Maybe this needs to become a regular series. Still too much friction to cover my almost daily spelunking…

I started stumbling onto the new Julien Baker track (sort of amazing how great she is writing sad songs)

and reading about it, scrolled into some Japanese Breakfast news

One of the YouTube recommendations for that video this (awesome) MONDO GROSSO video (no idea SO had released a new one)

Watched a couple of those and ended up on this amazing Maria Takeuchi Track (from her 1984 album Variety).

(It’s $40 new, but you can get the album for $5-10 used… if you live in Japan) It’s not on Spotify, but a bit of searching took me modern version by a Korean vaporwave producer on Bandcamp, and then some download links from a site called JPop80ss.

We’re not done though. I tried my luck on clicking around a more 80s JPop tracks (good, but nothing mindblowing) until I got to this 80’s Japanese mixtape. The first track by Tatsuro Yamashita, Hot Shot, is fantastic.

Tatsuro Yamashita apparently is a legend (and curiously, married to Mariya Takeuchi). Here’s his soundtrack for a 1984 surf movie called Big Wave

The remastered soundtrack is available for $30.90 CD only on Amazon US, or you can just download the ALAC.

I’ll finish with this incredibly smooth 1977 Masayoshi Takanaka LP

I’ll leave future explorations for another day (it’d be cool if there was a way to automatically track and storify these, wouldn’t it?)