Ayano Uema: Uta-sha

Ayano Uema is without doubt one of the best young singers of Okinawan traditional song. She is also a songwriter and an accomplished sanshin player. Uta-sha is her third solo album and the first release since Majun (2009). A debut album Negai Boshi was released in 2006 when she was 21. Her two solo albums were both relatively short with just eight tracks apiece but the new album is almost an hour long and contains twelve songs including a ‘bonus track’.

The big difference now is that Uta-sha has been released on the major Columbia label. This means it has already received much advance publicity and is being hailed as her ‘major debut album’ – a phenomenon that strangely still seems to excite Okinawans and Japanese alike. (Many other musicians in the 21^st century just get on with making good music on their own terms which they release successfully in a variety of ways without the help of music corporations). Unfortunately, signing with a big label also means that along with the obvious advantages there is a danger that the artist becomes a product to be packaged and presented for a mainstream audience while the essence of what was good can be diluted or lost.

This is not necessarily to say that Uta-sha is the result of cynical manipulation by a big record company and Uema herself may be perfectly happy with the results. But the question is worth raising not least because Columbia is so eager to show off Uema as a young woman with strong Okinawan roots and she is pictured carrying her sanshin on the cover of the album.  Despite this, the sanshin is only heard on three songs. The predominant sound on Uta-sha is that of piano, guitar and strings against a rather bland, safe and predictable production.

The album opens with that most familiar of Okinawan songs ‘Asadoya Yunta’. This may seem an uninspired choice as it has been done so many times before.  However, Uema’s version is driven along nicely by sanshin and piano and she manages to make an old song sound fresh again. Less inspiring is ‘Tida Chichi nu Hikari~Amazing Grace’ which is performed quietly with just keyboards and uillean pipes and is sung in Uchinaguchi, but this has already been done much better by Misako Koja on her album Meguru Inochi as well as by (rather too many) others before.

‘Harikuyamaku’ comes midway through the album and is the only traditional Okinawan song. Uema gets a chance to play her sanshin here alongside guitar and percussion. The sanshin also appears on ‘Toone’ which is otherwise swamped in an unimaginative rock arrangement. ‘Toone’ is one of three tracks – the others are ‘Imi Shijiku’ and ‘Koe Naki Inochi’ – which also appeared on Uema’s previous album Majun. Why on earth do we need them again? The businessmen at Columbia must think they are onto a winner with ‘Koe Naki Inochi’ as not only is this big ballad re-recorded for the new album but it’s included twice – the second time in a slightly different version as a ‘bonus track’.

Four of the original songs were co-written by Uema with the album’s co-producer Tatsuya Iju who also does some of the arranging. Choro Club make a guest appearance on ‘Imi Shijiku’ but it only adds to the general inertia. Altogether six different arrangers work on the twelve songs. These include Akira Inoue who did his best to spoil Yoriko Ganeko’s Kui nu Hana album several years ago with his over-lush meddling. In the end Uta-sha is still a decent album and Uema sings very well. But there is nothing vital, new or exciting about any of this and ultimately it runs the risk of being just a little dull and boring. If it’s Okinawan roots music you’re after then it’s probably best to look elsewhere.

Okinawa Konbi Uta Ketteiban

Okinawa Konbi Uta Ketteiban is the latest in a long list of compilation albums of Okinawan music. It’s also a companion to two previous releases on Tokyo’s Respect label which featured songs of celebration and songs of Ryukyu dances. The theme of this new album is ‘konbi uta’ – songs sung by duos. The term originated in the early 1960s as a result of the large number of duets which were performed during this fertile period in Okinawan minyo. It remains a popular genre today and this lengthy 17 track release showcases many of the most popular songs sung by duos. Among them are ‘Boshikuma’, Shoukichi Kina’s ‘Uwaki Bushi’, and the much performed ‘Juku nu Haru’.

Dance songs, love songs, and ‘asobi uta’ are all represented here. Among the many artists featured is the Okinawan-Peruvian singer Lucy Nagamine who sings two songs with Makoto Asage who is making his debut recording on this album.  Both studied with the Shizuko Oshiro minyo group and Lucy shows here that she is just as comfortable in this setting as she is with her other more contemporary work. Other notable performers include the duo known as Jinjin (Megumi Aragaki and Kazuya Jinbo), and Miyuki Kinjo (a pupil of Seijin Noborikawa) who sings with Yoshihiro Oshiro. Most of these songs will be familiar to anyone with more than a passing interest in Okinawan music and there are no real surprises. The songs are generally played in straightforward versions with traditional sanshin and taiko accompaniment.

Okinawa Konbi Uta Ketteiban is released on 20^th June by Tokyo’s Respect Records.

