Yukihiro Takahashi

Random and bite-sized facts on all things from the mythical figure that is Yukihiro Takahashi. Totally random but totally fascinating if you're into it. Do you know Yukihiro Takahashi now?

YUKIHIRO TAKAHASHI

Saravah! Was His European Dream

Yukihiro Takahashi's first solo album, Saravah!, was not simply a collection of Japanese pop songs. He deliberately filled it with the European and Latin music that fascinated him at the time.

Two songs in particular were pieces Takahashi was determined to record: Domenico Modugno's "Volare" and the French standard "C'est Si Bon".

His fascination with European culture went beyond music. Takahashi asked photographer Masayoshi Sukita to photograph him at Paris's Place de la Concorde for the album.

Takahashi later explained that he had poured much of the taste and knowledge he had developed up to that point into Saravah!. It was an unusually personal statement from a musician still best known as a drummer.

He Had Been Singing Like That Before YMO

Yukihiro Takahashi's cool, detached singing style during the YMO years is sometimes assumed to have been influenced by Bryan Ferry.

But Masakazu Togo, who knew Takahashi before YMO, recalled that this wasn't really the case. He said Takahashi had already been singing in essentially the same manner during his amateur years.

In other words, one of the characteristics most associated with Takahashi's YMO persona was already there before the band existed.

Takahashi Designed YMO's Look

Yukihiro Takahashi was responsible for much of YMO's visual identity as well as being its drummer.

He later explained that he wanted the group's clothing to create a deliberate sense of confusion. Looking through a Japanese book of uniforms, he found an old Japanese ski outfit called the "National Ski Uniform" and used its appearance as inspiration.

The resulting outfits could easily be mistaken for Chinese-style uniforms, which was precisely the kind of visual misunderstanding Takahashi wanted to create.

His interest in fashion went much further than YMO. He established his own labels, including BRICKS, BRICKS-MONO and YUKIHIRO TAKAHASHI COLLECTION.

He Wanted YMO To Look Like Something From Somewhere Else

Takahashi later explained that while YMO's original musical concept came from Haruomi Hosono, he was responsible for bringing a European sensibility into the group's visual presentation.

He deliberately wanted people to be unsure about what they were looking at. The clothes were designed to suggest something Chinese without actually being Chinese.

It was an unusually clever visual strategy: YMO's appearance became part of the group's musical identity rather than simply being decoration.

Saravah! Had Ryuichi Sakamoto All Over It

Takahashi's first solo album also contained a surprising amount of Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Sakamoto played piano on "Volare" and contributed the composition "Elastic Dummy". He also handled string arrangements for the album.

Takahashi later recalled that whenever he asked Sakamoto about musical matters, Sakamoto would give him remarkably clear and logical answers. Takahashi said this was one reason he gave Sakamoto the nickname "Professor".

He Didn't See Himself Simply As YMO's Drummer

By the time YMO emerged, Takahashi had already developed a distinctive identity that crossed music and fashion.

His first solo album had appeared in 1978, before YMO's debut, and he was already writing songs, singing, arranging and developing his own visual style.

That makes his role in YMO rather different from the conventional image of a drummer recruited simply to provide the rhythm section. Takahashi brought an entire aesthetic with him.

YUKIHIRO TAKAHASHI — FASHION, JAPAN & BRYAN FERRY

Yukihiro Takahashi & Fashion

-- Yukihiro Takahashi's interest in fashion was not something that appeared after YMO became successful. He had been fascinated by clothes since childhood and eventually became a designer himself.

-- Takahashi once recalled that even as a schoolboy he would deliberately alter his uniform. He rubbed the fabric of his summer school shorts with pumice stone to give them a worn appearance — essentially creating his own distressed clothing long before that became commonplace.

-- His approach to fashion was surprisingly independent from his approach to music. When asked whether his clothing designs were inspired by his music, Takahashi rejected the idea, explaining that he studied fashion collections separately and developed his own eye for clothes.

-- Takahashi's interest in clothes eventually became a professional activity. He established fashion labels including BRICKS, BRICKS-MONO and YUKIHIRO TAKAHASHI COLLECTION.

