With My Dog Ricky: The Early Works of Shinichi Omata 1981-1983

[[Release Detail]][[Release Description]] Somewhere between Solid State Survivor, Force Majeure and Danzindan-Pojidon you’ll find Shinichi Omata’s Boku・Neko・Platanus. Or rather you won’t – throughout his captivating debut from 1984, reissued by chOOn!! in 2022, you’ll hear connections to other music but its unique unbridled will keeps pushing those references out of mind. Omata is a fascinating figure – an unsung hero of early Japanese electronic music who between 1981–84 recorded three albums of incredible DIY techno-pop while studying as a student in Tokyo. At University, Omata worked and collaborated as a sitar player and keyboardist with artists such as Hiroko Yoshihara, Takami, DEA and various members of the LLE music circle, where he developed an expressive fusion of minimal synth and psychedelia. The Japan of the late 1970s and early 80s was still largely a monoculture, lacking the substantial immigrant populations who brought the reggae and dub elements that so musically and po