Swing Slow - Miharu Koshi & Harry Hosono Jr. (Speedstar, 1996/2021)

March 11, 2023

I just returned from Tokyo and bought the vinyl version of Swing Slow. A duo consisting of Miharu Koshi and Haruomi Hosono, who have been together for long periods. It is interesting to note that Hosono goes under the name Harry Hosono Jr., which signals the listener that he is dipping his toes into an American musical past or music from another era. For decades, but off and on, I have been following Hosono’s career because I like his music (of course). Still, he also represents Japanese pop music history, both inward toward Japan’s culture and how he sees and adapts to Western, European, and American music/culture. While this sounds academic, Hosono is very playful with his sources.

Swing Slow bridges Hosono’s interest in American swing jazz and electro-pop. The track Time Scan 2021 is a musique concrete experimental piece where the source is 1950s American radio and Koshi’s voice over the mix. Then it merges into the classic I’m Leaving It All Up To You, the Dewey Terry Jr and Don Sugarcane Harris (who later worked with Frank Zappa as a violinist) song, written in 1957. The other covers are Good Morning, Mr. Echo, the ancient Bicycle Built For Two, and the always amazing, no matter who plays it, Caravan, written by Duke Ellington and Juan Tizol. Hosono covers this song on his excellent 1989 album Omni Sight Seeing. The others are original music from the duo.

Swing Slow is based on the premise of the pre-rock n’ roll era but with the electronics of early Les Paul. There are contemporary touches of an artist making new music but looking back as a memory that gave pleasure. The music is exotica, but through the sensibility of Hosono and Koshi’s approach to a far-away culture, which by its art is not that distant. I can’t think of another artist besides Martin Denny, the exotica king, who uses Asia as an imaginary playground. Hosono and company (including his other band YMO) use that philosophy but turn it around as a self-expression or a critique of that thought. Life is filtered not through being in the place or time but through the imagination of such a place and period.

When I listen to Swing Slow, I hear Eno’s Another Green World, various Martin Denny recordings, Sambas, Les Paul/Mary Ford, French Musique Concrete, and a touch of Japanese culture. But the unique blend of the album makes it a perfect listening experience. An intelligent work of art as well.