There are records you play constantly and probably always will. You don't even think about it. It's a knee jerk response every few weeks. There are some you listen to every couple of months and they remind you why you love them. There are those you put on when you're feeling a certain way; tired, upset, wistful.Then there are those that you play every sixth months or so without realising what's made you think of them that immediately trigger a certain set of emotions, reactions and memories and you think, 'why don't I play this more'? For me Japan's last two studio albums Gentlemen Take Polaroids and Tin Drum both fall into the latter category. I thought about the band today and now this evening I'm listening to them on repeat with Chelsea and Atletico Madrid playing on the box with the sound turned off. Blue is not the colour tonight.
Gentlemen Take Polaroids came out in 1980 when the band left Ariola Records for Virgin. They were the finished article by then. It's fairly obvious with Japan that Bowie and Roxy are the two formative influences. Frankly nothing else really matters. By now they'd shed the New York Dolls look of their early records which had got them shunned.
Like many people I worked my way back to this record in the early eighties after the band broke briefly with Tin Drum, had big hits, including their defining moment with Ghosts, and then split leaving the field open for Duran Duran to plunder in their wake. Duran Duran seem to be gathering momentum nowadays in terms of their critical reception but I'm sorry. Nothing they ever did holds a candle to anything on these two albums.
If Tin Drum builds towards Ghost then Gentlemen is forever wending its way towards Nightporter, but it's an album where pretty much everything on it is completely stately. It's such a vision of Transcontinental, voyeuristic, detached tourism. The playing is so assured and innovative, David Sylvian's lyrics and vocals glacial and honeyed throughout. It never misses a beat.
The songs are five, six or seven minutes long but you simply don't notice. They glide by. The group has such a sense of timing and a gip on atmospherics by this point in their careers. No band that I know of could imbue records with silent moments of sheer space like they did. As I said Bowie and Roxy are in the album's DNA but strangely the record is by no means derivative at any point. They fashion something completely of their own out of the ingredients. These two are by no means their only influences. But it's fair to suggest that they're influenced by pretty much all of the things that Bowie and Roxy are influenced by. Then take it somewhere all of their own.
Gentlemen Take Polaroids, Swing, Burning Bridges, My New Career, Methods of Dance, Ain't That Peculiar, Nightporter, Taking Islands in Africa. More than four songs a side or eight altogether would over egg the pudding and Japan haven't got it in them to be vulgar. What they're getting at exactly is illusive throughout. That's the point with Japan, more so even than with their two key mentors. They're forever out of reach. They're all remote glamour but the paradox is that Sylvian has such a rich layered voice that listening to it can be an incredibly emotional experience. Listening to this record can make a lump well in my throat, particularly during Nightporter and Taking Islands in Africa. Roxy, much as I love them have never done that to me.
For some reason Japan never got their place in the canon. To quote Bill Drummond from a different context, 'A footnote's all they have got. In the annals of rock'. They were probably in the wrong place at the wrong time. Great respect to them in that they chose to split just as they were breaking big. They obviously didn't get on too well by this point. Their big legacy unfortunately was Duran who stole from them shamelessly. You can hear it all over their first two albums minus the heart and soul which is one thing that can't be pilfered. But Sylvian has done a lot of great stuff since and the Japan records still stand up despite at the same time sounding very much of their time
From Catford with love! Like a Batt out of Catford they'll be gone when the morning comes, gliding across Europe on an express reclining in the first class compartment. I could easily post every song on here. It's best heard in totality so here you go if you want to. Then go out and get it if you don't own it already. Play it for yourself if you do.
To my sister Alison, Jeff, Oskar and Felix. In their elegant home in a leafy avenue in Catford all these years later. David and the boys doubtless walked your street! x
When I was a teenager, I liked Japan all right. I paid some attention to Tin Drum, bought Ghosts as a single, and liked The Art of Parties on that Modern Dance compilation. But it wasn't until quite recently that I realized how much I actually loved them, and how brilliant they really were. I started collecting Japan and Sylvian stuff, as much as I could find, and it's almost all uniformly spectacular. I'm particularly enamored of Oil on Canvas, the incredible live album. They did fine as a band, but in hindsight they should have been huge.
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