Adolescent Sex

About

Before Japan frontman David Sylvian carried himself with a Brian Ferry élan, before the funk-inspired trysts with Robert Fripp and acoustic and jazz-intoned solo steps—in other words, before he truly became David Sylvian—he led the teenaged version of Japan, a quintet that was far prettier than The New York Dolls. This 1978 debut album finds the band’s fascinations with Tamla-Motown, glitter rock, funk, and reggae wrapped into concise rockist blasts, mixing disco backbeats with distorted guitars and raw synths. It’s an astounding glam-dance slam, like what you’d imagine blaring from an Indonesian whorehouse in some lost Martin Scorsese film. Sylvian’s fragile, feminine mien only adds weight to his purposely art-school trashy vocals, and that places him firmly down on the seedy avenues, whether he’s one of the “Lovers on Main Street” or a jaded tourist in “Communist China” or the disconnected practitioner of “Adolescent Sex” or the singer helping to sleazily deconstruct “Don’t Rain on My Parade” into a perfectly detached song of existential indifference.

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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