''Technodon'' is the eighth and final studio album by
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra (abbreviated to YMO) was a Japanese electronic music band formed in Tokyo in 1978 by Haruomi Hosono (bass, keyboards, vocals), Yukihiro Takahashi (drums, lead vocals, occasional keyboards) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (keyboards, ...
and released in 1993, a decade after the band's original breakup. Because the name Yellow Magic Orchestra was owned by former record label
Alfa Records
, originally a publisher known as Alfa Music Ltd. and later succeeded by record company Alfa Music Inc., was established in 1969 by composer and record producer Kunihiko Murai. It was formed into an independent record label known as Alfa Recor ...
, the band were forced to release the album under the name
YMO (typically stylized as the "YMO" initialism crossed out by a large "X"). For the tour that followed, they were billed as Not YMO. Future releases by the group would be made under the names Human Audio Sponge and HASYMO.
The album abandons much of the group's previous
synth-pop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a music genre that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s b ...
style, instead adopting a more
ambient techno
Ambient techno is a subgenre of techno that incorporates the atmospheric textures of ambient music with the rhythmic elements and production of techno. It was pioneered by 1990s electronic artists such as Aphex Twin, Carl Craig, The Orb, The ...
sound.
Yukihiro Takahashi
was a Japanese musician, singer, record producer, fashion designer, and actor, who was best known internationally as the drummer, lead vocalist, & 2nd keyboardist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, as the former drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band, ...
mainly used
drum machine
A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...
s for the record as opposed to a drum kit.
Track listing
All songs arranged by
YMO.
Personnel
*
Ryuichi Sakamoto
was a Music of Japan, Japanese musician, composer, keyboardist, record producer, singer and actor. He pursued a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the Synthesizer, synth-based band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). With his ...
:
keyboards,
vocals
Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...
*
Yukihiro Takahashi
was a Japanese musician, singer, record producer, fashion designer, and actor, who was best known internationally as the drummer, lead vocalist, & 2nd keyboardist of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, as the former drummer of the Sadistic Mika Band, ...
:
drums
The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...
, vocals
*
Haruomi Hosono
, sometimes credited as Harry Hosono, is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is considered to be one of the most influential musicians in Japanese pop music history, credited with shaping the sound of Japanese pop f ...
:
bass
Bass or Basses may refer to:
Fish
* Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species
Wood
* Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree
Music
* Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...
, keyboards, vocals
Additional Credits
*
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major Postmodern literature, postmodern author who influen ...
: Voice on "Be a Superman" & "I Tre Merli"
*
Ruriko Kamiya: Voice on "Be a Superman"
*
William Gibson
William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his ear ...
: Voice on "Floating Away"
*
Hirofumi Tokutake: Guitar on "Floating Away"
*
John C. Lilly: Voice on "Dolphinicity"
References
*
{{Authority control
1993 albums
Yellow Magic Orchestra albums
Albums with cover art by Stefan Sagmeister