Beyond his favourite Beethoven and Liszt pieces, Hosono didn’t listen to much music at all during the making of . It’s been a strange period of his life. He is, though, very much getting into the swing of things in a post-pandemic world. From the very starting gun – the self-titled debut album by his first proper band Apryl Fool in 1969 – Hosono had always been frightfully busy. An eye-watering 2,200 Discogs credits as an artist, producer, and session musician only really scratches the surface, but this obscenely prolific hot streak became ice cool in 2020.
“I drew a complete creative blank during the pandemic,” he tells me, recalling the time between and . “During those times, I wasn’t really in touch with music at all. I’d spend my days driving around Tokyo in my car, patrolling, and asking myself: “What has happened to the world?” It was such a hollow scene. I didn’t have the brain capacity, or the mindset, to even think about music during this period – for maybe three years.”
“But now, in a sense, the world has gone back to normal,” Hosono tells me: “my mind has just clicked back into its usual, creative mindset.” was largely written and recorded in a concentrated creative burst. Most of the songs came to him between March and May this year, hinting at a return to the prolific Hosono of the past, although pensive closer ‘Anemo Wheel’ is the outlier in this regard.
“‘Anemo Wheel’ is the exception. Everything else came without thinking too heavily,” he says. “But that piece dates from 1984. I made it for a TV show, but it didn’t end up being used because the show finished early. I even forgot it existed. But when I rediscovered it on an unlabelled cassette and listened to it, I really felt like I had to use it.”
Despite this, “Anemo Wheel” sounds like a thoroughly modern artefact – driving home the prescience of Hosono’s ‘80s futurism. It would be right at home as a freshly composed podcast soundbed, or incidental music on the latest Roblox game, but instead sits very comfortably on . It shares a tenderness and closeness with the rest of the album. Naturalistic and emotional, breathing and wilting, there is a vulnerability in its circuitry.
"Anemo Wheel" doesn’t simply serve as a reminder of just how many different artists Haruomi Hosono has been throughout his career, but implies that they have all been engaging in a rich creative conversation that spans generations. is the master craftsman’s first correspondence in quite some time – it finds him in good spirits, well, and reminiscing whilst living firmly in the present.