Plunging into the liminal backrooms of your life, flashes of sounds coming from beyond doors left ajar that you can’t either open or close, forever stuck in half-light, like a memory – a path shaping your consciousness, roots intertwined with wire cables. N.D.E. creates a compound of nature and technology and makes you feel like it inhabits the depths of your very own brain.
Haruomi Hosono is a name most are familiar with through his work as the bassist for Yellow Magic Orchestra, the foundational Japanese synth-pop/electro-pop band that expanded upon and influenced so many genres it would be easier to say which ones weren’t innovated by them. Along with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Yukihiro Takahashi and Hideki Matsutake, who frequently accompanied the “main” three members, Haruomi Hosono secured his place in music history.
But what happened beyond YMO? The ‘90s saw Hosono delve into even more experimentation, founding his own label Daisyworld (dedicated to highlight abstract electronic artists, especially from Japan) and eventually releasing his own dark, dreamy, otherworldly take on what experimental music could be: in 1996 N.D.E. – standing for Near Death Experience – was born; now, in 2023, thanks to Rush Hour, it’s got its first ever vinyl press in a double LP format.
The sound overall feels almost ritualistic, an alchemical combination – extremely meticulous, yet never pedantic, a mix of the rational and the irrational – of synths, drums and strings, showcasing an “ensemble cast” of iconic musicians: Bill Laswell, Francois Kevorkian, Yasuaki Shimizu, violinist Arun Bagal, among many others. A merry-go-round of genres and styles, going from trippy IDM that borderlines videogame music (Teaching of Sphinx) to surreal violin-infused ambient (Aero) to dub techno tracks (Strange Attractor), embracing both Eastern and Western music traditions, the record manages to pull it all together in a cohesive, psychedelic vision of a techno-shamanic future.
First ever vinyl pressing of Haruomi Hosono’s full album N.D.E. Featuring Goh Hotoda, Yasuhiko Terada, Yasuaki Shimizu, Bill Laswell & François Kevorkian. Big TIP!
Ever since his days as a pioneer of Japanese electronic music in the 1970s, Haruomi Hosono has constantly pushed forwards musically. The 1990s was a particularly fertile decade for the Yellow Magic Orchestra co-founder. Following two decades spent creating and releasing innovative electronic pop, imaginary sound worlds and inspirational ambient music, Hosono established the Daisyworld label to showcase cutting-edge ambient, techno and electronica, while also embarking on a wide range of often overlooked collaborative projects.
N.D.E. – , one of the headiest, psychedelic, evocative and gently mind-altering albums in Hosono’s vast discography, is one such project. It formed part of a run of albums that saw the Japanese producer embrace contemporaneous influences – think Spacetime Continuum style ambient techno, DJ Spooky-esque illbient, weighty ambient dub and the ‘ambient house’ antics of The Orb – in his own inimitable, far-sighted style.
He was ably assisted on N.D.E. by an undeniably impressive roll call of collaborators, most notably no-wave hero turned ambient explorer Bill Laswell (who Hosono subsequently worked with on joint album Interpieces Organisation), NYC DJ/producer Francois Kevorkian, and fellow Japanese ambient pioneer Yasuaki Shimizu.
With such a stellar cast-list, it’s perhaps unsurprising that N.D.E. has achieved cult status over the years, despite being near impossible to find outside of Hosono’s native Japan. Remarkably, it never received a full vinyl release, with only five of the set’s cuts appearing on an ultra-limited sampler. Now Rush Hour is putting the record straight, delivering a DJ-friendly, remastered version that spreads that album’s seven tracks across two slabs of vinyl.
N.D.E. remains an impressive, unearthly and otherworldly album. Its unique and distinctive sound makes use of multiple nods to Eastern musical culture – think Tabla rhythms, heady violin courtesy of guest musician Arun Bagal, and transcendental synth sounds – but also throbbing techno grooves, Pete Namlook style ambient electronics, spaced-out dub rhythms, bubbly melodies reminiscent of Warp Records Artificial Intelligence-era IDM output, trippy tribal drums, and immersive electronic dream-scapes that recall the greatest exponents of Japanese new-age ambient music.
Highlights are plentiful, from the Test Department-at-dawn brilliance of Bill Laswell co-production ‘Edge of the End’ and the sunrise-ready, dew-fresh dreaminess of ‘Aero’, to the surging ambient techno hedonism of ‘Strange Attractor’ – a near cult cut that remains a timeless slab of hallucinatory dancefloor excellence – and the slow-motion space-dub of Francois Kevorkian collaboration ‘Teaching of Sphinx’, whose oddly processed sounds and low-slung bass subtly reference the Orb’s earlier remix of YMO’s ‘Tong Poo’.
There’s also the impeccable, pleasingly experimental ‘Spinning Spirits’ – all addictive Indian rhythms, punishingly distorted bass, raw electronics and paranoid aural textures – and the sparkling bliss of ‘Heliotherapy’, a woozy chunk of sun-bright electronic hypnotism that encapsulates everything good about Hosono’s mid-90s productions.
Solutions