Sketch Show (Yukihiro Takahashi & Haruomi Hosono): "Audio Sponge" (Cutting Edge, 2022/2002)

Friday, January 27, 2023

This is a new album by Sketch Show Audio Sponge, recorded and released on CD in 2002 and now recently released in 2021, and yet, it brings me back to Shibuya 1989. Sketch Show is Harumi Hosono and the late Yukihiro Takahashi, who once belonged to the world of The Yellow Magic Orchestra, better known as YMO. Along with Ryuichi Sakamoto (also an Audio Sponge contributor), YMO was just as important as Kraftwerk in conveying their culture through electronic pop. But even considering the German Fab Four, YMO went beyond its safe place by releasing numerous solo albums and collaborations with all sorts of folks. Since this album, Hosono went back to his jazz/swing/pop roots with a series of albums celebrating the American sound as it was filtered through Japan in the post-war years. Takahashi kept up the electro-pop thing, but I feel that Sketch Show is the last grasp of this sound, and oddly enough, I think it’s the best example of the YMO aesthetic and everything they stood for at the time.

This double album is a beautiful variety pack of goodies. We have the cut-up glitch of Microtalk with the pop of Michel Magne’s Do You Want to Marry Me? And everything in between, such as their tribute to the classic Beach Boys’ (via the Hosono/Takahashi) sound of their mature years, Wilson. Audio Sponge (an accurate title for this album) is very much the entrance to everything excellent in the world of these Japanese musicians.

The significant contribution from Hosono, Takahashi (and Sakamoto) is their willingness to share music history by throwing in their modernistic approach to making and composing music. Through them, one can get everything from 20th-century classical composers to the high kitsch of Martin Denny and even traces of Americana, mainly through some of Hosono’s solo albums. Therefore it is not a matter of taste but more of a fact that they are essential music figures, especially within Japan and its culture.

Auto Sponge may be a challenging album to find, but the album is streaming on Apple Music and Spotify. Or listen to it here: