Listening to YMO brings about a somewhat mysterious feeling. It is nostalgic, yet not dated. They are electronic sounds, yet they possess a certain human warmth. They are urban, yet carry something folkloric. Cold on the surface, they still hold a strange, resonant room for thought.

Yellow Magic Orchestra. The very name already functioned as a device. Yellow. Magic. Orchestra. Orient. Occident. Machine. Body. Jest. Critique. Pop. YMO was far more than just a band.

Of course, they were a band. There was Yukihiro Takahashi, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Haruomi Hosono. There were the sounds of three people, the presence of three people, and the distance between them. Yet, more than that, I feel YMO was a mechanism for the Japanese to connect with the world.

They did not merely mimic Western music. Nor did they present Japanese elements in their raw, traditional state. Instead, they first accepted the gaze from the outside—the orientalism, the eyes directed at yellow-skinned people, the robotic image of the future, the tourist-like exoticism. Knowing all of this, they rearranged it with a subtle smile. That was the brilliance of their approach.

YMO always maintained a critical perspective, but never delivered it with a solemn face. It was music you could dance to. It was pop you could listen to. They appeared on television. Yet, internally, they were doing something highly complex. This coexistence of lightness and depth was the strength of YMO.

Yukihiro Takahashi. He possessed a sense of moderation. His drums, his vocals, his clothing, his posture—none of it was loudly pushed to the front, yet it defined the entire atmosphere. Despite his immense greatness, the quiet way in which he was admired was remarkable.

I believe drums are an instrument that anchors time. They can stand out, and they can run wild. But in Takahashi's drums, there was a clean, ordered time. Within a mechanical rhythm, there was human moderation. His vocals were the same—never forced by strength, never laden with heavy emotion, yet strangely poignant. Light, yet deep. Elegant, yet revealing a glimpse of fragility.

I feel YMO's urban character required the physicality of Takahashi. Producing sounds as if choosing one's attire. Doing nothing unnecessary, yet never doing nothing. That presence was directly projected in his sound.

Ryuichi Sakamoto. He was a person of intellect and prayer. Classical. Contemporary. Film scores. Electronic sounds. Ambient sounds. Political statements. The quietude of his later years. Sakamoto was a person who remained continuously open to the world.

Within YMO, he was perhaps responsible for the sharp intellect. He grasped sound as a structure, considering harmony and arrangement. Instead of using electronic sounds simply to represent a futuristic view, he treated them as the texture of sound itself. Meanwhile, in his later years, Sakamoto's sound saw an ever-increasing margin of space. The number of notes decreased. The silence increased. The weight of a single note shifted. Rather than raising a loud voice to change the world, he placed notes carefully within his limited physical form and remaining time. There was a prayer-like devotion in that approach.

The Ryuichi Sakamoto within YMO and the Ryuichi Sakamoto of his final years were, of course, different. Yet, the water vein is connected. From electronic sound to silence. From the city to the quiet margin. From the future to prayer. Sakamoto's sound continued to measure its distance from the world.

Haruomi Hosono. He is someone who stands at the center without acting central. Happy End. YMO. The South. Folklore. Ambient. Exotica. Film scores. Sounds of daily life. Within Hosono, multiple layers of time always flow. Urban time. Island time. The time of old music. The time of the future's electronic sounds. The time of humor. The time of daily life.

When thinking about YMO, Hosono's presence is immense. Because of him, YMO did not become mere futurist electronic music. Within it lay folklore, the South, the scent of old records, humor, and human warmth. The presence of the earth, the wind, and islands mingled with the electronic sounds. Because of this, YMO never became too cold.

Though mechanical, the sound has a touch of humidity. Though urban, it feels on a journey. Though futuristic, it feels ancient. That twist is Hosono's true water vein.

The three members of YMO were looking in different directions. Takahashi: urbanity and moderation. Sakamoto: intellect and prayer. Hosono: folklore and the space in between. Of course, they cannot be categorized that simply. Each was more complex and deeply blended. Yet, because the three stood in the same place, the strange equilibrium of YMO was born.

Electronic sounds. Pop. Fashion. Criticism. Humor. Global strategy. Japanese and English. East and West. City and folklore. All of it resonated within a single band.

YMO was a highly unusual vehicle for Japanese music to enter the global stage. They did not simply present 'Japaneseness' naively. Rather, they knew that Japaneseness was already an image constructed from the outside, and on that basis, they deliberately played the part, chose the machine, leaned into the caricature, and made it pop. I find this to be an incredibly sophisticated act of editing.

Connecting with the world does not mean simply presenting your authentic self. Sometimes, it is necessary to first accept how you are seen and then rearrange that gaze. YMO achieved this through music. That is why listening to them now is not merely nostalgic; rather, we can understand certain aspects better today.

AI, globalization, pop culture, the Japan image, Asia, technology, the body—when we contemplate these subjects, YMO has not grown old. In fact, they were ahead of us. The relationship between human and machine. The relationship between Japan and the world. The relationship between the authentic and the copy. The relationship between tradition and the future. The relationship between humor and criticism. YMO gave these concepts the form of sound.

Now, the three will never gather in the same place again. Takahashi is gone. Sakamoto is gone. Hosono continues his activities today. The announcements of new works, exhibitions, and live performances show that the water vein of Haruomi Hosono flows in the present tense. Yet, the equilibrium of the three that was YMO will never return to the stage. This leaves a quiet loneliness.

Strangely, however, the water vein of sound remains. Takahashi's moderation still resides in various forms of music today. Sakamoto's margin and prayer remain, as do Hosono's folklore and lightness. Even though the band called YMO has ended, there is something that continues to flow in the music that followed.

Cornelius, Sketch Show, Rei Harakami, yanokami, tofubeats, Clammbon, MONDO GROSSO—the editing sensibility after the Shibuya-kei movement, the silence of Japanese electronic music, and the sensory experience of playing the city and the margin simultaneously. Somewhere, the water vein of YMO resides.

It is not a direct similarity. At a deeper level, it remains in how sound is treated, how distance is kept from the world, how lightness is employed, and how space is framed. A water vein is invisible from the surface, but it wells up unexpectedly—in the electronic tone of a song, the dry texture of a voice, the moderation of a rhythm, the placement of a silence, or the lightness of a jest. I believe YMO became this silent underground water vein.

Bands end. People pass. Eras change. Equipment evolves. The way music is consumed shifts. Yet, the water vein remains. This does not merely mean that the works are preserved in the Observation Archives; it means that the music continues to flow through other bodies.

Those who grew up listening to YMO create new sounds. A generation that does not know YMO listens to music influenced by them. Overseas musicians rediscover Japanese electronic music and city pop. AI learns from past sounds, and someone uncovers old footage, listening to it in a different context. Sound does not flow in a straight line; it travels underground, takes detours, changes names, shifts genres, and dwells in different vessels. Still, it is connected somewhere.

Perhaps listening to YMO is like leaning in to hear that water vein. The three will never stand in the same room again, but the connection of the sounds they created has not ended.

Within the electronic sound lies the city. Within the city lies folklore, and within folklore lies the jest. Within the jest lies criticism, and within criticism lies the margin to think. Within that space, the sound is still playing.

More than a band, YMO was a mechanism for the Japanese to connect with the world. And the water vein opened by this device quietly flows on, even after the three are no longer in the same place.

© SHIRO & Co.

First published: 2026-06-22