Cochin Moon

Before performing with Ryuichi Sakamoto in classic Japanese synth pop outfit Yellow Magic Orchestra (or just YMO), producer and onetime session bassist Haruomi Hosono made his share of eclectic music. If you're familiar with YMO, you might imagine he was involved in Kraftwerk-influenced electronic music, or perhaps more traditional pop, but as it happens, he made his name as session bassist and playing in bands like the psychedelic Apryl Fool and folk rockers Happy End-- a far cry from the modernist slant of his reputation in the West. However, he also made a record in 1978 called Cochin Moon with keyboardist Shuka Nishihara, and future YMO bandmates Sakamoto and Hideki Matsutake that is arguably more bizarre and forward thinking than anything he's done since.

Cochin Moon-- co-credited to Pop artist Tadanori Yokoo, who did the incredible Bollywood-style cover art-- is an electro-tropical soundtrack to a fake movie of the same name. That is, there was no film called Cochin Moon, but after visiting India, Hosono was inspired to make music suggesting the exotic, luxurious, and seemingly wonder-filled scenarios played out in Indian cinemas. However, the actual sound he and his cohorts came up with is often a world away from India: Imagine a totally electronic world of chattering bugs, fluttering birds, magic harps and drums that alternate between a thud and a blip. Hosono shares compositional duties with Nishihara, and Sakamoto's playing style is readily on display, as are Matsutake's considerable programming skills. As a historical document to YMO fans, Cochin Moon is interesting; as a slice of out-music stuck somewhere between Tangerine Dream, Wendy Carlos and Disney's Fantasia, it's almost classic.

Hosono's "Malabar Hotel" trilogy-- comprised of a "Ground Floor", "Upper Floor" and "Roof Garden"-- occupied the first side of the original LP, and eases me in like a snake. The brief "Ground Floor...Triangle Circuit on the Sea-Forest" begins with high-pitched insect-sirens, soft enough to mistake for crickets even when I know analog synths and primitive computers generate them. In the distance are waves breaking on a shore, and soon bass synth notes and alarms go off signaling the transition into the "Upper Floor...Moving Triangle". As a THX-esque sound test introduces fluttering percolations, an off-balanced, Indian-styled beat materializes. Half the beat is on the right, and half on the left; in between, where a snare should be, sits only the call of some robotic frog and a fly that just won't go away. This is tropical, and I can hear a pattern creep up from behind, and what sounds like men chanting. Filtered through an alien vocoder, it's difficult to decipher what they're saying, and as soon as I get close enough to make out the fuzzy, sonic outline of their words, they're interrupted by stuttering bass melody that eventually turns into a demi-cadenza, held afloat by ever more quickly percolating drum machine pulses. Bursts of angelic chord clusters accentuate the ends of melodic phrases, and from out of nowhere come electronic harp glissandi. Up and down, forward and backwards it runs, and soon the fizz of synthetic ocean mist drowns out the pulse, leaving only enough room for the pixie-bell harp, sudden eruptions of lava bubbles and that damn fly.

"Roof Garden...Revel Attack" is born out of the fly's orbit, and introduces squeaky (near glitch) underwater computer blips. They start soft and spaced out, but soon gather momentum, all the while turning the fly buzz into a chorus of warped jet trail. A human voice speaking Japanese dips above the cacophony, and someone appears to be unwrapping a small package on the right. Then, just as suddenly, a synth line reminiscent of the melody from the "Upper Floor" reappears, with digitally harmonized voices supplying watercolor fanfares. The harp returns, in counterpoint with helicopter pulse on the right. The helicopter, apparently not satisfied in its supporting role, grows larger, overwhelming the competing melodies with sprawling whirl, and soon with more watery mist, like a rainstorm called on by a village shaman. And after a while, the storm passes, marked by the toll of a gong. And the fly is still there, buzzing in its lowest register before the gong closes the doors of the hotel and the piece fades into black.

Nishihara's pieces are a bit less exotic, but no less interesting. "Hepatitis" is a shiny, bouncy piece of computer pop that might work well as a soundtrack to a Pixar sci-fi short about robotic fish. The bubbling sound effects are everywhere to be found, while cartoon-y melodies and state-of-1978 synth programming turn what might otherwise overwhelm itself with its own goofiness into something more bizarre. "Hum Ghar Sajan" (apparently, taken from a phrase by Indian guru Granth Sahib) is understated synth raga, as if informed equally by Kraftwerk and Ravi Shankar-- and accurately predicts Asa Chang & Junray's excursions into electro-exotica. A chanted vocal melody gives the song a mystical edge, and its recurring, high-pitched instrumental solo breaks sound straight out of Indian classical music.

"Madam Consul General of Madras" is more tribal, sounding like ritualistic gamelan music meeting head on with the electronic tone poems of Wendy Carlos. Gradually, layers are painted on top, including a spazzed out synth line and more percolated synth patter sounding leftover from the Malabar's lobby, and the piece dissolves into dizzying keyboard clutter and the cricket sirens from the "Ground Floor". And I guess you can check out any time you like, but...well, you know the rest.