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Login Pass. Registration Forgot your password? Users online: 50 Members: 0 Guests: 48 Bots: 2. The website boxalbums. The administration does not have the ability to control all publications. Some audio materials, links to which you can find in the publications of the users can be protected by copyright. Only for registered users. Japan - Exorcising Ghosts Vinyl Rip Japan - The Very Best Of The bonus tracks on the CD-Remaster are in fact very good additions to the original album.
Taking Islands in Africa appears in a remixed version that is even better than the original and we also get two unreleased songs in The Experience of Swimming and the beautiful instrumental The Width of a Room. The musicianship is great here. Mick Karn takes the prize here though with his powerful and inventive basslines and his great sax and trombone moments.
The production is excellent. Much better than most other contemporary releases from other bands. Deep and soft, pleasant and emotional. There are not many appreciative words about this album from other reviewers but let me state that I think this album is excellent and deserves 4 stars regardless of what others might think.
This is not truly progressive but less will do when the music is as good as this. Fans of the three first Talk Talk albums should definitely take a listen here even though Gentlemen take Polaroids is much better than the first two albums from Talk Talk. Except for Sylvian's poignant Ferry meets Bowie vocals, the comparison with Roxy music has become rather flimsy. Of course, if you would not be familiar with the sound of the 80's, then it's still a useful reference.
Also an echo of Eno Bowie's Berlin years can be heard in the atmospheric moments like the intro of Burning Bridges. Keyboards had become cheap and easy to play, leading to a new generation of keyboard players that were adhering to an entirely different use of synths then the exhausting Keith Emerson battering of a few years earlier. Suddenly texture and a new original atmospheric sound became more important then soloing.
It makes this music definitely non-prog but all the more progressive and influential on future generations of keyboardist. Quite ironically, that influence also extended back into prog, even Geddy Lee picked it up!
The song writing has matured immensely since the previous album Quiet Life. Comparing it with the first two Japan albums is even impossible. While Quiet Life could still be discarded as new wave, this albums has musicianship and song adventures that were leagues ahead of other bands of their generation.
Methods of Dance is even more proggy then new wave to my ears, of course it sounds entirely different and the amazing rhythmic tandem of Karn and Jansen often goes into cold disco territories. Another element that got a growing grip on Japan's sound is the Oriental influence, it can be heard on multiple songs here as on Ain't That Peculiar. It's a path they would further explore on the ensuing album. This album is obviously not recommended to people with 80's allergies and it also isn't entirely perfect.
But that is rarely the case with innovative music. It's a solid 4 star album that received a lot of predictable and irrelevant 80s bashing here. The music is brooding, somewhat inventive new wave, with Sylvian moaning like Bryan Ferry with a better ear for pitch. The saving grace, and the reason I own it is Mick Karn's unique bass playing. His style of fretless bass uses mostly Middle Easten sounding licks, in a eerie snakelike pattern.
I've heard no one else like him, and the songs where he gets to stretch out are the better ones on this album. As new wave, this album is very good. But as prog Sure everything hints at the eighties style of music that was about to open the door this was released in but I like it!
Sax in this one too. I like the instrumental section after 4 minutes as well. This is one of the best tracks on here. Lots of intricate sounds with vocals. The beat is prominant and the synths slowly pulse.
It does get fuller and I like the vocal melodies after 6 minutes. Both are instrumentals and they both are fantastic! I can appreciate all the 1 and 2 star ratings. This is Prog- Related and as such a target for those who are into Progressive music only.
Superb fretless bass by the now deceased Mick Karn, enigmatic wobbly vocals by Sylvian, waves of synths by Barbieri , piano by Ryuchi Sakamoto and good solid offbeat drumming by Steve Jansen make this one of the best 80's albums full stop. It's smooth in the way 'Roxy Music' were in the same era. Japan, however had something far more inventive about them that set them apart from all contemporaries.
This is the album that Duran Duran clearly worshipped before they hit the big time. You've only got to look at Nick Rhodes stupid painted face. Mick Karn's bass is the driving force behind the entire album.
Particularly on the first two tacks where it pumps and bleeps like Jaco Pastorius from 'Weather Report'. Truthfuly I can't write a review of this album without mentioning Bowie's "Low' from '76 which clearly influenced a lot here from side two of that album.
