ARCHIVE
PHEW
Our Likeness (reissue, 1992) MUTE 6/10
Japanese Germanophile’s scattergun Mute debut
THE SPECIALIST
JÜRGEN SIECKMEYER
BORN Hiromi Moritani in Osaka, Japan, Phew began her career as the vocalist of seminal Japanese post-punk group Aunt Sally, with their sole 1979 LP influenced by her teenage obsessions with the Ramones, Television and the Sex Pistols. Phew, however, was moving far quicker and had already amassed a much broader palette to her Aunt Sally bandmates, quickly progressing to recording her debut single a year later with Ryuichi Sakamoto. The 7” “Finale”/“Urahara” set the precedent for a relentlessly idiosyncratic career that continues to this day, and 2021’s fantastic New Decade.