheny. She also wrote the music for a couple of Ghibli animations.

Yano was married to Ryuichi Sakamoto and in fact, this song, featured on her new album Welcome to Jupiter, is an adaption of an instrumental piece by Sakamoto’s Yellow Magic Orchestra which I have heard in different versions on several of Sakamoto’s solo albums. (PB)

Japan, Music