Mika Yonamine: Aisho no Uta

This is a four track mini-album (or maxi-single?) released by singer and sanshin player Mika Yonamine who was born in Osaka and now lives in Okinawa. In 2006 she won the Kyoen no Shimauta contest when she was just 17 and this is her debut CD.

Yonamine sings so beautifully and with such nuanced emotion that it comes as a bit of a surprise to discover that this is her first recording. Her sanshin is joined now and then by keyboards and guitars, but only to add a few touches and it never descends into the tackiness of some other shimauta performances.

The first song ‘Harumachibana’ was written by Heikou Miyagi who also writes another of the songs, ‘Shin Nageki no Koi’, on which he and Yonamine share the vocals. The one traditional track is a lovely version of ‘Nakuni’ which then runs straight into ‘Yanbaru Timatu’.

There can be no doubt that Okinawan music is still in a healthy state when there are young singers like this around. Yonamine is excellent on this short set of generally slower songs. A whole album like this might be too one-paced but at around 20 minutes there are no doubts whatever about this one. It’s simply superb.

Aisho no Uta is released on Mika Yonamine’s own label. (MIKA-01)

New Basque releases

Three new releases from Elkar record company which is based in the Basque Country’s Donostia-San Sebastian. Two of these are albums by established artists while the third is a debut mini-album.

The singer-songwriter Ruper Ordorika has cult status in his homeland and beyond as a craftsman of fine songs. His long career has included membership of a group dedicated to linking music and literature and he has also worked with different groups of musicians as well as being a solo singer. On his new album Hodeien Azpian (Below the Clouds) he composes all eleven songs and plays acoustic and electric guitars with some help from bass, keyboards and drums. His deep voice is reminiscent of Benito Lertxundi but he has his own style and this album finds him in a subtle and subdued mood for the most part.

Another musician who has been around for a while is the singer Gari whose new album Ez Da Amaiera (It’s Not the End) is probably his best yet. It’s definitely his most adventurous and diverse. After a fairly mundane opening with some unremarkable rock songs he goes into a Basque version of the American civil rights song ‘We Shall Overcome’ entitled ‘Eutsiko Diogu’ and from here onwards it becomes a different album altogether with the gentle, melodic ‘No Space No Time’ and then a whole mix of different songs using horns, strings, acoustic guitars and some unaccompanied group singing. Gari wrote the music for most of these songs with co-writers supplying the lyrics.

Finally, a new band Izaki Gardenak (Transparent Beings) has released a five track mini-album debut Itsasargiak (Sea Light). Bright things are expected from them and this is a good start with some melodic songs, big choruses and a lush, warm production. All of their songs and those on the other albums here are sung in Euskara, the language of the Basques. Ruper Ordorika’s album has French and Spanish translations of the lyrics in the CD booklet.

www.elkarargitaletxea.com

Mongol 800: Good Morning Okinawa

Okinawan trio Mongol 800 have been celebrating their 15^th anniversary this year. The guitar, bass and drums indie band released a Best compilation in January and have since made a new CD Good Morning Okinawa which is their sixth full length album. Mongol 800 began as high school students in Okinawa and went on to have big commercial success with their second album Message which has sold 3 million copies. While their music is a lot more rock than roots there are always strong indications of their island background in their lyrics, and concerns about Okinawan issues run throughout the new album.

Good Morning Okinawa begins with that most traditional of Okinawan openers ‘Kagiyade-Fuu’ which starts sedately and then dissolves into a very different rock arrangement. The title track then urges Okinawans to take action to realize their island dreams and change the world. ‘Rise and Shine’ is another good song which shows off their typically bright, powerful and upbeat melodies. But the outstanding song is ‘Bougainbilly’ which outlines the plight of Okinawa’s beautiful nature constantly under threat from occupation by American military bases and notes with irony the contradiction of trying to make peace with helicopters and weapons.

