The Music of Japan.

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When checking out his new single, I recently noticed Cornelius's non-album single from 2021 'Forbidden Apple' has a 360 mix on Tidal.. It's very cool and discrete (as expected from a Cornelius mix) if you have the proper means to play it. It is a shame the mix doesn't seem to be on Apple Music, and the new single I went to look at doesn't have a surround mix at all, at least right now. But knowing how enthusiastic Cornelius seems about surround, I'm sure it'll pop up in some form soon.
 
I just found out that Japanese artist Chiaki Mayumura at Naka-Kon this weekend. Naka is a regional anime convention that also manages to book some quality musical acts each year. I've never heard of this artist before so this will be interesting. Yes, her voice is also the victim of excessive Helium consumption but her music seems bouncy & uplifting:



I went to the very 1st Naka in 2005 at the University of Kansas. So this will be numbah 17 for me. It should have been 18, but you know, the pandemic caused the event to be canceled.
 
Been listening to some Bread & Butter recently. Nice "old man" music as my friends call it. Not sure what genre it is, maybe City Pop? It's very laid-back listening.

https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/MHCL-10090
Do recommend this SACD, which can still be had for cheap. Pretty representative of their career. Sonics are very good to my ears.
 
Been listening to some Bread & Butter recently. Nice "old man" music as my friends call it. Not sure what genre it is, maybe City Pop? It's very laid-back listening.

https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/MHCL-10090
Do recommend this SACD, which can still be had for cheap. Pretty representative of their career. Sonics are very good to my ears.
Quite interested...
No where to sample on YT or elsewhere. Any tips how to check out beside just buying the SACD?
 
Quite interested...
No where to sample on YT or elsewhere. Any tips how to check out beside just buying the SACD?
There are samples on the CDJapan site as well as songs on YouTube as well...
Here's one of my favorites off this disc.

(Nagisa Ni Ikou)

I should probably mention while the disc is probably not upsampled, at least to my ears, there is a frequency cutoff at 22-24kHz (however, I do believe Japan was frequency-cutting their high-res when this SACD released) and there is extremely light compression to bring the disc up to around -14 to -12 lufs if I remember correctly. Still good DR though.
 
There are samples on the CDJapan site as well as songs on YouTube as well...
Here's one of my favorites off this disc.

(Nagisa Ni Ikou)

I should probably mention while the disc is probably not upsampled, at least to my ears, there is a frequency cutoff at 22-24kHz (however, I do believe Japan was frequency-cutting their high-res when this SACD released) and there is extremely light compression to bring the disc up to around -14 to -12 lufs if I remember correctly. Still good DR though.

If I only had a yacht....
 
https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/UPGY-9002This one is limited edition, and might run out soon. Although it's as dynamically crushed as the original, the 30th anniversary stereo mix which is exclusive to the SACD sounds phenomenal and is a huge upgrade.

Here's the original mix of one of my favorites off this album.


@Lute @Sonik Wiz Maybe of interest to you?
 
You know you're getting old when you read a cultural trend of nostalgia for the good 'ol days, and those days being 1999....

McDonalds in Japan is capitalizing off of this with 3 new commercials using
Ayumi Hamasaki's hit single Boys and Girls. Wow even McDonald.s commercials in Japan are way cooler than ours:

https://japantoday.com/category/fea...th-heisei-comeback-menu-videos-with-j-pop-hit
And the original music video:

 
https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/UPGY-9002This one is limited edition, and might run out soon. Although it's as dynamically crushed as the original, the 30th anniversary stereo mix which is exclusive to the SACD sounds phenomenal and is a huge upgrade.

Here's the original mix of one of my favorites off this album.


@Lute @Sonik Wiz Maybe of interest to you?

Wow thanks! That was a really tasty song! And at a reasonable price. Will I buy it? My Magic 8 Ball says: most likely.
 
Thanks to a friend I have a bunch of XRCD, CD, & about 25 SACD from the Three Blind Mice jazz label in Japan. Plus some other jazz from Japan.
More than I can listen to in a month or more. Life is good.
Most of it is probably not the sort of Jazz I typically listen to, I prefer more fusion oriented. But, that's OK.
 
Thanks to a friend I have a bunch of XRCD, CD, & about 25 SACD from the Three Blind Mice jazz label in Japan. Plus some other jazz from Japan.
More than I can listen to in a month or more. Life is good.
Most of it is probably not the sort of Jazz I typically listen to, I prefer more fusion oriented. But, that's OK.
25 SACDs from TBM? What a score!
 
https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/UPGY-9002This one is limited edition, and might run out soon. Although it's as dynamically crushed as the original, the 30th anniversary stereo mix which is exclusive to the SACD sounds phenomenal and is a huge upgrade.

Here's the original mix of one of my favorites off this album.


@Lute @Sonik Wiz Maybe of interest to you?

In regards to this, I just found out that Original Love actually has all of their important albums remastered at the same time, but only their first album ever got a digital release...in the form of an exclusive SACD.

Everything else is landlocked to Vinyl 😭😭😭

On another note I SWEAR this sounds like a new mix and not mastering...the reverb is literally different...maybe translation problems, I guess.
 
Does anyone here own the Momoe Yamaguchi Hits (1974) 2-Disc Quad SACD? Comments on the sound quality/mix?

I have no useful information for you. But of course that doesn't stop me from replying...
Let's give a shout out to @Lute QQ's Man in Japan & see what he knows.

Quite unfamiliar with this artist but her wiki entry is very interesting. I just listened to Fuyu no Iro on YT & liked it right away. CD Japan says 49 SACD's of hers available & a Blu-ray of her performance at Budokan. Wow. I think you've got another good one!
 
I have no useful information for you. But of course that doesn't stop me from replying...
Let's give a shout out to @Lute QQ's Man in Japan & see what he knows.

Quite unfamiliar with this artist but her wiki entry is very interesting. I just listened to Fuyu no Iro on YT & liked it right away. CD Japan says 49 SACD's of hers available & a Blu-ray of her performance at Budokan. Wow. I think you've got another good one!
There is a stereo best of SACD set (2 Discs) that covers her entire career...but when given an option...why would I choose stereo? :ROFLMAO:
 
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I have no useful information for you. But of course that doesn't stop me from replying...
Let's give a shout out to @Lute QQ's Man in Japan & see what he knows.

Quite unfamiliar with this artist but her wiki entry is very interesting. I just listened to Fuyu no Iro on YT & liked it right away. CD Japan says 49 SACD's of hers available & a Blu-ray of her performance at Budokan. Wow. I think you've got another good one!
I am afraid that I can’t comment on that Quad SACD. I’ll definitely keep a lookout for it. Momoe Yamaguchi was one of the top female singers of the 1970s. It’s amazing how mature her voice sounded for someone so young and she retired at the age of 21! She was also in several popular films with her future husband Tomokazu Miura, for example “The Izu Dancer” (1974). I still see them on TV here.





 
I was under the impression that it was 1 disc only.

I have the SQ LP and I really enjoy both the songs and Quad mix. I hope to add the SACD to my collection eventually.
Ah, it is two discs, but weirdly the second disc is just an 8cm CD with 2 Karaoke tracks?
The 1st disc is equivalent to the LP I assume...40 minutes of, weirdly enough, 4.1ch audio. Derived LFE likely. From my translation it does look the from the discrete masters.
 
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