Shoukichi Kina: Nirai Pana

Shoukichi Kina’s new album Nirai Pana is his first release since a very disappointing mini-album eight years ago. Ominously, the track list for the new CD begins with another version of ‘Hana’. It’s the umpteenth time that Kina has recorded this admittedly classic song and the heart sinks at the prospect of yet another version of it. ‘Hana’ was included on his previous album and on numerous other albums before that so do we really need any more? Moving down the list of tracks, seven of the eleven songs here have already appeared on previous Kina albums, some of them more than once. Of the three ‘new’ songs by Kina, at least one of them has been around for more than 20 years.

So it’s clear from the outset that Nirai Pana is not the beginning of a new flurry of songwriting activity from Shoukichi Kina. Once that’s understood then it’s possible to listen to the album on its own terms. Nirai Pana is, in fact, being marketed as an ‘Okinawa Reversion 40^th Anniversary Album’ and is released tomorrow to coincide with the date when Okinawa was returned to Japan after 27 years of American rule. The original idea was for Kina to record a completely solo work but this has been modified and members of his band Champloose appear on some tracks mainly to provide additional colour with bass and keyboards. Misleadingly, the cover of the album shows Kina with an acoustic guitar. There is no guitar at all on the album and Kina accompanies himself with sanshin on almost every track.

Listening to the album comes as a great relief after these reservations for it’s soon apparent that this is an enormous improvement on its predecessor and is actually a rather fine piece of work. The difficult task with some of Kina’s other albums has been to capture the intensity and excitement of a Champloose performance. This can be missed in the studio or else come over as frantic chaos. There are no such problems here as this is very much a solo album in which Kina’s voice and sanshin are to the fore. And as he gets older – he turns 64 next month – his voice loses none of its expressive power and seems to be better than ever.

The songs have been chosen to elaborate a theme which touches on Okinawa’s beauty but also on its tragic past and uncertain future. It may be an album to commemorate the reversion but there is no celebration of Okinawa becoming part of Japan again. Rather, the songs invite us to think about the continuing problems of these islands torn between American and Japanese power. (Kina himself has even advocated Okinawan independence – at least before his career as a politician). In line with this theme is ‘Shimagwa 2012’ a new recording of a song from Kina’s 1977 debut album. It begins with the sampled sounds of political meetings and songs from the time just before reversion. These sounds are heard over a background of waves on the shore before Kina commences the unaccompanied vocal. The ending of the song evokes today’s situation with the sound of low-flying military aircraft almost drowning out Kina’s voice.

Of the other songs, there are new versions of some of his best compositions ‘Agarizachi’, ‘Jahana Noboru’ and ‘Umushirumun’. On the last of these, and on another song ‘Haisai Kuduchi’, background vocals are sung by two of the younger members of the Kina family, Masayo and Mariko-Stephanie. The one non-Kina song is a successful take on Teihan China’s ‘Nageki no ume’ which is reminiscent of some of the recordings on Kina’s excellent ‘traditional’ album Akainko. The pick of the three previously unreleased originals is the achingly beautiful ‘Omoibana’ which was recorded in 1991 by Tomoko Kina on her album Tanoshiki Asa. It’s one of the very best of Shoukichi Kina’s compositions and his own recording of it has been long overdue. ‘Omoibana’ is the highlight of this album.

So, this is not a groundbreaking album in any sense and it may well be that Kina will never surprise us again with a collection of brand new songs. It is, however, much better than we could have hoped for given the singer’s long immersion in the political world and his reluctance to record over the past few years. It’s good to have Shoukichi Kina back.

Nirai Pana is released on 15^th May on the Highwave label.

Shoukichi Kina ~ Live show and new release

Last night Shoukichi Kina gave a ‘Talk and Live’ performance at his club Chakra in Naha. The main topic under discussion was the problem of debris from the nuclear radiation areas of Japan following last year’s earthquake and tsunami. The live music which bookended the discussion included the inevitable ‘Hana’ (which he sang twice) and ‘Haisai Ojisan’ but also a lovely version of the song ‘Omoibana’.

Leaflet advertising the new album Nirai Pana

Afterwards Shoukichi gave me a copy of his new album Nirai Pana which is to be released next week on the 15th May to coincide with the 40th anniversary of Okinawa’s reversion to Japan. This long-awaited album is his first release for eight years and a review will follow sometime soon on this blog.

