Hosono, Haruomi & Tadanori Yokoo: Cochin Moon (Vinyl LP)

Originally released a few months after Haruomi Hosono’s 1978 Paraiso LP — famous for featuring the first trio grouping of the band that would become Yellow Magic Orchestra — Hosono’s Cochin Moon, an album credited to himself and famed graphic artist Tadanori Yokoo, who provides the album’s iconic cover art, actually features Harry in trio with synth wizards Hiroshi Sato and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Hosono and Tadanori Yokoo had traveled to India prior to making the album, and while there are nods to the nation’s Bollywood culture in both the album’s sleeve art and the melodic structure of penultimate track ‘Hum Ghar Sajan’, the majority of the record is built around swarms of analogue mosquitos, delirious vocoder chants, and a throbbing pulse indicative of feverish malaria sweats.

This record is notable for coming out only two months before the eponymous debut full-length from Hosono’s Yellow Magic Orchestra group. There is a clear through-line between the two records in their use of synthesizers and air of lopsided charm. However, while Yellow Magic Orchestra tamed their electronics by applying them to pop song structures, Cochin Moon finds Hosono untethered and free to experiment. The resulting album ends up as a mix of minimal synth, Krautrock and Exotica.

2018 reissue.

1. Malabar Hotel: Ground Floor... Triangle Circuit On The Sea-Forest
2. Malabar Hotel: Upper Floor...Moving Triangle
3. Malabar Hotel: Roof Garden...Revel Attack
4. Hepatitis
5. Hum Ghar Sajan
6. Madam Consul General Of Madras