It's taken me thirty-five years to get around to tracking this down and buying it, all based on the patronage of Bill Nelson and Magic Vox - as briefly seen on the telly about a century ago - being a pleasingly chunky slice of angular new wave. Perhaps inevitably, it's not what I expected and does all sorts of things I probably wouldn't have noticed back in 1981, but which have since become conducive to a degree of smirking under normal circumstances - not least of these sins being a rendering of the Mission: Impossible theme, the inevitable sixties cover, and our old friend cod reggae.
Ignoring the obvious objections, I opted to just keep playing the thing until it made sense, until it stopped sounding like Magic Vox with twelve b-sides. Surprisingly, I was hooked by about the third hearing.
Ippu-Do are described online as the meeting point between Yellow Magic Orchestra and Japan - as in Japan the band. I'm not sure the comparison entirely works, although it's probably significant that Masami Tsuchiya eventually joined the aforementioned Japan, and that Bill Nelson plays on Rice Music, his solo album. Whilst such associations may suggest promise, we probably shouldn't get too carried away here. Radio Fantasy is technologically flashy, or was at the time, but now sounds so profoundly of the eighties that it could probably pass for vapourwave. Once you're over this, there's still the characteristically eastern notation - which I initially can't help but hear as plinky-plonky ying tong yellowface - and yes, the reggae numbers, a Japanese new wave band trying their hand at reggae.
At this point you may have lost count of all that could have gone horribly wrong; but the key here is that Radio Fantasy just doesn't give a shit. It does what it does, and does its best, and ultimately hopes you'll like it, which I did. The whole enterprise has a daft undercurrent but keeps a straight face throughout, even with Tsuchiya's wailing and dubious pronunciation. Ultimately it wins on the strength of production, and all the peculiar little technological touches reminding me a little of Yello, and that these are simply great songs given a fantastically atmospheric rendering. Ultimately it succeeds because it doesn't do anything you might anticipate in quite the way you would expect it to.
Ignoring the obvious objections, I opted to just keep playing the thing until it made sense, until it stopped sounding like Magic Vox with twelve b-sides. Surprisingly, I was hooked by about the third hearing.
Ippu-Do are described online as the meeting point between Yellow Magic Orchestra and Japan - as in Japan the band. I'm not sure the comparison entirely works, although it's probably significant that Masami Tsuchiya eventually joined the aforementioned Japan, and that Bill Nelson plays on Rice Music, his solo album. Whilst such associations may suggest promise, we probably shouldn't get too carried away here. Radio Fantasy is technologically flashy, or was at the time, but now sounds so profoundly of the eighties that it could probably pass for vapourwave. Once you're over this, there's still the characteristically eastern notation - which I initially can't help but hear as plinky-plonky ying tong yellowface - and yes, the reggae numbers, a Japanese new wave band trying their hand at reggae.
At this point you may have lost count of all that could have gone horribly wrong; but the key here is that Radio Fantasy just doesn't give a shit. It does what it does, and does its best, and ultimately hopes you'll like it, which I did. The whole enterprise has a daft undercurrent but keeps a straight face throughout, even with Tsuchiya's wailing and dubious pronunciation. Ultimately it wins on the strength of production, and all the peculiar little technological touches reminding me a little of Yello, and that these are simply great songs given a fantastically atmospheric rendering. Ultimately it succeeds because it doesn't do anything you might anticipate in quite the way you would expect it to.
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