FC Ryukyu in Chatan

Despite the onset of the rainy season in Okinawa, the weather is bright and sunny with the temperature at 26 degrees yesterday. Okinawa’s only professional soccer team FC Ryukyu have made a good start to the new Japan Football League season. Yesterday’s match in Chatan ended in a 1-0 win over a strong V-Varen Nagasaki team, the goal coming from forward Shunta Takahashi. Attendances at home games are usually around 2,000 and the club is keen to attract more followers. Recently, even the players have been coming outside the ground after matches to greet the fans and thank them for their support. The stadium in Chatan is also adjacent to Sunset Beach where several people took advantage of the fine weather to swim in the sea. Here are some photos from yesterday:

The stadium in Chatan

With goalscorer Shunta Takahashi after the match

Sunset Beach is next to the stadium

Sunset Beach

Leaving after the match

Yasukatsu Oshima: Shimawataru ~ Across the Islands

Any new album by the highly rated Yaeyama singer Yasukatsu Oshima is a major event in Okinawan music. His new release Shimawataru ~ Across the Islands is even more keenly anticipated than most given the time that has elapsed since his previous recordings. It’s already five years since his collaborative album with jazz pianist Geoffrey Keezer and a whopping seven years since Oshima’s last solo album Shima Meguri ~ Island Journey.

Across the Islands doesn’t disappoint. Like all of Oshima’s work it seems to have been planned and executed with meticulous precision and his voice and sanshin are complemented once more by the use of a select band of hand-picked musicians. The main difference from his other albums is that all the songs this time are originals either written or co-written by Oshima. It might be easy to forget this as he draws so heavily on the tradition in writing them – both lyrically and musically – and most tracks could be mistaken for some of the old songs of his native islands.

He views the release of this album as a turning point in his career and says that it’s intended to be both a reflection on the past decade and a look forward to the future in which he plans to write more island influenced songs. Therefore, in addition to several brand new songs there is the inclusion of three older ones. ‘Kawa’ which opens the album was written several years ago but previously recorded only by Mika Uchizato. The two other songs revisited here are ‘Ryusei’ his tribute to the late Rinsho Kadekaru, and a song from his debut album, ‘Irayoi Tsukiyahama’, which was co-written with Begin member Eisho Higa. He also recorded a version on Island Journey with the Irish band Altan.

Of the new songs, the standout track is ‘Kunatsuyu’ written with another Begin member Masaru Shimabukuro. On this lovely song, surely destined to become an island classic, Oshima shares the vocal with Kanako Hatoma. The song depicts the interval where summer heads into its peak and people pray for a good harvest. This is preceded by another fine new song, ‘Matsuri no Ato’. The co-writer this time is the guitarist Kenji Kondo. ‘Matsuri no Ato’ was inspired by the tranquillity and night rain following an island festival. It’s the kind of moment that Oshima likes and he captures the atmosphere perfectly. Also worthy of note is ‘Hateruma’ another atmospheric piece about the southernmost island where Oshima’s ancestors came from. Unusually, the title track is the only song with no sanshin – just the acoustic guitar accompaniment of Kenji Kondo. As before, island drums on most tracks are played by Satoshi “Sunday” Nakasone, while Kanako Hatoma pops up several times with backing vocals, sanshin and sanba.

Hiroshi Yamaguchi (bouzouki, electric guitar) and Sakana Hosomi (organ, piano, electronics) – both from the Japanese band Heatwave – add some touches here and there but manage to remain restrained throughout. For this is not a flamboyant album and there are no great surprises. Instead Oshima offers another very accomplished performance of songs (plus one instrumental) and it’s to be hoped that we don’t have to wait as long as this for the next album. It will be interesting to see where this modern Okinawan music master goes from here.

Shimawataru ~ Across the Islands is released on Victor. The CD booklet contains English explanations and notes on all the songs.

Okinawan Art and Design in London

For those in the UK next week an Okinawan Art and Design Exhibition: ‘Loochoo Time’ is being held at the Crypt Gallery, St.Pancras Church, Euston Road, London NW1 2BA.

“In the second half of the 18^th century British Navy ships ran aground near Okinawa. The kindness and help of the Ryukyuan people at that time is well recorded. The British called Ryukyu “Loochoo”, and reported that they were deeply impressed by Ryukyuans’ culture and hospitality. The culture of the Ryukyu Dynasty still has a significant effect on both Okinawan artists and designers.”

In this exhibition, the artists and designers, who are all in some way influenced by Okinawan culture and traditions, have created works that respond in very personal ways to their conceptual thinking about time. On the opening evening there will also be performances of traditional Okinawan music and dance.

