This is the story of YMO’s formation in the late 1970s, in brief: Hosono, already a musical force in Japan after leading the influential rock group Happy End, assembles a crew of session players for his next solo album. This group includes a friend from college named Yukihiro Takahashi, as well as an up-and-coming arranger named Ryuichi Sakamoto. The jazzy exotica masterwork Paraiso, credited to Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band, is released in 1978. That same year, Hosono asks Takahashi and Sakamoto if they want to start a new project together. He proposes the new band as a “stepping stone” to greater heights in each of their solo careers. Takahashi agrees; after some initial hesitation, Sakamoto does, too.

Yellow Magic Orchestra is a Japanese electronic music band formed in Tokyo in 1978 by Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto. The group is considered influential and innovative in the field of popular electronic music.