The exotic tropical island scene on the front cover contrasts with a similar picture on the back, but this time the view is obscured by the barbed wire and fence of a military base. Several songs are sung in a mixture of Japanese and English and two tracks – the love songs ‘Forget Me Not’ and ‘Tomorrow’ – are entirely in English. With the exception of the opening melody, all songs are written by members of the band who arranged and produced the album. The bulk of the songwriting is by main vocalist and bass player Kiyosaku Uezu. Toru Yonaha joins them on some tracks and plays sanshin, fue and sanba.

Good Morning Okinawa is another fine example of the kind of guitar based rock for which Mongol 800 are well-known. Not everything works equally well but the best songs sound fresh and strong. They are currently touring Japan in support of the album. Further details, including a biography and discography with English translations, are available at their website:

http://www.mongol800.jp

Good Morning Okinawa is released by Highwave.

Lucy: Koi no Yoisura Bushi

A new CD by Okinawan-Peruvian singer Lucy is always welcome and her third offering has just been released. This one is a mini-album containing five songs plus an instrumental version of the title track. The title song ‘Koi no Yoisura Bushi’ was written by Hitoshi Kume and Lucy’s performance of it won the Miuta Taisho Grand Prix. This is an annual contest begun in 1990 and sponsored by Radio Okinawa in which the best newly composed shimauta of each year is chosen.

‘Koi no Yoisura Bushi’ is a fine successor to the list of winners and Lucy’s singing is impeccable as ever on this lively song. On these recordings she sings and plays sanshin and is joined by Nao on taiko and mentor Shizuko Oshiro on sanshin. There are also contributions from koto, fue and hayashi. The result is a set of songs which have more of a classical feel to them despite most being shimauta rather than traditional minyo. One song was written by Oshiro who also arranges the music for the second song ‘Koi ji Makura’.

By far the longest track here is the ten minute ‘Yaeyama Sodachi’ and this is followed by the traditional ‘Tsuki nu Mapiroma Bushi’ which is another song from the Yaeyama Islands whose songs are often very different from those of Okinawa’s main island. It’s good to hear Yaeyama songs sung by Lucy as she has a real sensitivity for them and manages to convey their emotions in just the right way. The recording is also very much a team effort with each musician playing a vital part in the overall sound. The production is by Masahiro Takara.

Lucy continues to develop as a singer and musician and has now made three quite different albums, each one equally rewarding in its own way. She appears to be at home on both modern and traditional songs from all parts of the Ryukyu Islands and her grounding in classical Ryukyu music is particularly evident on the new CD. The next full-length album will no doubt be another departure but in the meantime this is an excellent release.

Koi no Yoisura Bushi is released on Qwotchee Records.

My 2011 interview with Lucy for fRoots magazine is on the Features page of The Power of Okinawa website:

http://www.powerofokinawa.com/features/Lucy%20-%20Root%20Salad.html

Benito Lertxundi: Oroimenaren Oraina

This latest addition to Benito Lertxundi’s impressive catalogue is a more subdued and gentle album than its predecessor Itsas Ulu Zolia (2008) but one in which the singer-songwriter from the Spanish Basque Country shines as ever. Lertxundi is one of the pioneers of Basque popular song and his music is intrinsically linked with the culture of his people in whose language he sings. Now a veteran at 70 years of age this is (by my reckoning) his 16^th album in a long career that stretches back to his debut release in 1971.

On Oroimenaren Oraina he sings and plays guitar accompanied by a group of musicians including Pello Ramirez on cello and accordion, and long-term collaborator Olatz Zugasti on backing vocals, harp, synthesizers and programming. The ten songs were all written or co-written by Lertxundi and this time are less directly concerned with Basque issues, politics and identity and more generally with poetic themes and reflections on life in general.

It’s hard not to listen to some of this and not be reminded of Leonard Cohen especially on songs such as ‘Zuhaitzen Denbora’ (‘The Time of Trees’) where he is joined on vocals by Olatz Zugasti who is herself an outstanding singer and musician in the Basque tradition. The best song on the album, however, is Lertxundi’s composition ‘Laket Dut’ (‘I Take Pleasure’) which finds the singer in typically deep-voiced passion and with a lyric and melody of real beauty.

