“We didn’t really fit with anyone until New Romantic came along,” says Richard Barbieri of Japan, the synth-powered art-rock pioneers who shone briefly but brightly from 1974 to 1982. The future Porcupine Tree keyboardist secured musical immortality – alongside vocalist David Sylvian, bassist Mick Karn, drummer Steve Jansen and guitarist Rob Dean – over a run of five albums, peaking with 1981’s Tin Drum.
“By the time we got to Tin Drum we were very into world music,” Barbieri says. “It was a combination of that with electronics, and a bit of Stockhausen thrown in. That’s when we got into sampling, and we were listening to things like David Byrne and Brian Eno’s My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.“
