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JAPAN The Venue London 30/1/80
Melody Maker February 9th 1980
In future, fame will be the preserve of the second-rate. Other than as
a statistic, posterity will have no use for those who, seduced by
vanity or driven by inadequacy, demanded more than a shared backseat
ride to a comfortable future. Originators will be less important than
the new craftsmen, sharp manipulators equipped to deal with the system
that produced them.
The worst effect will be a unrelieved mediocrity, the best a kind of
consistency unavailable in the present, insanely fast-and
escalating-process of consumption and disposal. The best records will
be one-offs, which wont sell, or studiously designed and streamlined
facsimiles, which will .
In the second league will be Japan.
Viewed from the helpful vantage point of indifference, Japan have
always appeared to have the makings. Nothing too precise, nothing too
accurate, but aneasily adaptable style behind which lurks an
unwillingness to commit themselves too closely. Similarly, a style with
no identity outside its past uses - glam rock - has the blessing of
being ever familiar and, to an extent, timeless.
At The Venue last Wednesday they juggled with enough cross-references
to be pleasantly ambiguous and enough musical knowledge to be
entertaining. David Sylvian filters the weedy elegance of a youthful
Andy Warhol through a series of Bryan Ferry mannerisms, and produces a
voice between Lou Reed and Bowie.
Bassist Mick Karn, made up as a grinning corpse, shrugs and fidgets
around in a boiler suit ; along with the rest of the band, the style
falls uneasily between fatal attraction and tedious exhibitionism.
Japan are, of course, now playing all electronic. The early numbers,
originally built on robust guitar phrases, have all had their centres
scooped out and replaced with seedy synthesizer repetitions.
The new material, already brought into line, is played with a breadth
that does it credit ; too sharp and glacial for disco proper, it
nonetheless ripples and pulsates in a fairly effective approximation of
its rhythms and textures. The best songs were encouragingly, the newer
ones. “Quiet Life”, the new albums title track, is lifted beyond a
limp-wrested Bowie tribute by its sharply focused almost mesmeric synth
patterns which, aligned with the visuals, give way to an eerie
fascination.
The set seemed to go on forever, the absence of variety made irrelevant
once the band had locked into continuous motion. It could have been
bland, but it was more a pleasantly functional mood music. Even a
re-tread of the Velvet Undergrounds “All Tomorrows Parties” sounded
unnervingly similar to Sylvians own songs.
And there was the audience, part of the same overlap of home-made camp
and beer heads that Roxy Music once attracted, lapping it all up; the
same contingent that fall in with the new heavy metal and get called
sexually repressed for their trouble. But better sexual ambiguity by
proxy than not at all.
James Truman, Melody Maker, published 9/2/80.
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