Neo Museum - Moonlight (1984)

This synthpop record was produced by Kaoru Satou (EP-4) and released on the record label Theatpolis --which is allegedly Telegraph-related. The band consists of Tomiko, Toshihiro, and Ki-Ichiro.
Who are these three people? Good question; I've no idea. One of them, however, does have a YouTube channel (linked below) with some of his non-Neo Museum work.
There are only 4 tracks on this record for a total play-time of less than 18 minutes.

Listen · D/L

The Ventures - Chameleon (1980)

The Ventures —not a Japanese group, but the American surf-rock group. Why am I posting this? Well, because it's an honorary Japanese album.
Fans of Hikashu may already be aware that the song Pike, which is the final track of this album and was written by Hikashu member Yasushi Yamashita, was originally written for this group. You can read more here.
This record was produced by Kazuhiko Katoh, its synthesisers were 'manipulated' by Hideki Matsutake, and it includes songs written by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi, Keiichi Suzuki, Yuu Imai (Imitations), Shigeru Umebayashi (EX), Kazuo Takeda (Blues Creation), and various people who aren't Japanese —a cover of John Barry's Gold Finger, a cover of Bob Goldstein's Washington Square, and The Ventures' own Ginza Ska.
The music is a hybrid of instrumental surf-rock and new wave; as one might expect from an album which includes all three members of Yellow Magic Orchestra and their synthesiser programmer Hideki Matsutake, a gratuitous amount of synths are used.
Highly recommended to everyone who wishes to increase the size of their surf-rock or synthpop collection, their Japanese music collection or American music collection, and everyone else.

Listen · D/L

*The album art featured in this blog post is of a much higher quality than the one included in the zip file (I scanned the high-quality image myself whereas the low-quality image was obtained from the internet).

Various Artists - Miyako Ni Ame No Furu Gotoku II (1985)

Wonderful album, produced by Makigami Koichi, and featuring many artists.
The first track is performed by the band Chiwawa, but it also includes contributions from the likes of Koji Ueno, Tomorrow Taguchi (Bachikaburi), and Kenji Otsuki (Karate Bakabon, and Kinniku Shoujo-Tai).
The second and third tracks are performed by Hitsuji. I don't know a thing about Hitsuji, but their brooding post-punk music is a pleasant juxtaposition to the upbeat first song.
The fourth track is a new wave song by Ranmaru, and it also features Papaya Paranoia.
The fifth and sixth tracks are by Masumi Hara. They're also included in his 'Singles & Collections' compilation which I first uploaded in 2012. You'll find Masumi's contributions very upbeat and cheerful —this record can't quite decide on a consistent mood.
The seventh track is by Picky Picnic, and the eight and ninth tracks are by Kaoru Todoroki (of Picky Picnic). Picky Picnic is a fun synthpop group, while Kaoru Todoroki's solo-work borders on minimal synth.

Listen · D/L

password: aghwee

Very sorry —the password is usually monster!

*Edit: the cover attached to this blogpost is of a much higher quality than the one included with the download. The packaging of the LP consists of the record jacket and a piece of translucent paper, so I was required to take eight total scans (four of the record jacket, four of the paper), stitch each set together with Microsoft ICE, and then perform some Photoshop editing. The digital result looks almost exactly like the real record.

Hirono Mio - Fruits of the Moon (1988)

Originally I only wanted to post my own rips but someone requested this and it's too good to not listen to. This is Hirono Mio's debut-solo EP. The second track is one of my all-time favourite songs.
I was actually going to buy her first LP, IIRC it's called Chloe, from Yahoo Auctions but completely forgot about it and bought some other stuff instead. Maybe next time!

Listen · D/L

Akaike Haruko - Tosei Roman Ka-shu (1992)

Solid synthpop with Hideki Matsutake on synth programming. There might be some other big names involved but the credits in the booklet are entirely in Japanese kanji. I first stumbled upon this album on Douban, a China-based music database, and for whatever reason it had a lot of ratings (almost 200) and an exceedingly high score; that is, despite me being unable to find any information on it elsewhere.
As I stated earlier: great album, but I disagree with the 9/10 it has on Douban (I guess the Chinese are overly generous with their scores).

Watch 1 · Watch 2 · D/L

Koji Ueno & Shingo Kubota - Netsuzou to Gansaku (1999)

Some sort of avant-garde synthpop, modern classical album. Quite hard to describe, this is further out-there than Koji's solo albums such as Music for Silent Movies, Reservoir, et al.
This album contains renditions of several compositions by Erik Satie, one by Jacques Offenbach and some Guernica and Keiichi Ohta tracks are revisited.
Seriously wonderful stuff mind, I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone (but you ought to listen to Guernica first); this is one of my favourite albums from the nineties.

Live version of the third track · D/L

Motoharu Sano - Real Na Genjitsu Honki No Genjitsu (Short Edited Version) / Dovanna (1985)

The chances are, if you are interested in Japanese music, you probably know who Motoharu Sano is already; a pop mastermind who dabbled in all sorts of genres: soul, rock, blues, synthpop, and was also one of the first popular artists to introduce hip-hop to Japan with the album Visitors (1984).
This particular single seems to get somewhat overlooked as it was never released on an album, yet it remains my absolute favourite song of his. There are several versions of this song: I own a physical copy of the 'Short Edited Version' {075H-252}, but there is a slightly longer variant on the 'Moto Singles 1980 - 89' compilation; the full version is almost 9 minutes long.
Both sides are poetry/spoken word over a technopop beat. Motoharu released a fair amount of songs similar to this although I'm yet to hear them in their entirety (you can listen to samples on Moto's website: http://www.moto.co.jp/works/songs/SpokenWords.html). That page advertises his spoken word collection but a more recent edition can be found here: Amazon

9 minute version (nico nico) · D/L

This is a vinyl rip, so the quality is far from impeccable.

Since I wrote this post I've purchased the tape cassette Electric Garden by Motoharu Sano. This cassette tape includes the 9 minute version of Riaru na Genjitsu Honki no Genjitsu, Dovanna, and five other synthpop/poetry songs. I've also purchased a new record player and miscellaneous equipment, meaning the audio quality of this particular vinyl rip does not compare with those in later posts.