Album Reviews

Uniquely deviating from the overplayed standard holiday music fare, Yen Records’ We Wish You A Merry Christmas is a Christmas LP actually worth your time, energy, and money. With exclusive material from Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi, Miharu Koshi, Taeko Ohnuki, Moonriders, and others, it creatively rounds up the YMO orbit in a cohesive holiday listen.

In 1982, Alfa Records founder Kunihiko Murai launched Yen Records, essentially a playground for Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi to sign and produce whoever they wanted. After all, the chart-topping YMO disproved Alfa’s initial skepticism, and its members (especially Hosono) expertly balanced artsier ideas with commercial success. Within the label’s first year, in addition to releasing Hosono and Takahashi’s own records Yen signed Miharu Koshi, former Plastics guitarist Hajime Tachibana, Testpattern, Inoyama Land, Jun Togawa, and Koji Ueno among others. Most of these releases weren’t straightforward pop; Koshi rejected her idol beginnings in favor of oddball techno-kayo, while Inoyama Land and Interior released new age records before the genre fully exploded (three years after its initial Japanese release, Windham Hill more successfully reissued Interior’s Hosono-produced self-titled debut). Hosono practically lived in his newly established LDK (Living-Dining-Kitchen) Studio (purportedly built because he spent too much time in Alfa’s Studio “A”), and his work outside YMO became increasingly textural and experimental (sometimes to its own detriment).

Little is known about November 1983’s We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Yukihiro Takahashi and his older brother Nobuyuki Takahashi (a music producer not to be confused with the filmmaker of the same name) are credited album producers, though some of the individual songs heavily carry Hosono’s fingerprints. Vinyl pressings, while not terribly expensive, are far from ubiquitous; when they do appear, they’re often in pristine condition (Japanese Wikipedia says it reached #57 on the Oricon LP Chart, a relatively modest peak considering the parties involved). If it wasn’t for online databases like Discogs or RateYourMusic, it could very easily go unnoticed.

Christmas in Japan differs from that in the West; while it’s gradually become more secular worldwide, Christmas there has almost no religious affiliation (only about 1% of the population is Christian) and December 25th is still a school day. Post-war adopted traditions include winter illuminations and a Christmas meal of KFC and strawberry shortcake, and Christmas Eve is a romantic holiday almost as important as Christmas itself. Japan has its own share of popular Christmas music, though one of the most enduring 80s Christmas hits is “king of city pop” Tatsuro Yamashita’s longing “Christmas Eve,” reissued every few years and viewed in the same vein as Wham!’s “Last Christmas.”

However, don’t expect to hear Christmas standards or many jingling bells on We Wish You A Merry Christmas, a very distinctively Yen Records product. It opens with Hosono’s “25 Dec. 1983,” an immersive ambient piece whose only relation to Christmas is its title. “Silver Paper Stars” is Moonriders’ fun but not overly goofy operatic Christmas rock track, while Miharu Koshi’s “Belle Tristesse” (“A Beautiful Sadness”) fits neatly alongside her (highly recommended) Yen albums Tutu and Parallelisme. Composer Koji Ueno’s “Prélude Et Choral” is an orchestral instrumental that also lacks overt Christmas-ness, while Jun Togawa’s “Koutansetsu” (“Nativity” in Japanese, but “Christmas” in Chinese) is a digital synth-laden ballad.

Among We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ synths, the natural percussion and acoustic guitars on French singer/songwriter/writer/actor Pierre Barouh’s “Ce Jour-Là” stand out; it makes logical sense, though, as Barouh founded the Saravah label after which Yukihiro Takahashi named his 1977 debut solo LP. Spacious vocal harmonies make Taeko Ohnuki’s self-explanatory “Inori” (“Prayer”) one of the most conventional Christmas songs here, and Ginji Ito’s “Hokori Darake no Christmas Tree” (“Dusty Old Christmas Tree”) is pleasant city pop. There’s another instrumental in Hajime Tachibana’s seemingly Emulator-based “White And White,” and Takahashi’s closing track “Door wo Akereba” (“If You Open The Door”) is his standard New Romantic synthpop fare. Approaching this release as a YMO/Hosono/Yen Records fan definitely helps, but it’s not essential to enjoying this interestingly eclectic Christmas album.

My copy is a near mint 1984 second pressing (standard Yen labels instead of the original’s custom labels) with a first edition obi, so someone at some point must’ve switched something. I’m not sure if there are any mastering differences, though this pressing’s sound is naturally presented with rich textures and luxurious black backgrounds. The direct-to-board jacket nicely features Tsuguya Inoue’s simple yet appropriately beautiful illustrations, and a greyscale four-page insert features lyrics and credits (albeit in Japanese and French). It’s unavailable digitally and hasn’t been reissued since GT Music’s 2005 CD, though the LP only cost me $28 (plus shipping from Japan). Whether or not you can still get a copy this season, it’s an incredibly solid, easily relistenable holiday release.

(Malachi Lui is an AnalogPlanet contributing editor, music obsessive, avid record collector, and art enthusiast. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.)