Oil on Canvas

Artist: Japan
Label: Blue Plate Caroline
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Live
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 017046183222
EAN: 0017046183222
ASIN: B000000I01

Release Date: 1992-07-24

Oil on Canvas

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Tracks:

Oil On Canvas
Sons Of Pioneers
Gentlemen Take Polaroids
Swing
Cantonese Boy
Visions Of China
Ghosts
Voices Raised In Welcome, Hands Held In Prayer
Nightporter
Still Life In Mobile Homes
Methods Of Dance
Quiet Life
The Art Of Parties
Canton
Temple Of Dawn

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Quiet Life

Customer Reviews:

Japan or Canton?.......2005-08-25

While Sylvian and gang definitely had their geography mixed up there was definitely no confusion when it came to their musical adventures. These live tracks add another dimension to the immaculate craftsmenship of every song the band ever turned out, and the chemistry and immediacy plus a raw edge gives these gems a new spin.

Top on the list is Ghosts, which benefits from more of the eerie improvisations and the detuned synths, not to mention Mick Karn on the nocturnal sax solo not found in the album version.

Canton is a Mick Karn showpiece as he warps his bass notes to hearts content. Nightporter has this raw detached feel that is even more quaint than the album version, and in every aspect this live concert is a winner. The instrumental Hands Held In Prayer, though, must have been played entirely from tape, it sounds no different from the studio version. Perhaps it was costume change time for the boys or a chance for Sylvian to duck into the loo.

A treat even if you already have the studio tracks.

Better than other reviews may make it sound........2003-08-06

This was the first Japan Album I had ever heard and I still think it is possibly their best (second is Exorcising Ghosts). This band who was effectively robbed of success by Duran Duran, Started as a semi punk mostly New Romantic rock band transformed into one of the great unknown bands of the 1980's. This album is a heavily processed live album that covers most of their better known songs. If you are a David Sylvian fan, you will find a lot of the melodies and progressions that led him towards Gone to Earth (his best album in my opinion). Japan as a group and the influence they put into the English music scene helped to form a lot of the what came out of 4AD records in the later 80's. I can easily imagine members of the Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance grooving to this and deciding to form bands.
While their instrumental pieces borrow heavily from Eno and the Pre-New Age Electronic movement that came before them.
Long story short; if you like Eno and you like Duran Duran (well maybe like some of their stuff but not their hits), you will love Japan. I recommend this as a great starter album for the Japan newbie as well as a fantastic greatest hits album for the Japan Groupie.

Great introduction to Japan.......2002-05-02

Roxy Music and Bowie inspired many bands of the 80's (Duran Duran, The Cars, Flock of Seagulls, Bauhaus, OMD, Ultravox, Icehouse). A band overlooked in the United States was Japan. This album was my first introduction to Japan, so it is also my favorite. Very dark and moody, it is just the thing to listen to when feeling dark and moody. Although the sound quality of this live cd does not measure up to quality of their studio work, the outstanding quitar work by Masami Tsuchiya makes this cd worth owning. Tsuchiya haunting, and at times eery, quitar lifts the music to a level Japan never achieved in the studio.

is it live or is it..........2001-08-25

on account of those cheekbones, david sylvian was allegedly offered the job of being in the maxwell tape ads (you might remember if you're of a certain age, a guy on a couch being blown away by the speakers)...unfortunately no live album he's done comes close to the impact the image conveys. sylvian was a perfectionist not a performer, and if you ever caught japan live you couldn't help noticing how the other guys seemed to be having a blast while he seemed almost disdainful. The last tour in particular (from which this album was compiled) was a fairly harrowing episode during which the band essentially split. it's a pity you don't hear this tension in the album but take it for what it is, which is an almost greatest hits thing with a few instrumental nuggets thrown in. the title track ups sylvian's satie-fixation up one notch, voices raised..is a slice of ethno-percussion mixed with the chipmunks, and temple of dawn is what it sounds like, an eno composition by someone else. songwise, the one bum note is a refashioned "quiet life" which is given an excruciating, pimple-proud guitar solo. nightporter was apparently re-recorded in the studio and replaces some of the paris-at-dawn polish with synths, which generally reduces the grandeur of the song. otherwise the songs are carbon copies of the album tracks, with some extra reverb and sometimes backbeat thrown in. It would probably have made a better album if they'd left off the slower, instrumental numbers in favor of other live favorites at the time; in other words it would be nice to see Virgin raid the vaults for a full setlist sometime.

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