Assemblage

Assemblage

What appeared to be a crass cash grab by Hansa/BMG to milk Japan’s first three albums to capitalize on the band’s post-1979 fame (on Virgin) was really a worthy roundup of the band’s early glam and androgynous (yet weirdly sexless) white-boy soul. The collection goes from brilliantly tortured funk-glam (“Adolescent Sex”) to two-toned reggae (“Rhodesia”) to a hushed, beautifully crooned Velvet Underground cover (“All Tomorrow’s Parties”) and a strangely hypnotic synth- and horn-stroked Smokey Robinson classic (“I Second that Emotion”). It finishes on three Giorgio Moroder–helmed sides: a remix of “European Son” and two versions (one radio, one 12-inch) of the big-in-Japan disco-ball “Life in Tokyo.” It’s fun to hear how in just two years (1978 and 1979) youngster Mick Karn crafted a style that altered how a whole generation of bassists approached their instruments and how singer David Sylvian dropped personae (from decadent glamster to disco glamster to urbane crooner) like prom dresses.

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