Exorcising Ghosts is a compilation album by the British band Japan, released in November 1984 by record label Virgin. This career spanning ‘Best of’ features three recordings from the band’s early career on the Hansa Records label (including 1979’s “Quiet Life”) but mainly focuses on material from their two seminal studio albums on Virgin Records; Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1980) and Tin Drum (1981). It features three recordings from the band's early career on the Hansa Records label (such as 1979's Quiet Life) but mainly focuses on material from their two studio albums on Virgin Records; Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1980) and Tin Drum (1981). The LPs are housed in a gatefold sleeve with printed inner bags, a print of the band, the all important Abbey Road half-speed master certificate, and a cover-empathetic obi strip. This career spanning ‘Best of’ features three recordings from the band’s early career on the Hansa Records label (including 1979’s Quiet Life) but mainly focuses on material from their two seminal studio albums on Virgin Records; Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1980) and Tin Drum (1981).

Quiet Life' and 'Ghosts' sound immense on this pressing and that's just a couple of the highlights, a very enjoyable and superbly packaged release. It’s notable for a few song variations, including the 1981 remix of ‘Taking Islands in Africa’ and the extended version of ‘The Art of Parties’. Exorcising Ghosts was compiled and produced in consultation with lead singer David Sylvian two years after Japan dissolved.Seven years after the release of Exorcising Ghosts, Japan recorded a new studio album, but under the new moniker Rain Tree Crow. I used to have this on vinyl and it includes all their best known material from 'Quiet Life', 'Ghosts' and 'Night Porter' to the less familiar but equally brilliant 'Other Side of Life'. It features three recordings from the band’s early career on the Hansa Records label (including 1979’s ‘Quiet Life’) but largely focuses on material from their two studio albums on Virgin Records; Gentlemen Take Polaroids (1980) and Tin Drum (1981).

It must be mentioned that the selection of tracks was most definitely geared towards the Japanese market, with a large proportion of tracks previously unavailable on an album in that country. As to fit the album onto a single disc, the original CD release omitted five of the sixteen tracks; "Swing", "A Foreign Place", "Taking Islands in Africa", "Sons of Pioneers" and "Voices Raised in Welcome, Hands Held in Prayer". Mastering on LP1 was warm but a bit murky (vocals), however the instrumentation definitely did seem crisper and more detailed - just a shame neither copy were playable throughout. Luckily, for me, I'm reasonable happy with the 11 tracks here - the listener gets comfortably more than 60 minutes of music and there are a number of classics included such as the marvellous 'Ghosts' - definitely one of the best singles of the 1980s, 'Nightporter' - a beautifully subtle song and surely too brilliant to have been released as a single, the superb 'The Other Side Of Life' as well as the pacey 'Quiet Life' and the classy 'Visions Of China'. Exorcising Ghosts' represents an interesting cross-section of much of the best material released by Japan in their all too brief career in the early 1980s.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. It's also for me really worth having for the both sides of the pre-Tin Drum 12" Art of Parties single, with Life Without Buildings b-side (one of their finest tracks for me) that has never been re-issued. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. The album was compiled and produced in consultation with lead singer David Sylvian, two years after Japan dissolved. And while I was always a bit dismissive of this compilation because I had all of the tracks, listening to it now, it's really well sequenced - it flows really well.

David Sylvian and Mick Karn etc produced some great songs during their time together and this CD encapsulates that period brilliantly. Unfortunately, what was true in Japan was not true in the UK; therefore, the album's promotion, mentioning 'unreleased tracks', was incorrect for the domestic market, attracting criticism at the time. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Exorcising Ghosts (1984) is a 16-track 2LP set compiled and produced in consultation with lead singer David Sylvian, two years after Japan dissolved. This new 2022 pressing is really excellent - there's detail I can hear that I have never heard before.

Not sure if this just applies to later batches as couldn't find anyone else commenting about warped vinyl. The print, has been made from a high-resolution scan of the original 5” x 4” colour transparency of the actual painting used for the album’s cover.

Japan’s 1984 compilation Exorcising Ghosts will be reissued as a half-speed mastered 2LP vinyl set, in October. If you are expecting to hear a comprehensive collection of all the band's chart singles then I'm afraid you will be disappointed; similarly, because this is a truncated version of the original vinyl LP which featured 16 titles, other devoted fans of the group will be annoyed. It also gives a good idea of what the band were about by including a couple of interesting instrumentals - A Foreign Place the Quiet Life b-side in particular sounds really good here. Besides top 40 hit singles like " Quiet Life", " Visions of China", " Ghosts", and " Nightporter", the double-album set includes album tracks like "Methods of Dance", "Talking Drum" and "Swing" alongside a selection of rarities such as the single B-sides "A Foreign Place" and "Life Without Buildings", the 1981 remix of "Taking Islands in Africa", the instrumental studio recording "Voices Raised in Welcome, Hands Held in Prayer" included on 1983's live album Oil on Canvas and the 12" mix of " The Art of Parties".Limited edition print of the complete mixed media painting made for use on the gatefold album cover of Japan’s compilation double album Exorcising Ghosts (1984).