(2021) Japan - Quiet Life [Deluxe Edition]


Review:
The reissue includes the remastered album and a full unearthed live record — Live at the Budokan 27/03/1980, previously limited to a four-track EP — as well as a disc of unreleased mixes and rarities including the non-album singles “Life in Tokyo,” “European Son,” and “I Second That Emotion.”. Released at the very end of 1979, Japan’s forward-thinking third album initially had a lukewarm reception critically and commercially, earning recognition only after the South London art-rock fops became major-label pop stars two years later. Swapping mascara-metal swagger for androgyne cool and synth-pop modernism, Quiet Life now sounds like a prescient stepping stone between glam, post-punk and the emergent New Romantic movement. It also introduced David Sylvian’s remarkable new baritone croon, which would come to define all his later releases. Japan first signalled their futuristic evolution in April 1979 with the non-album single ‘Life in Tokyo’, a stately blast of louche synth-rock co-written and produced by Eurodisco king Giorgio Moroder, which is included in this remastered box set. But the single didn’t chart, and Moroder was deemed a bad fit for the whole album. Instead, Quiet Life began the band’s fruitful association with former Roxy Music producer John Punter. Ironically, Punter created a dazzling pastiche of Moroder’s sleek electro sound on the title track, a pulsing, throbbing, propulsive beauty that is arguably Sylvian’s musical peak. David Bowie’s Berlin period clearly casts a long shadow across Quiet Life tracks like Fall in Love with Me and Alien, all urbane melancholy clothed in lightly discordant art-funk, as well as broody Euro-chansons like Despair and the rousing orchestral power ballad The Other Side of Life. A polished electro-lounge cover of the Velvet Underground classic All Tomorrow’s Parties might have sounded sacrilegious at the time, but nowadays it feels very much in the cerebral avant-rock spirit of Lou Reed and John Cale. Inevitably, the two extra discs are thick with superfluous alternative and extended mixes. But there are fine non-album singles here too, notably the glossy synth-funk stomper European Son and a plastic-soul remake of Smokey Robinson’s I Second That Emotion. Also included is the four-track Live in Japan EP first released in 1980, and a full live album recorded at the same show. The latter’s lo-fi sound is abrasively raw in places, but more snarly glam-metal numbers like Halloween and Automatic Gun punch through the sonic sludge, pleasing reminders of Japan’s embryonic phase as sleazoid proto-punks in the New York Dolls mould.





Tracklist:
01 - Quiet Life (2020 - Remaster)
02 - Fall in Love with Me (2020 - Remaster)
03 - Despair (2020 - Remaster)
04 - In Vogue (2020 - Remaster)
05 - Halloween (2020 - Remaster)
06 - All Tomorrow's Parties (2020 - Remaster)
07 - Alien (2020 - Remaster)
08 - The Other Side of Life (2020 - Remaster)
09 - European Son (Steve Nye 7' Remix 1982)
10 - Life in Tokyo (Steve Nye 7' Special Remix 1982)
11 - Quiet Life (German 7' Mix 1980)
12 - I Second That Emotion (Steve Nye 7' Remix 1982)
13 - All Tomorrow's Parties (Steve Nye 7' Remix Version 1983)
14 - European Son (John Punter 12' Mix 1980)
15 - Life in Tokyo (Steve Nye 12' Special Remix Version 1982)
16 - I Second That Emotion (Steve Nye 12' Remix Version 1982)
17 - All Tomorrow's Parties (Steve Nye 12' Remix Version 1983)
18 - European Son (Steve Nye 12' Remix Version 1982)
19 - Quiet Life (Japanese 7' Mix 1980)
20 - A Foreign Place
21 - All Tomorrow's Parties (John Punter 7' Mix 1979)
22 - Life in Tokyo (Theme; Giorgio Moroder Version 1979)
23 - Deviation (Live In Japan EP Version)
24 - Obscure Alternatives (Live In Japan EP Version)
25 - In Vogue (Live In Japan EP Version)
26 - Sometimes I Feel so Low (Live In Japan EP Version)
27 - Intro (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
28 - Alien (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
29 - ...Rhodesia (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
30 - Quiet Life (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
31 - Fall in Love With Me (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
32 - Deviation (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
33 - All Tomorrow's Parties (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
34 - Obscure Alternatives (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
35 - In Vogue (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
36 - Life in Tokyo (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
37 - Halloween (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
38 - Sometimes I Feel so Low (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
39 - Communist China (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
40 - Adolescent Sex (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
41 - I Second That Emotion (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)
42 - Automatic Gun (Live at Budokan 27/03/1980)


Media Report:
Genre: art pop, new wave
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits