Three of Haruomi Hosono’s albums have come to streaming services for the first time. Hana ni Mizu (Watering a Flower) (1984), omni Sight Seeing (1989), and MEDICINE COMPILATION (1993) are available to stream now; the latter two releases have been remastered by Yoshinori Sunahara, who previously handled the recent Yellow Magic Orchestra reissues. Vinyl editions of omni Sight Seeing and Medicine Compilation arrive December 4 via Light in the Attic.
Hosono’s “Talking,” from Watering a Flower, was notably sampled on Vampire Weekend’s “2021.” The album featured music that Hosono had written for Japanese retailer MUJI. “At first, I didn’t understand why anyone would be into the music that I made for MUJI. I created it as in-store background music, and it was just a job that I did a long time ago, so I had since forgotten about it,“ he told Vice last year. “But hearing what Vampire Weekend did with the song, how they discovered it and created a great track, it’s extremely fresh. I was like, ‘Oh, this is how you create!’ I wish I had done it myself.”
Revisit Pitchfork’s reviews of Haruomi Hosono’s previous reissues.