BGM

Alfa's 3M 32-track digital recorder was used, but Hosono disliked its sharp sound, so the rhythm sections were first recorded on a TASCAM 80-8 analog machine and copied across. The Prophet-5 became the main synthesizer, replacing the Moog III-c, and the Roland MC-4 sequencer and a TR-808 ran in continuous loops, with almost no acoustic instruments. Japanese Wikipedia says the title came to Hosono in Berlin in July 1980, and that lyrics were written by all three for the first time, with Peter Barakan producing English versions. The budget was 51,250,000 yen with a 5 million yen TV commercial, and the onsen mark logo debuted. Hhv-mag says it is often considered the first recording to use the TR-808, which we treat as a claim.

It reached number 2 on the Oricon LP chart over 19 weeks and sold 283,000 across formats in Japan, and re-entered at 54 in 2022. Pitchfork's Noah Yoo gave it 9.2 in 2021, as reported on Wikipedia, and Analog Planet's Malachi Lui called it the group's most experimental, forward-thinking work.