Matsutake and Logic System reissues

Seems Sony Music House, the reissue label got the rights to the
frequently re-issued and always money making Yellow Magic Orchestra
albums. Their original label, Alfa, which was a major label in Japan up
until it's bankruptcy and sale(?) to Toshiba/EMI in 1993 oddly died
again and was left for dead by Toshiba sometime around 2000. Now this
year we are seeing Sony selectively re-issue profitable parts of the
back catalog on their reissue imprint.

Whats on topic here is they are reissuing the Logic System album "To Gen
Kyo" (2003/8/6 , MHCL-298) a 1992 release that went out of print in 1993
which contains an all synth cover version of the Tomita theme "Shin
Nihon Kikou". Its a concept album by a band formed by former Tomita
programmer Hideki Matsutake that blends technopop with chinese pop with
widely mixed levels of sucess. The Tomita cover is done very straight
and not-popped up. Another track, "Asian Woman" is embarassing to
Western-ears funk but embedded inside, almost used as a sample but
clearly an original recording by Matsutake is an impressive synth and
sample version of Borodin's "In the Steppes of Central Asia". On the
upside he does do an extremely impressive cover version of YMO's Rydeen,
a track he surely programmed for when he was YMO's synth and sequencer
programmer ('78 to '81), this time its full of Chinese vocals.

Also out on that date will be a 1979 cover album Mideki Matsutake
recorded for Sony before he went by the Logic System name. It combines
"007 Digital Moon" an aparently spacey cover album of James Bond themes
done on synths with a '78 mini album I'm not familiar with by him,
"Puzzle" (? I think). I've not heard this one as it never had a CD
reissue before.

Another recent Hideki Matsutake reissue is an album is "Edo" which seems
to be a late (undated) 1970s concept album of capturing old Japan with
traditional instruments and Moog (PCD-1452 is the 2000 CD reissue). I
mention it because I's seen it at several American CD shops as an import
so it must have been distributed by whoever the wholesaler is who stocks
a lot of shops with a lot of prog and psychadelic Japanese albums. This
wholesaler also seems to have snapped up a lot of copies of "Bermuda
Triangle" though none of the other Tomita albums sometime around 1999 as
I keep seeing them crop up for about $30 in the prog rock import
sections several trendy CD shops! Anyway "Edo" seems to be the same
deal. There was a sequel CD "Contrast - Edo II" which I've yet to run
into and buy. Additionally there is a an other reissue Ryuzaki & Rock
Succession "Moog Sound Now" which is typical moog pop with the fact that
Matsutake assisted on this album early in his career (also interestingly
showing Matsutake's Moog experience to be at least as early as Tomita's
own "Switched on Hit and Rock") - this one might be covers but I don't
recognize the tracks so it may be original tunes. Finally, reissued in
'99 was "The Fantasia" which is a 1978 Hideki Matsutake solo cover album
of American EZ listening classics, like "Starlight" and "Fly Me to the
Moon". Quite a few patches are reminicent to Tomita but its a far cry
from contemporary albums "Bermuda Triangle" or "Daphnis et Chloe" in
terms of the level of synth work.

nick

http://www.artcontext.com/music/artskool/jem/ls.html
some more info but I've not updated the page for the newest sony
reissues yet

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ndk [mailto:ndkent at optonline.net]
> Sent: den 7 maj 2003 17:09
> To: isaotomita at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [isaotomita] Matsutake and Logic System reissues
>

Hey, this is great news. I actually searched the net a couple of
weeks ago, to notice that much of Matsutake's (excellent) stuff was
out of print. What about Logic, Venus and Orient Express? (love em)
I've transferred my vinyl to CD-R, but the vinyl's been played a lot
and the quality has degraded, so a CD reissue would make me very
happy.

Cheers
Mikael Hillborg
MHC Synthesizers and Effects
http://www.mhc.se/software/plugins/

 

regarding the August 2003 reissue by Sony

Mikael Hillborg wrote:
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ndk [mailto:ndkent at optonline.net]
> > Sent: den 7 maj 2003 17:09
> > To: isaotomita at yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [isaotomita] Matsutake and Logic System reissues
> >
>
> Hey, this is great news. I actually searched the net a couple of
> weeks ago, to notice that much of Matsutake's (excellent) stuff was
> out of print. What about Logic, Venus and Orient Express? (love em)
> I've transferred my vinyl to CD-R, but the vinyl's been played a lot
> and the quality has degraded, so a CD reissue would make me very
> happy.


Actually my guess is the (Japanese) market had been semi-saturated with
Logic, Venus and Orient Express on CD over the years -- which I guess is
only a detrement to foreign fans - i.e. those albums belong to
Toshiba/EMI and were in print on CD from the late 1980s right up until
around '98 - I guess ironically the exact time foreign fans started to
realize you could just order them (they were even budget priced). They
still show up second hand on CD not that infrequently- at least compared
to say the 2 volumes of Kando Express which were on sale only for a very
short time and in low numbers

So my guess they will be out again sooner or later but I guess to a
Japanese person there is more attaction to Sony putting out their own
never on CD pre-Logic System 007 album and To-Gen-Kyo has been out of
print since around '93 and this year Sony has begun accuiring select
titles from the now deceased Japanese label Alfa. (So their next
"logical" release might be "Space Polyphony")

nick
http://www.artskool.biz/jem