Jun Togawa (戸川純) - 極東慰安唱歌 Vinyl, LP, Album, 45 rpm, Japan, 1985 (Yen Records)

I first discovered Jun Togawa in the small town of Moji-Ku on the big island of Kyushu in Japan.  I was living there for the entire four-seasons, and I came across her albums with the help of my wife Lun*na Menoh.   With a great deal of cultural guilt, I never took on the Japanese pop music scene in Japan in a big way.  I greatly admired Hosono Harumi and other members of YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) but a lot of it sounded flat to me due to the production standards of record production of the 1980s. Very digital, and it struck me that Japanese pop music was very much like Kabuki theater where everything is laid out on the stage in an equal manner.   My eyes didn't focus on one character or actor, but I look at the stage as if it was a giant poster.  My eyes kept moving around, and I feel the same with Japanese pop music of the 1980s.   Jun Togawa was different from the rest of the Showa era entertainers or artists.  Listening to her work I got a huge painting, but I can focus on parts of that aural painting due to its clarity and at the same time, it's eccentricity. 

 極東慰安唱歌 is a superb Togawa album or should say, The Jun Togawa Unit, which is the official artist listing for this project.   Here she makes music with Yoichiro Yoshikawa, Takago Higae,  and uses traditional Okinawa music as well as the composer Giacomo Puccini and the great Haruomi Hosono.  The first impression is that this is very much a techno-pop music but with touches of the old (Puccini and Okinawaian music), but the glue that holds all of this is Togawa's magnificent vocal talents.  She's a great singer.   

On one level she reminds me a bit of Kate Bush, but totally not British and very Japanese.  I once read or heard a Togawa quote that she knew nothing of Western music except for classical and Prince.  I believe her.   There are traces of psychedelic pop in her method and sound.  Listening and collecting Togawa is for sure falling into the rabbit's hole, and how one can crawl out of that space is very questionable.  Still, her recordings are consistently being reissued on the CD format, as well as in various compilations.  It's worth the adventure to check her music out.  She's great.   

The Ventures - "Golden Pops" / "Pops in Japan" CD, Compilation, 1999 (See for Miles Records)

Not an easy CD to find, or the two original albums "Golden Pops" (1970) and "Pops in Japan" (1971). These two oddities or albums was a fascinating find for me when I lived in Japan, and I think I originally rent the original albums to listen to them around 1989.  Nevertheless, The Ventures were (and still are) an important band in Japan.  One of the first, if not THE first, bands to tour Japan with electric guitars.  Once can't undermine the importance of The Ventures for Japanese pop culture.  Due to the commercial marketplace or just something that they wanted to do, The Ventures made two albums focusing on Japanese Enka music.   Enka is an entirely unique pop music that is a big part of the Showa era in Japan.  Theme wise not that far from weepy country and western, but also is a version of the Japanese blues.  The ultimate bar music of loss, regret, and sadness. 

Weirdly enough, this is the only Ventures collection I have. I was never a fan of their music because it seemed water-down compared to the other great surf/instrumental bands of the early 1960s.  But "Golden Pops" and "Pops in Japan" are really unique albums, with some fantastic music within the disc.  I recommend this CD package for those who have a yen for Japanese pop culture or have an interest in the Showa era.  On one level it's totally marketing for The Ventures in a country that still brings them currency, due to their yearly tours of that country, but also eccentric listening experience as well.  American musicians interpreting Japanese pop music.  The hybrid is fantastic.