Yellow Magic Orchestra Co-Founder (and Harry Styles Inspiration) Haruomi Hosono Announces New Album

Haruomi Hosono, co-founder of pioneering Japanese electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra, announced Monday (May 18) that he’ll release his 23rd studio album this fall.

The project, Sincerely Yours, will drop via Ghostly International on Sept. 11. In a statement about the project, Hosono says that “I am now 78 years old, but from here on, I feel a growing curiosity toward the unknown music that my new self will create, while also embracing the music of my former self—as if I now carry two musical worlds within me.” 

In conjunction with the album release, Hosono will play a pair of shows: a Sept. 16 performance at New York’s Radio City Music Hall and a Sept. 20 set at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.

After forming in Tokyo the late ’70s, Yellow Magic Orchestra created boundary-pushing sonic landscapes that put them on par with Kraftwerk in terms of innovation and influence, with the work of YMO going on to inspire artists working across techno, ambient, synth-pop and beyond. Hosono’s work with YMO, with folk-rock band Happy End and as a solo artist has also been greatly influential to artists well beyond the electronic world, with Mac DeMarco, Vampire Weekend‘s Ezra Koenig and Harry Styles all citing Hosono as an influence.

In a 2022 interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, Styles revealed that his 2022 album Harry’s House “was named after Hosono; he had an album in the ’70s called Hosono House. I spent that little chunk in Japan and heard that record, and I was like, ‘I love that.'”

Released in 1973, Hosono House was Hosono’s debut solo album and contains 11 totally delightful rock and folk-rock songs.