Friends of Earth -- In My Jungle

 

It wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）has had an influence on a good swath of bands and singers since the late 1960s. Of course, we can and have talked about his direct associations with Happy End（はっぴいえんど）, Tin Pan Alley（ティン・パン・アレー）and Yellow Magic Orchestra. And just recently, I discovered this other group that he was connected with during the mid-1980s called Friends of Earth or FOE.

With my memories not as solid as they once were, I have to say that I'm not sure how I found out about FOE...maybe it was through Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu" or Rocket Brown's "Come Along Radio" podcasts. Regardless, the group had its start in 1984 centered around Hosono and musician/DJ Eiki Nonaka（野中英紀）of the technopop band Interiors with other members coming in and out such as Miharu Koshi（越美晴）and Sandii. 

FOE released three 12" singles, a 7" single cover of James Brown's famous "Sex Machine" and a couple of albums. The first album was the May 1986 release of "Sex, Energy & Star" and I have here one track titled "In My Jungle", written and composed by Nonaka. The band has been categorized as a hip-hop group and I've yet to listen to the rest of the tracks, but I'm not sure whether I could treat "In My Jungle" as a hip-hop song. In fact, I'd say that this might come under the ethnic music stylings that Hosono's old YMO bandmate Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）loved to work with. I get some of that technopop but also those African rumbling rhythms and some doodling jazz on the piano. I know that Nonaka himself has commented underneath the 8-year-old YouTube video with information such as Koshi helping out on the piano and vocals, so if he ever finds out about this KKP article, I'd certainly invite him to give some commentary on this particular song and the rest of "Sex, Energy & Star".

As for FOE, they disbanded in 1987 after apparently Hosono himself had broken his leg in the snow in the tony district of Daikanyama in Tokyo soon after the recording of "Sex, Energy & Star".