This album was released in May 1982 as one of the landmark first releases from YEN, a new record label founded in 1982 by Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, alongside Haruomi Hosono’s *Philharmony*. (Incidentally, the label’s third release was Yukihiro Takahashi’s “What, Me Worry?”) Produced by Yukihiro Takahashi, Haruomi Hosono also participated as a musician on several tracks. Ryuichi Sakamoto also contributed to this album as an arranger and performer.
Although he had been a guitarist with the Plastics, he switched to the saxophone after the band’s breakup. This album is a pivotal work from the period when he was active as a member of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s “B-2 NUIT” and was striving to establish his own musical identity as a solo artist and saxophonist, incorporating performances on his original, self-made instruments “ALPS” and “ALPS2,” it strikes an exquisite balance between a post-classical, contemporary musical approach and pop/listening music, making it a one-of-a-kind, unique, unclassifiable masterpiece of instrumental music.
The typography and cover design, created by Ryuichi himself—which foreshadowed his later win of the prestigious ADC Award for graphic design—also became a major talking point at the time of the album’s release.
Hajime Tachibana, hailed as one of the “Big Three of Techno-Pop,” has been active not only in music but also in the field of graphic art for over 40 years since his solo debut in 1982, following the breakup of The Plastics. Following the release of his all-time best album *hajimeht* in January 2025, his classic YEN-era albums *H* and *Hm* were simultaneously reissued on CD and LP. Both have been remastered by Yoshinori Sunahara.