The 78-year-old Japanese musician Haruomi Hosono has been a vastly influential force for decades. After stints in the '60s psych-rock band Apryl Fool and the folk-rock group Happy End, Hosono led Yellow Magic Orchestra, the electronic group that started in the late '70s and had a vast impact on all sorts of futuristic music. As a solo artist and producer, Hosono has continued to explore an inspire. In recent years, he's been sampled by Vampire Weekend and covered by Cornelius, Sam Gendel, and Mac DeMarco (more than once). Now, he's releasing a new album through the American label Ghostly International.
We don't have any music yet, but Hosono will release his new LP Yours Sincerely in September after working on it for two years. Shortly afterward, he'll play a couple of rare American concerts, his first in seven years. He'll play New York's Radio City Music Hall and LA's Greek Theatre, with Toro Y Moi opening both shows. Here's what Hosono says about the new album in a press release:
I am now 78 years old, but from here on, I feel a growing curiosity toward the unknown music that my new self will create, while also embracing the music of my former self — as if I now carry two musical worlds within me...
It started with a simple question: how do you express the Japanese ideas of omoiyari (思い遣り), jihi (慈悲), or boseiai (母性愛) in English? I searched, but no word felt quite right. Each came close, yet carried a slightly different nuance. Perhaps the nearest was "compassion." It is often translated as "omoiyari" in Japanese, but its original meaning is "to suffer together." It tends to carry a sense of sympathy or pity — asomething that feels distinct from the Japanese sense of omoiyari. In Japanese, omoiyari also includes the feeling of "rejoicing together." In that sense, it may even seem like the opposite. The perspective, the emotional angle — subtly but fundamentally different. For that reason, I chose not to use "compassion." Instead, I turned to a more familiar word often used to close a letter: "Sincerely."
Below, check out Hosono's Yours Sincerely tracklist and his American shows.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Note Of Mothership"
02 "Sincerely"
03 "Ayurveda"
04 "M For Mandala"
05 "Rojiura"
06 "Happy Holiday"
07 "To A Wild Rose"
08 "Humming 'Dream Of Love'"
09 "Figlio Perduto"
10 "Anemo Wheel"
TOUR DATES:
9/16 - New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall *
9/20 - Los Angeles, CA @ Greek Theatre *
* with Toro Y Moi
Yours Sincerely is out 9/11 on Ghostly International. Pre-order it here.
