Really horrible or good news for Japanese music fans....

[gtaylor@vme.heurikon.com (Gregory Taylor)]

As we've mentioned here before whenever Ryuichi Sakamoto's wife Akiko
Yano's name has come up, there is a collection of her earlier [1970s]
work available as a box set, called "Collection 1". Given the ah....
somewhat high [cough cough] price for Japanese import CDs, this stuff
tends to be a good deal. But with all due respect, the tapes of her
work that I've found the most to my liking really cover the years of
the 1980s. So here's the good [or bad] news: the relative delight to
this will probably have something to do with how much of a geek or
completist you are, the health of your bankbook, and what sort of
form your current Akiko Yano collection is in.

The 1991 "Collection II" (MIDI MDCZ-1131~38) set is finally available
to all gaijin consumers. The most recent Sound City 2000 catalog lists
it, and my friend Bill at AB-CD has 'em in stock. The box is composed
of 8 discs of Yano's 1980s recordings [all the stuff I really like,
which makes this a good deal for me and all my tapes which I can finally
replace with nice CDs]. The trick is that there are really *10* releases
for the 1980s instead of 8, but one of 'em is a greatest hits collection,
and one of them is live. There's a disc, too, of Akiko Yano doing 19th/20th
century classical songs with Yuji Takahashi on piano [yeah. Believe it.],
and I'm gamblin that *that* one is in the set instead of the live disc
[I'd rather have *it*. It's *very strange* and has a certain charm, not
the least of which is driving my classical friends completely bonkers.].

Here's what I'm reasonably sure is in the box:

(1980) Gohan ga dekitayo [MID 3301/32MD-1057]
(1981) Tadaima  [MID 2005]
(1982) Ai ga nakucha ne  [MID 2006]
(1984) Ooesu ooesu  [MID 2007]
(1986) Touge no wagaya [35MD-1011]
(1986) Brooch [35MD-1018]
(1987) Granola [35MD-1034]
(1989) Welcome Back [32MD-1048]

I could be wrong about "Brooch", but I'll let you know. The going price
for the Japanese import box is right around $200 for all 8. This will
only seem steep if you don't ever buy Japanese imports.

Note that this covers the discs with the members of Japan as her backup 
band, the stuff with Little Feat members as sidemen, and the Metheny/Mays 
stuff.  I'll let you know how it turns out. Thank heavens for tax returns.

I just thought some of you might be interested.

With regards,
Gregory
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