One of the unspoken rules in the progress-fixated world of electronic music is that you don¡¯t get bonus points for dwelling on past glories. So when Yukihiro Takahashi ¡ª drummer, vocalist and dapper elder statesman of electro-pop ¡ª convened a star cast of musicians at Tokyo¡¯s Ex Theater Roppongi in January to perform faithful renditions of songs that he¡¯d first recorded 30 years ago, it was, he admits, ¡°partly tongue-in-cheek.¡±
In his work with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono in Yellow Magic Orchestra, and solo albums such as 1981¡¯s ¡°Neuromantic,¡± Takahashi laid the groundwork for Japanese techno and electronica. Now he was sharing a stage with some of the artists who¡¯d picked up the baton during the 1990s: among them, DJ and producer Towa Tei; multi-instrumentalist Keigo Oyamada, better known by his stage name Cornelius; and Yoshinori Sunahara, formerly of major-league dance-pop act Denki Groove. With the exception of singer-songwriter Leo Imai, all of the members (Tomohiko Gondo rounds out the group) are in their mid-40s; as Takahashi puts it, ¡°They¡¯re all YMO generation.¡±
¡°At first, I didn¡¯t think it would be possible to get all these people together for a concert,¡± he continues. ¡°When I realized it was doable, I thought we should have a go at playing songs from the 1980s that were true to the sounds of the originals. ... What I asked them to do was half parody.¡±
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