I’ll never forget the first time I heard the great JAPAN. It was 1980 and a friend had the Virgin “Cash Cows” compilation and their cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t That Peculiar” from their “Gentlemen Take Polaroids” album appeared on that record. The music sounded like late period Roxy Music but was even more left field and accomplished. The rhythms in particular sounded like nothing I’d ever heard before, with the drums punctuating the beat at odd meters, inexorably snaking together with the sinuous fretless bass playing of Mick Karn. I was blown away for certain, but ironically, it took almost 20 years later for me to hear the original by Gaye! As I suspected, it bore almost no resemblance to the otherworldly approach that JAPAN took with the track.

I am thinking of this track today because I’ve been previewing my JAPAN BSOG® in the car this week and the cut from “Cash Cows” turned out to be an alternative take of the cut that surfaced there before becoming a B-Side to the re-release of “Nightporter” on 7″ in 1982! If anything, it was even better than the take included on the “Polaroids” album. I like how Richard Barbieri’s keyboards weave a spectral countermelody more prominently throughout the song.