Post about Yamasuki I made for jezebelmusic.com

Yamasuki
Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki 1971
Remastered release 2006

I woke up this New Year to the sounds and spirits of tiny Japanese children seeping in under my door. They told me to touch my hands and head to the floor and Yama Yama. They told me that fuzz and funk were rightfully theirs and had Nirvana been as inspired by spirits of Yamasuki instead of Os Mutantes the world would have spun differently. The content of their canorous riddle remains a mystery to me, but I decided that I would follow this Kono Samourai down this Franco-Japanese rabbit-hole.

What really happened, is that back in France, 1971, Jean Kluger, (a French funk, disco, afro-pop, and beat producer) called up Daniel Vangarde, (father of a member of Daft Punk), and together they composed pop songs that a French children’s choir would sing. Part-education and part-cultural-petrie-dish, Le Monde Fabuleux Des Yamasuki, began as a dance, and became a European cult wonder. Fuzzy guitars, wah-wahs, 70s organs, bellbottom flutes, and small stone bass compose pop wonders and a children’s choir garner east-sploited melodies. A real black-belt Judo master ululates. Altogether though, they are spirits, no?

Other delightful twists in the world of 70s European funk: Kluger’s label Biram recorded Black Blood performing a version of Yamasuki’s Aieaoa and later three models heard the song in an African night club and would go on to record a dancehall hit of this song. Models three would go on to become Bananarama.

Delightfully noted: according to the UK’s B-Music, the Kluger/Vangarde pair had other language-phile undertakings in the works, a Russian holiday-camp album called “Casatchok,” for example.

The Fabulous World of Yamasuki is the planet that the Polyphonic Spree call collect, but never get an answer. If Yamasuki were touring now, Brian Wilson could join and mime playing a keyboard.

Wake up this new year with the spirits of Yamasuki!