Haruomi Hosono, Tadanori Yokoo

*2023 stock* One of the holy grails of avant-ambient synthesis.  Originally released a few months after Haruomi Hosono’s 1978 Paraiso LP — famous for featuring the first trio grouping of the band that would become Yellow Magic Orchestra — Hosono’s Cochin Moon, an album credited to himself and famed graphic artist Tadanori Yokoo, who provides the album’s iconic cover art, actually features Harry in trio with synth wizards Hiroshi Sato and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Hosno and Tadanori Yokoo had traveled to India prior to making the album, and while there are nods to the nation’s Bollywood culture in both the album’s sleeve art and the melodic structure of penultimate track ‘Hum Ghar Sajan’, the majority of the record is built around swarms of analogue mosquitos, delirious vocoder chants, and a throbbing pulse indicative of feverish malaria sweats.

It’s a stunning piece of electronic psychedelia that laid the foundations for the kinds of cultural collisions that would dominate Hosono’s solo career for decades to come. Original vinyl copies of this behemoth regularly fetch three-figure sums secondhand these days, and they just don’t turn up like they used to, so if you’re fiending for a legit pressing, here’s your chance — there are still copies making the rounds post-RSD, believe it or not, though they aren’t likely to last long (Fact Mag). 

Fans of Ash ra Tempel's guitarist, Manuel Gottsching's "E2-E4", Cluster, Achim Reichel & The Machines or even Aphex Twin, will be in heaven with this electronic psychedelic trip of sound and colours. Way ahead of its time, thsi is a magical treat from beginning to end. Cover artwork is by no other than Tadanori Yokoo, often referred to as the japanese Andy Warhol. An undiscovered masterwork centered around micro-minimalistic structures, cosmic electronic noise/ambients and Krautrock.