Salon Music - M*A*S*H [1995]

Salon Music started out as a new-wave duo in the early to mid 80s, but when the 90s came around their sound morphed into a shoegaze/grunge hybrid. To go along with the times, I suppose.

I don't know much about this group or release, but I do know M*A*S*H is a great album and a must-listen!

You can download the album here.

ORIGINAL LOVE - 結晶 -Soul Liberation- [1992]

I first stumbled upon ORIGINAL LOVE after listening to Bellissima! by Pizzicato Five. Takao Tajima, the front-man for OL, joined Pizzicato Five for a brief period in 1988 to 1989 and provided vocals for P5's Bellissima! and On Her Majesty's Request albums. I really enjoyed his vocals on Bellissima! so I just had to check out Tajima's other band....and I immediately fell in love with them.

Soul Liberation is ORIGINAL LOVE's second album and it topped at 10 on the Oricon chart. It contains the singles "月の裏で会いましょう" and "The Venus". It's an all-around great 90s jazz album, so check it out!

You can download it here.

LaB LiFe - Planet Headphone [1998]

LaB LiFe were an techno-pop duo founded by Oya Yusuke (now known as SPENCER for his solo project) and Odate Kenichi back in the mid 1990s. They first released a mini-album on an indies label back in 1997 and a year later were picked up by a major label, making their debut with PLANET HEADPHONE.

A nice blend of 90s feel-good pop and techno music, Planet Headphone is a solid 90s electro album.

A year after Planet Headphone's release they released their second and last album titled WORLD'S eND. In the new millennium they provided J-pop star Ayumi Hamaski with a remix of one of her songs, then disappeared from the music scene. Yusuke was soon spotted again fronting the band Polaris, but Kenichi was never heard from again. I really do wonder what happened to him. Did he just tire of making music? Most likely, but it will remain a mystery.

You can download it here.

Pizzicatomania! [1987]

So, the first album I'll post is Pizzicato Five's 'Pizzicatomania!' album from 1987.

Released on Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra's Non-Standard label, it was the first full album by Pizzicato V (as they were known back then). With Mamiko Sasaki on vocals it is quite different than Pizzicato Five's 90s releases, but a good album overall. Sadly it doesn't seem like she provided vocals on anything after she left (was kicked out of?) Pizzicato Five, except 'Summer Beauty 1990' by Flipper's Guitar on their Camera Talk album. Sad, as I really enjoyed her vocals.

You can get it xxxxxxx (will be uploading to Mega in the coming days)

Whoops....

Hey there, long time no post! I had something very tragic happen to me a few months ago and it apparently made me forget entirely about this little blog of mine. Anyway, I was thinking about re-hauling this blog to where I'll upload albums along with posting a blurb about them. I've a vast collection of CDs and the majority are not readily available for download, so I thought I'd change that. I'll start that sometime in the coming days, so watch out!