K. Yoshimatu - Cosmic Colors

[1985]

Uplifting.  

DIY lo-fi outsider pop from the 80s Japanese cassette underground.

Cosmic Colors is like a naive art version of city pop. Pure beauty and innocence sans the too slick soulless sheen.

This guy released over 35 cassettes in the space of five years from 1981 to 1985.  None of these albums were issued outside Japan. Cult status in the western world awaits for K. Yoshimatu. 

 

[1982]

K. Yoshimatu - Spherical Voyage

Low key evocative minimal instrumental spacey ambience juxtaposed with strange almost cartoon-like clangorous percussion. 

This cassette seems like a precursor to hypnagogia with its vaguely psych prog aura mixed with echo-y new age touches.

[1985]

Juma - Lunar Lavender

Juma is a K Yoshimatu alias. This guy's just got a knack for gorgeous guitar and synth melodies, like he just can't help it. 

The Goslings - Sanibel

[2006]

Blown out hypnagogic metal. 

The rumbling no-fi drone-y-noise-doom-gaze of The Goslings Grandeur Of Hair LP still seems pretty unique almost twenty years later. 

Good fun Stuff.

Bermuda Link - Exit

[2009]

From the noise-y ambient drone end of hypnagogia was Bermuda Link and their underground limited run c-30 cassette Exit. This is the outer limits of music, if it's even music at all. More like the sound of trying to tune a radio dial on a spaceship in another galaxy but the signal is jammed and all you get is is an interrupted transmission with confusing hints of life and music amongst the static and blurred radio waves. 

Arthur Verocai - Na Boca do Sol

[1972]

Bringing you all the misses of the 70s with divine funky grooves, splendid symphonic arrangements and luscious melodies. Na Boca do Sol is the ultimate in baroque samba soul. 

Sublime and smooth. Nice.

Mohave Triangles - Haze for Daze

[2011]

Peak hypnagogia. This lost tape of the hypnagogic pop underground is on the off kilter tropical new age side of the genre. 

Lo-Fi: Check.

Hazy: Check. 

Dreamlike: Check. 

Layers of heavily echoed sound: Check.

Tripped out backwards new age: Check.

Blurry beats: Check. 

Tropical aquatic atmosphere: Check.

Nostalgic flashbacks: Check.

Limited run cassette: Check.

Haze for Daze indeed. 

Rick Cuevas - The Birds

[1984]

Starts out with glistening Vini Reilly-esque guitars then goes into hypnotic daydream pop elation years before dream pop was used as a label to describe what AR Kane were uo to and way before shoegaze or original post-rock. This tune was on that top compilation Fingertracks: Vol 1 from 5 or 6 years ago which i just happened to listen to this golden autumnal afternoon in my backyard. I still know nothing about Rick Cuevas but I am curious as to whether his music goes down a more dreamy jangly route or further into trippy echo chamber laden pop opulance Arthur Russel style. Then again it might just be a one off anomaly.

I was going to say this is the best unknown song from 1984 but a quick look on spotify reveals it has now been played over two million times. 

A rarely obtainable blissful vibe.

Bill Bruford - Hell's Bells

[1979]

Like a BBC sports theme but with great drummage. It gets pretty off the wall for a minute in the middle thanks to the guitar shenanigans of the legendary Alan Holdsworth. Synth goodness supplied by Egg/Khan/Hatfield & The North keyboardist Dave Stewart. 

Silver - Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang

[1976]

One of the most bittersweet songs ever. Great strings and George Harrison-esque lead break, outdoing America at their own game! We've all been there and this just perfectly encapsulates the emotion of a relationship you know was fun but it was always gonna end so just be glad that it ever happened at all. A song you couldn't write if you weren't ever fully living life in the moment. Vivaciously upbeat yet actually kinda devastating. 

These dudes were one hit wonders reaching the top 20 in both the US and Canadia but just missing the top 40 here down under.

Aeson Zervas - Self Titled

[2024]

Haunted and hypnotic. These are ancient deep psychedelic jams.

Described as doing for rebetika what The Caretaker did for ye olde ballroom music. Rebetika aka rembetika aka rebetiko was a pastiche of urban Greek folk and traditional European music that was popular from the late 19th century to the 1950s. Aeson Zervas re-animates this outmoded exotic music by putting it through a hypnogogic echo chamber. It's a mysterious tripped out ethereal nostalgia trip. Discombobulating.

Harang · Víg Mihály

Low key ambient drone and bells. Víg Mihály's Harang I & II are from the 1994 epic Béla Tarr film Sátántangó.

The opening cow scene from the cult comedy Sátántangó. 

For those of you not au fait with Sátántangó here's a good synopsis.