Benito Lertxundi

It’s also easy to argue that if Lertxundi’s albums had been released by one of the major corporations – and sung in the English language – he might well be jostling Cohen and the big Western songwriters in worldwide popularity and record sales. For those willing to seek out interesting singers and musicians from outside the Western mainstream Benito Lertxundi will be a very rewarding discovery. The CD booklet contains the original lyrics in Euskara (Basque) and also has translations of all the songs in Spanish, French and English.

Oroimenaren Oraina is released by Elkar.

www.elkarargitaletxea.com

Bob Brozman RIP

The sad news has come through of the death of American virtuoso guitarist and ethnomusicologist Bob Brozman who was found dead at his home in California on 26th April having apparently taken his own life at the age of 59. Brozman was a superb guitarist famed for his wide-ranging interest in many different kinds of music. He was especially renowned for his study of the blues and for his great involvement in Hawaiian music but his eclecticism meant that he travelled the world discovering and collaborating with musicians from many different genres and backgrounds while always remaining sensitive and sympathetic to the musical environments he found himself in. His many albums included collaborations with musicians from Hawaii, India, Okinawa, Reunion Island, and Papua New Guinea. In 2007 he even made an album Lumiere on which he played all the instruments in a variety of different styles, building up each instrumental part layer upon layer to form what he called the Bob Brozman Orchestra.

In 2000 Brozman and the Okinawan musician Takashi Hirayasu made the album Warabi Uta which was recorded on the Yaeyama island of Taketomi. It was subsequently released worldwide as Jin Jin/Firefly. The album was a groundbreaking project of startling simplicity and originality with just Hirayasu’s voice and sanshin and Brozman’s guitar on a set of Okinawan children’s songs. The pair made another album the following year, Nankuru Naisa, which this time was recorded at a studio close to Brozman’s home in Santa Cruz. Around this time I met Bob Brozman for a lengthy chat while he was touring Japan and the interview is included in The Power of Okinawa. On publication of the book he wrote to congratulate me and was full of praise and enthusiastic comments. During our meeting he was enormously helpful and interesting on the technical side of the music which I knew less about and he was full of imaginative ideas and theories. Bob Brozman never became a big commercial star but he was in a way more important than that and there was nothing he couldn’t do with a guitar.

FC Ryukyu

The football (soccer) season has been under way for a few weeks and yesterday I made my first visit to see Okinawa’s only professional team FC Ryukyu. The Ryukyu team play in the JFL which is the third tier of Japanese football. A good start has been made this season and after the first few matches Ryukyu are in 3rd place in the 18 team league. Unfortunately, a chance to go top of the table was missed yesterday when the match against mid-table Honda ended in a 1-1 draw, despite Ryukyu leading for much of the game through a penalty converted by Shunta Takahashi. Ryukyu’s opponents had to play for more than an hour with ten men after a sending off but were able to come back with a late equalizer.

Despite Ryukyu’s ambitions to achieve promotion to J2 there is still only a relatively small fan base in Okinawa. A strong football culture has yet to be established on the island and the sport is some way below baseball in popularity. The club also suffers from not having a home ground of its own and most matches are being played this season at Okinawa Athletic Park (Kensogo Undo Koen) close to Nakagusuku Bay. Plans are being made, however, for Okinawa to have its own purpose-built football stadium in the future.

Pre-match entertainment at yesterday’s match was provided by Okinawan salsa band Kachimba 1551.

Some pictures from yesterday:

Ryukyu fans before the kick-off

Takahashi and team-mates celebrate the goal with an Okinawan katcharsee dance

Thanking the fans after the match

FC Ryukyu’s next home match is at Okinawa Athletic Park on Monday 6th May (a national holiday) and is against Parceiro Nagano, kick-off 15.00.