Awash with wonderful electronics, echoey instruments and clear track separation between sounds, this is a superbly clear recording which flows beautifully into my favourite tune of all time Stunningly beautiful and melancholic. Ryuichi Sakamoto of YMO and his piano makes this utterly gorgeous. Quite simply the best song I've ever heard. These are not small words - In '99 I held a party on New Years Eve where everyone had to bring along their favourite song of all time where it was played after a speech about it's merits.
This still stands true today. The masterful 'Taking Islands in Africa' is a gem in it's own right with Barbierie's proto sequencer coming to the fore. There was only so much New Romanticism could offer, but Japan pushed the boat out so much further than any other band of their time. It's hard to believe that anyone could progress and change so rapidly within the space of 3 years, considering their '78 New York Dolls efforts.
As if all this wasn't enough, if you buy the cd you get the brilliant 'Experience of Swimming' as a bonus. A Richard Barbieri masterpiece, a keyboard driven slab of doom using beautiful sounds that were virtually unheard in those days of long past. One of my 5 albums of all time. It continued in the same vein of their previous third album, "Quiet Life", using the combination of the electronic elements with the traditional musical elements. The final result was an album with a more sophisticated and atmospheric ambient than its predecessor.
The album was well received by the critics and it was said if Brian Eno, rather than Bryan Ferry, had rerouted the original direction of Roxy Music, this might well have been the final result. It was their last album with their guitarist Rob Dean. The first track is the title track "Gentlemen Take Polaroids".
It was released as a single before the initial release of the album. It's an excellent song to open the album that sounds very much to the new sound of the 80's. This song was probably one of the songs that most influenced the new wave music. This is one of my favourite tracks on the album. The second track "Swing" is a very good song with great synthesizer work and with nice saxophone work. This is a song with an astounding showcase between Mike Karn and Steve Jansen.
By the other hand, the vocal performance of David Sylvian is very intense and precise. The third track "Burning Bridges" is an excellent track that reminds me "Subterraneans", a track from the great eleventh studio album of David Bowie "Low", released in This is a song with a very special atmospheric musical moment that can't fail to remember us Brian Eno and the Berlin trilogy of David Bowie. It has also great saxophone work. The fourth track "My New Career" is also an excellent track, which has, in my humble opinion, some influences from world music.
This is a song with a very solid beat, great synthesizer performance and the vocal work is also great. The fifth track "Methods Of Dance" was used as the B side of their 12" single version of "Nightporter" released in This is a song with an entirely new rhythm provided by a truly amazing performance of Mick Karn and Steve Jansen.
It's an excellent song with a great instrumental section. The final result is superb and make of it on one of the best tracks on the album. The sixth track "Ain't That Peculiar" was also released as the B side of their 7" single version of "Nightporter", released also in It's a good Smokey Robinson cover song with an intricate sound.
The beat on the song is prominent and the synthesizers and the vocals sound nice and enjoyable. However, this is my less favourite song on the album. The seventh track "Nightporter" was remixed and released as a single in , just after the band announced that they were splitting.
It was edited in the 7" version and also in the full-length 12" remix version. The song was influenced by the musical work of the French classical composer Erik Satie, particularly by his piece of music "Gymnopedies". It's a very beautiful track and an excellent example of melancholic music and dark musical ambient.
This is one of the highlights of the album. The eighth and last track "Taking Islands In Africa" re-appeared as the B side of their single track "Visions of China", released in , and taken from their next and last studio album "Tin Drum". This is also a very good track with a great beat, nice synthesizers and an enjoyable vocal work.
It represents an excellent way to finish this album. Conclusion: I know Japan since , and "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" was my first album from them, and I know the album since it was released. Japan is a very curious and interesting band and they're, in a certain way, a unique and special band. Japan is, in my humble opinion, a band with clear and deep musical influences from Roxy Music and David Bowie. That is particularly noticed on the vocals of David Sylvian, which are very close to the vocals of Bryan Ferry, and the androgynous and provocative look of Sylvian was very close to the visual of David Bowie.
By the other hand, the musical influences of Roxy Music and David Bowie aren't strange, because we all know that both had a very strong influence in the new wave music, and despite Japan being not a truly new wave band, they have, for me, some musical influences from that musical movement. In relation to "Gentlemen Take Polaroids" I always loved this album.
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