Nightporter

‘influenced by something relatively untouched’

Teenage musical memories often take hold for a lifetime. Early in the ’80s a friend of mine held a party at his family’s home. These were always good nights, an opportunity to spend time with friends outside of sixth form classes and the common room at school. A time to enjoy the music that was in and around the charts, and favourite past tracks from Bowie and others. At the end of the evening, most people having by now drifted away, someone took out the vinyl of Gentlemen Take Polaroids and dropped the needle mid-way through side B for ‘Nightporter’. I knew the song, of course, but here it was being played on a quality sound system and at a volume that wouldn’t have been possible back at home. The person who selected it then sat cross-legged on the floor, head bowed, eyes closed, transfixed by the music.

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Life in Tokyo

‘propulsive repetition’

In the liner notes to his 1989 Sound and Vision retrospective collection, David Bowie recalls how ‘one day in Berlin, Eno came running in and said, “I have heard the sound of the future.” And I said, “Come on, we’re supposed to be doing it right now.” He said, “No, listen to this,” and he puts on ‘I Feel Love’ by Donna Summer. Eno had gone bonkers over it, absolutely bonkers. He said, “This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years.” Which was more or less right.’

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The Other Side of Life

‘a new high mark of maturity’

There were fundamental differences in band preparations for Japan’s third LP. The material for the first two albums, Steve Jansen explained, ‘was performed extensively live before we had the opportunity to record it. Therefore, those albums serve more as a document of what we’d learnt as a group performing together. There was very little recording craft involved, just a lot of energy and influences from an eclectic mix of styles, which were all a part of our early teenage years onwards.

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In Vogue

Realising possibilities

Tin Drum was my introduction to the music of Japan and from there I explored the previous releases. These were my final years at school and it was an exciting time with a world of music opening up to me that I just hadn’t been aware of before. A friend encouraged me to listen, passing me C90 cassette tapes of his favourite music which I would lose myself in, then saving my Saturday job money so I could visit the local record shop to buy the vinyl. The skull-and-cross-bones symbols may have said that home taping was killing music, but it also helped to foster a life-long appreciation of some incredible recordings – many of which I now own in multiple copies: vinyl, cd, re-releases, remasters…

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