Quiet Life

Released December 1979 via Hansa, with the UK release following in January 1980, Quiet Life was Japan's third and final album for the label, cut mainly at AIR in London with John Punter producing. Steve Jansen called Punter the sixth band member, and Punter mixed the record as a wall of sound: Richard Barbieri's long-held synth tones, Mellotron choirs on "Halloween," strings swelling under "In Vogue" and "The Other Side of Life," and Mick Karn's slippery, melodic bass sliding underneath it all. Over the top Sylvian croons, cool and distant, a singer who had absorbed late-70s Bowie and Roxy Music and came out sounding entirely like himself.

Barbieri later said the band "discovered sophistication, subtlety and nuance," and the restraint is audible in every bar. The album reached No. 53, Japan's first chart album in the UK. The title track became a UK hit when it was issued as a single in August 1981, reaching No. 19, and a reworking of Lou Reed's "All Tomorrow's Parties," cut at DJM Studios, went to No. 38 in 1983. Duran Duran's John Taylor named Karn a big influence. The record's longer legacy is how many bands learned from it to sound expensive and haunted at the same time.

This is the BMG reissue of March 5, 2021: half-speed remastered, pressed on 180g vinyl, in a gatefold.