Track Listing

1. Gentlemen Take Polaroids
2. Swing
3. Burning Bridges
4. My New Career
5. Methods Of Dance
6. Ain't That Peculiar
7. Nightporter
8. Taking Islands In Africa
9. Experience Of Swimming
10. Width Of A Room
11. Taking Islands In Africa

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #116212 in Music
• Released on: 2003-09-15
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Limited Edition, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered

CD Description
Japan's fourth album is a study in serious mood development, made even more so with the inclusion of the instrumental B-side, "The Experience of Swimming". Japan's subtle mixture of spidery guitars, lush saxophones, and elastic bass is fleshed out with David's Sylvian's effortless vocals and some truly classy synthesizer work that, somehow, doesn't seem to have dated. Mick Karn pulls double duty with the sax and bass and, as usual, his work is what grounds the band--for proof, see "My New Career" or "Taking Islands in Africa".
Among the standout tracks, "Burning Bridges" borrows more thana few notions from the collaborations between David Bowie and Brian Eno, but nevertheless manages to present a beautiful soundscape that is fresh and dynamic. With a phrase from one song becoming the title of another, Sylvian's lyrics are more oblique than usual. These interrelations don't seem to lead anywhere, but that is hardly the point--much of the time, he seems more interested in how the words sound than whatthey say. The record also includes a wonderfully infectiouscover of the Marvin Gaye classic, "Ain't That Peculiar". This is the modern-rock version of smoky, late-night jazz.

Customer Reviews

About Time Already - Wonderful CD!
David Sylvian and boys: thank you! This is a wonderful surprise for fans. I LOVE this album: "Gentlemen Take Poloroids" will always be my favourite Japan album, and this newly remastered CD is a treat.

Up until this new re-release, there has been a poorly mastered CD floating around, which is the only one available to us barbarians and cowboys living over here in the Colonies. I fell in love with this album in 1986, and it has remained a personal fav ever since.

There isn't much need be said that any of these other reviews haven't said well already. I will say a few choice things however: the title track has one of the longest sustains ending out of a song that I've ever heard - it's highly original and works incredibly well. "Aint That Peculiar" has one of the catchiest uses of syncopation I've ever heard. This band know rhythm like few other Brit New Wave acts did! The fretless bass playing of Mick Karn is some of the best bass that any muscian has ever put to record, and he's in rare form throughout "Gentlemen Take Poloroids".

In my opinion, the extra tracks that weren't originally on the vinyl LP are throwaway instrumentals for the most part, but I'd rather have them than not. The treat is the remix of "Taking Islands in Africa" one of my favourite Japan tracks.

I don't know what David Sylvian thinks about this record that he and his band made so long ago, but they should all be very proud! This CD has YET to receive even a fraction of all the praise it deserves on so many levels!
Thanks guys! We all owe you one for "Gentlemen Take Poloroids" - indeed, I can never fully repay the favor of all the joy this album has brought me throughout my life thus far.

Head and shoulders above the rest at that time
Just a short comment, I have owned this album since it was released way back when. I bought the CD as soon as it became available and will now buy this version. Twenty odd years ago it shone, and was IMHO a near perfect piece of vinyl as you were likely to find, in the arena of contemporary music. I still listen to it at least once a month today and although I know every nuance backwards it still sounds as fresh and as unique and as ethereal as it did the first time I heard it. The reason for that is it's completeness. Not a sound out of place, not a not too many or too few. Mick Karn's bass is incredibly fluid and varying (he couldn't read music at the time and was self taught) Steve Jansens drums propelled the album along beautifully. Every track is a gem, no filler here. Nightporter is reminiscent of Eric Satie's Trois Gynopedies, but it stands up well in it's own right. Apart from the superb performances and production it's also a homage to a golden era in electronic music. It stands at a crossroads; analogue synths were the best they would ever be in terms of sounds and digital synths were only a year or so away. Many would agree that the sounds an old Prophet 5 or Oberheim could make after a fair bit of knob twiddling was far more ear pleasing than even synths available today. Hence why these machines fetch such good money nowadays.
Polaroids is the epitome of what these "old" machines were capable of in the right hands, and with Japan they were defintely in the right hands. The album is timeless and is still growing on me nearly 25 years later!

Mirrorball
Originally released twenty-three years back, Gentlemen Take Polaroids has remained a sparkling pop album.
Now, in its re-mastered form, it shines like a diamond.

Mixing deep melancholy (Nightporter) with what actually had been Electroclash long before the term was coined (Taking Islands In Africa) - and stomping jazz-tinted extravaganza (Swing), David Sylvian and his partners prove that the 1980s were not all Pet Shop Boys, New Order, and The Smiths. Japan's combination of gloom, sheen and gorgeously elegant camp stood out back then and it most certainly will for years to come.
Produced by the improbably sensitive John Punter, Gentlemen Take Polaroids is a flawless gem.

A special treat for fans are three extra tracks that include a Steve Nye remix of Taking Islands In Africa.

Pawel Lopatka, Krakow, Poland