Rather than rolling out an arbitrary ‘best of’ collection (where would you even start?), Japanese reissue specialists Great Tracks summon the mighty Towa Tei (of Deee-Lite!) to put his spin on the Yellow Magic Orchestra discography to celebrate the band's 40th anniversary, compiling lesser known gems as well as a few unanimous favorites from Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi. Neue Tanz opens with ultra-rare B side “Hirake Kokoro” before moving through a well-balanced cross section of the trio’s illustrious career, collecting tracks from nearly each of their albums. “Firecracker” and “Simoon” come from their not-so-hard-to-find self-titled debut, but there’s a smattering of tracks from the harder to find albums as well, such as “Pure Jam” and “Neue Tanz” from Technodelic, “Cue,” “Camouflage,” and “Ballet” from BGM and “Multiplies” from X∞Multiplies. Tei presses his luck with the inclusion of two tracks from some of the crew’s more notable side projects (Sakamoto’s “Riot In Lagos” from B-2 Unit, Takahashi’s “Glass” from Neuromantic), but they assimilate with the rest of his selections seamlessly. Japanese import pressing so you already know it looks and sounds amazing, but with a price tag to match, so only diehard YMO enthusiasts need apply.

• Japan import double vinyl pressing
• newly remastered by Yoshinori Sunahara
• pressed at Sony Music Japan analogue pressing plant
• obi strip
• printed inner sleeves
• housed in resealable clear plastic sleeve
• music label: Great Tracks 2018

reviewed by sunrise mart 01/2019