Haruomi Hosono: ‘Yours Sincerely’
Saturday, September 12, 2026
Doors open 7:30 p.m. Session starts 8:00 p.m.
Omelas Listening Room
San Juan
A full-album listening session of ‘Yours Sincerely’, Haruomi Hosono’s first new album in seven years: released by Ghostly International on Friday, September 11, and played front to back in our room the very next evening.
Founding member of Happy End and Yellow Magic Orchestra, Hosono has spent five decades moving through folk, city pop, exotica, ambient and electronic music, quietly reshaping each one as he passed. Every new generation of listeners finds its own way back to his catalog.
‘Yours Sincerely’ is his twenty-third studio album: ten new songs written over two years, reaching in English for the Japanese ideas of omoiyari, jihi and boseiai: consideration, compassion, and a mother’s love.
One session only this night, at 8:00 p.m.
The album is available to pre-order here: vinyl, cassette or digital, direct from Ghostly International.
Tickets are sold in advance only—there will be no door sales.
100% of ticket proceeds go directly to the featured artist—or to the artist or curator leading the session.
La sesión terminó — la música sigue.
The session ended — the music continues.
Sobre el artista · About the artist
Lee más sobre el artista · Read more about the artist
The person
Haruomi Hosono (Tokyo, 1947) is a bassist, singer, songwriter and producer. He made his professional debut with Apryl Fool in 1969, formed Happy End in 1970 (the band the official histories treat as the starting point of rock sung in Japanese), began his solo career with Hosono House in 1973, and co-founded Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978. Five decades on, the same curiosity runs through folk, exotica, funk, electronic and ambient music, film scores, songs and productions for other artists, and labels of his own.
The arc
Hosono doesn’t hop between genres: he translates worlds. American roots music into rock in Japanese (Happy End); an imaginary port built from exotica and studio craft (the “tropical trilogy” of 1975 to 1978: Tropical Dandy, Bon Voyage co., Paraiso); machine rhythm into pop (Cochin Moon, then YMO’s techno-pop); then the stillness of environments (Watering a Flower, a 1984 commission for MUJI stores that pointed toward what he called “sightseeing music”: music to wander with); and since 2011, a late return to voice, standards and the intimacy of a small room (HoSoNoVa, Heavenly Music, Hochono House). The short version: home, an imagined elsewhere, the machine, the environment, home again.
You’ve heard him without knowing it
Light in the Attic’s reissues carried his catalog out of Japan and a younger generation found its way back: if you’ve heard Mac DeMarco sing “Honey Moon” in Japanese, you’ve heard Hosono.
Tonight’s record
Yours Sincerely (2026) is his twenty-third studio album: ten new songs, produced and mixed by Hosono himself, his first new music in more than seven years. “Note of Mothership” arrived on his 79th birthday; “Sincerely” revisits the Moonglows song with new Japanese lyrics, and the letter’s sign-off gave the album its name.
His records, if tonight sent you looking
Hosono House (1973) · Tropical Dandy (1975) · Paraiso (1978) · Cochin Moon (1978) · Philharmony (1982) · Watering a Flower (1984) · Hochono House (2019).