Gohan Ga Dekitayo

Description

40TH ANNIVERSARYDELUXE REISSUEFEATURING THE YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRAWhen *Gohan Ga Dekitayo* was released in 1980, Akiko Yano had been touring with the Yellow Magic Orchestra for over a year. She played keyboards alongside the three founding members, Haruomi Hosono, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Yukihiro Takahashi, as well as guitarist Kenji Omura and synthesizer programmer Hideki Matsutake. All of them are featured on the album *Gohan Ga Dekitayo*. This double album, whose title translates to "Dinner Is Ready", was co-produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto and recorded in two legendary studios: Alfa "A" studio in Tokyo and Sound City in Los Angeles. This was the first time Akiko embraced a more electro sound after four pop and jazz-funk studio albums. Across the album's fourteen tracks, the Japanese artist is in top form, blending her singer-songwriter sensibility with YMO's electro-pop sound. Although the band is present, the album truly originates from her. Akiko clearly sets the album's tone with superb compositions and a remake of one of the band's classics, "Tong Poo," which she reinvents as a slower, less metronomic song, adding her lyrics to the instrumental. Other highlights of the album include "Dogs Awaiting," a hypnotic composition with fascinating electro arrangements, and "Coloured Water," sung in English by Akiko, who accompanies herself on Fender Rhodes with the subtle percussion of Tatsuo Hayashi and the electro arrangements of Ryuichi Sakamoto. This superb album contains many other captivating elements and foreshadows the upcoming experiments of the album *Tadaima*. *Gohan Ga Dekitayo* is one of Akiko Yano's major albums that is urgently due for (re)discovery, and Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue it for its 40th anniversary. ALBUM TRACKLISTING.