When is a reunion not a reunion? Does adopting a new name but maintaining the aesthetic blueprint count?
Wanting to break with their collective musical past, the members of Japan reunited as Rain Tree Crow almost a decade after their last album. But after the resulting self-titled album [Virgin-1991] was deemed not commercial enough to survive under the RTC banner, a desire to revert to the Japan moniker was nixed by vocalist David Sylvian, who exerted so much influence over the proceedings it became a solo album in everything but name.
And so concludes the discography of Japan and, with the death of bassist Mick Karn in 2011, the Rain Tree Crow album is now the band’s last musical statement.