-- He also became responsible for the clothing worn by Yellow Magic Orchestra. Their appearance was not an afterthought: Takahashi designed and selected much of the group's distinctive stage clothing.

-- One of his inspirations came from an unlikely source: an old Japanese book of uniforms. Takahashi discovered an old Japanese ski uniform and adapted its appearance for YMO.

-- The result was deliberately ambiguous. The clothes could look vaguely Chinese to Western eyes, but Takahashi wasn't simply trying to reproduce Chinese clothing. He was interested in creating an image that made people unsure exactly what they were looking at.

-- Takahashi's fashion interests also reached back to the British and American musicians he admired. He remembered buying jackets from the same London shops associated with Marc Bolan and following the clothes of the glam-rock era closely.

Yukihiro Takahashi & Japan

Before Yellow Magic Orchestra, Takahashi was already an important figure in Japanese rock. He had joined Sadistic Mika Band, one of Japan's most adventurous rock groups of the 1970s.

Sadistic Mika Band became the first Japanese rock group to receive a major opportunity to tour Britain, opening for Roxy Music during their European tour in 1975.

Takahashi later remembered those encounters with Roxy Music very clearly. He singled out Bryan Ferry's sense of style and described Ferry as having exceptionally good taste.

The connection was especially important because Takahashi was interested in the way Roxy Music combined music with clothing and visual presentation. Roxy's extended creative world included designer Antony Price, whose work became closely associated with Ferry and the band's image.

By the time Takahashi became part of YMO, he was therefore bringing together two sides of his personality: an experimental musician fascinated by new technology and a fashion obsessive with a highly developed interest in European style.

Takahashi was not simply YMO's drummer. He sang, wrote songs, designed clothing and developed a visual identity that helped distinguish the group from conventional Japanese rock bands.

His role was particularly unusual because YMO's music was becoming increasingly associated with computers, synthesizers and electronic rhythm machines, while Takahashi remained one of the group's most recognisable human performers.

Yukihiro Takahashi & Bryan Ferry

Takahashi's connection with Bryan Ferry began through Sadistic Mika Band's appearance alongside Roxy Music in Britain. It was not simply an admiration from a distance: Takahashi was actually part of a Japanese band sharing the stage with Roxy during this period.

Looking back years later, Takahashi specifically remembered Ferry's extraordinary sense of style. He also singled out Antony Price, the designer who worked closely with Roxy Music, as another major influence.

Takahashi's interest in Ferry was not only about clothing. He recognised something unusual in Roxy Music's approach: the music, the clothes and the band's entire visual presentation were treated as parts of the same artistic statement.

That idea became increasingly important in Takahashi's own work. YMO were not presented as anonymous electronic musicians surrounded by machines. Their clothing, album artwork and stage appearance were carefully considered elements of the project.

The relationship between Takahashi and the Roxy Music world also became musical. When Takahashi recorded his 1981 solo album Neuromantic in London, he worked with two members of Roxy Music: guitarist Phil Manzanera and saxophonist Andy Mackay.

Neuromantic therefore brought Takahashi's Japanese electronic-pop world directly into contact with the musicians who had helped shape his interest in sophisticated British rock and fashion.

The album also featured Tony Mansfield of New Musik, another important figure in Britain's emerging electronic-pop scene, making Neuromantic an unusually concentrated meeting point between Japanese and British new-wave musicians.

Takahashi's relationship with the Roxy Music aesthetic is therefore more than a superficial comparison. He encountered the band in person with Sadistic Mika Band, admired Ferry and Antony Price's approach to style, and later brought members of Roxy Music into his own recording project.

A Japanese Musician in the Roxy World

There is a remarkable line running through Takahashi's career: from Sadistic Mika Band opening for Roxy Music in Britain, to YMO's carefully designed visual identity, to his own fashion labels, and finally to recording with Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay.

What makes the connection particularly interesting is that Takahashi never simply copied the British musicians he admired. He absorbed elements of their attitude towards style and presentation and combined them with Japanese pop, electronic music and his own very distinctive personality.

By the early 1980s, the influence had effectively come full circle: the Japanese drummer who had once watched Roxy Music from the stage with Sadistic Mika Band was now making an album in London with two of its musicians.