Sympathy Nervous -- Polaroid

 

Writing the blog all these years have provided a lot of revelations, one being that even during the late 1970s and early 1980s, technopop wasn't all Yellow Magic Orchestra. Whether it be the individual members doing their own thing such as Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）helping out the duo Testpattern, other genres adopting some of those synthesizers such as aidoru music, and wholly separate technopop bands such as Hikashu（ヒカシュー）and Playtechs providing their own different spin, fans back then were able to find these enterprising groups and fans now are unearthing them once more.

Regular KKP commenter YMOfan04 gave me a short list a few days ago on some other recommended technopop groups. One, Sympathy Nervous, had the obscure label put next to it. Of course, that meant a challenge that I had to tackle. Fortunately though, it wasn't too difficult to find a song by this project which was started in 1979 by Yoshifumi Niinuma（新沼好文）. His first album in 1980, "Automaticism" includes the track "Polaroid".

Intrepid and playful at the same time, "Polaroid" doesn't have me think of old-style cameras; instead, I actually get images of a mole digging its darndest underground all over the backyard with no intended goal. The voyage of tunneling is its own reward. Applying those minimalist synths and the vocoder voice gives those shadings of potential thrills and chills. Does the mole find a nice juicy tuber for lunch or does it encounter a terrifying nest of angry ants?

From what I've read so far about his biography via the website Minimal Wave, Niinuma was born in 1955 and was influenced by classical music and Krautrock. Kinda like the City Pop band Presents which I wrote about late last year, his music was produced at home with Niinuma himself creating some of the equipment necessary. Sadly though, a lot of his stored material and equipment were washed away in the massive tsunami that struck the Pacific coast of Japan in March 2011 although by a great stroke of luck, he had passed over the audio masters to Minimal Wave beforehand. "Polaroid" was included as part of a popular 2011 compilation titled "The Hidden Tapes" that has gotten a reissue this year.