I discovered Masumi Hara through their 夢の4倍 album which I bought purely due to its striking design. I then became a fan of their music and Imagination Exchange is my favourite thing I’ve heard by them. It is all over the place, in the best possible way. From hi-tech New Wave ballads to crazed tribal dub workouts.

Discogs describes it as Free Jazz, New Wave, Synth-Pop which is just about right. I have no idea if this was a big success at the time but if so, Japanese pop was operating on a whole other level to 80s pop in Europe.

Miharu Koshi is a goddess. Her trilogy of 80s albums – of which this is this is the first – are three of my favourite albums ever. Ecstatic, sophisticated, playful and futuristic sounding techno-pop of the highest order. I’ve noticed she is belatedly becoming slightly more feted in the west, but she really deserves to be better known.

Certainly in recent times he has become an uber-cult figure in western music appreciation circles. This is one of his lesser known albums but one of my favourites. A soundtrack album and a sampling master-class.

The sleeve of this gives a hint as to the playfulness of her masterful pop compositions. A joyful listen from start to finish and features members of the band Japan playing throughout. Her Tadaima album was recently reissued and is highly recommended too.

I kept seeing this in Japan but didn’t buy it as I initially thought it was an early 80s R&B record but eventually I noticed it was on Yen Records and produced by Haruomi Hosono so I bought a copy. I’m so glad I did as it is perhaps one of thee greatest Synth-Pop records ever made and it has gone on to become an all time favourite. It is now a very hard record to find and is perhaps top of the list of records I’d like to reissue on my label.

I mention this one earlier. It is how I discovered Masumi Hara and was one of the records I bought on my first ever visit that went on to open up a whole world of music to me that I hadn’t really known existed. In some ways I had to re-adjust my western ears to get my head round it but once my ears opened there was no turning back.

I didn’t even know what this record was called until I came to write this – there are two words of English on the sleeve and luckily they gave a clue that led me to find out what it is. Strangely it hadn’t mattered to me too much up until now. I had just loved how it looked and sounded. Gamelan, pianos and synthesisers. Quite eerie in places, could be a soundtrack.