The exhibition will be held on these dates:

26 Thu – 29 Sun 12pm-7pm

30 Mon 12pm-5pm

Private view Wed 25th April  6:00pm – 9:00pm

Songs from the Edge of Japan

Last month I met Matt Gillan for the first time. He is the author of a new book, Songs from the Edge of Japan: Music-making in Yaeyama and Okinawa which has recently been published by Ashgate as part of the SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) Musicology Series. Matt is originally from the UK and he currently lectures in music at International Christian University in Tokyo. I was very pleased to meet him when he found time to visit my home in Okinawa on one of his research trips and we were able to spend some time chatting about many Okinawan music-related things.

Matt’s book is largely the result of fieldwork he carried out while living on the island of Ishigaki and its focus is on the songs and music of the Yaeyama Islands. He explores music in rituals; there is a chapter on lineages and preservation groups; and another on the annual Tubarama contest held on Ishigaki. Some of the Yaeyama musicians also covered in The Power of Okinawa are touched on in his final chapter ‘The Okinawa Boom – Local Music on the National Stage’ and these include Begin, Tetsuhiro Daiku, Yasukatsu Oshima and Yukito Ara.

This book is a work of scholarly research but also very readable. Matt Gillan is a musician himself and took part in several of the events he describes as a participant observer. In fact, it seems that he was so much in demand as a singer and sanshin player of traditional songs that he was in danger of becoming more of a participant than an observer.

The photo on the book’s cover is of the Miruku deity at the Harvest festival on Hatoma Island in 2002. Those with sharp eyes may also notice singers Kanako Hatoma and her father Takashi Hatoma in the background.

Isamu Shimoji Best

Miyako Island singer Isamu Shimoji has released a new major compilation to celebrate his ten years as a recording artist. The double album Isamu Shimoji Best: 10^th Anniversary contains 29 tracks as well as a 37 minute bonus DVD with promotional and live videos.

Shimoji first came to the attention of Okinawan music fans in 2002 with his debut single ‘Banta ga Nmari Zuma’. The song was sung in the Miyakufutsu dialect of his native island, which sounds completely different from other Okinawan languages, and it was the first time that most people – even in the Ryukyu Islands – had heard songs sung in this way. The new album is presented as “a decade of songs sung in Miyako dialect”. But Shimoji isn’t just a curiosity – he has also developed into a very good singer and songwriter and is still improving.

The two CDs are divided into a quieter one (‘Sei’) and a more lively one (‘Dou’). Shimoji has been a prolific recording artist with eight albums, several singles, two DVDs, and some joint recordings with fellow Miyako islander Satoru Shimoji and with Yaeyama singer Yukito Ara so there is plenty to choose from. Despite the care which has gone into the packaging of this album and the inclusion of Shimoji’s own notes on each song, there are no details of the musicians on individual songs nor information on the albums they were taken from which would have been helpful.

Shimoji plays acoustic guitar on nearly all of his songs with a complete absence of sanshin except for the one track where Yukito Ara appears. Nevertheless, he seems to capture the island spirit in ways which go beyond the playing of traditional instruments. (And the video for his song ‘Minshu no Yakudo’ has some fascinatingly brief glimpses of Miyako’s unique Pantu festival). Not all of his songs are equally successful and there are one or two that might have been better left out but the good thing is that his recent work, such as the superb ‘Reset’ from last year’s No Refuge, is his best yet. Two new recordings are also included while the whole project begins with that first single ‘Banta ga Nmari Zuma’.

Isamu Shimoji Best: 10^th Anniversary is released on Teichiku.

Oki meets Misako Oshiro: Kita to Minami

When I interviewed Misako Oshiro last year for a feature on her album with Kanako Horiuchi she mentioned in passing that Ainu singer and musician Oki had been in touch about doing some recording together. The new album just released Oki meets Misako Oshiro: Kita to Minami (North and South) is the result.

Veteran singer Oshiro is no stranger to collaborations. Years ago she sang and recorded with the late Rinsho Kadekaru and made a duet album with Naeko Seragaki. Just three years ago she made a joint album with Toru Yonaha and then another last year with her pupil Kanako Horiuchi. The title of this collaboration with Oki is very appropriate as these two great representative singers of their own unique cultures are from Hokkaido and Okinawa – the extreme north and south of Japan. The ten tracks they’ve recorded are mostly Okinawan traditional songs but there are two new compositions by Oki and there’s also a joyful and exuberant version of ‘Red Ojisan’ – the old Shoukichi Kina song from his 1977 debut album.

On several tracks Oki and Oshiro are joined by Kanako Horiuchi (another Hokkaido native, though not Ainu) and by some members of the Oki Dub Ainu Band. Oki himself produced the album and plays not just tonkori – the stringed instrument of the Ainu people that he has almost reinvented – but also guitar, bass, synthesizer and percussion. Oki’s tonkori accompanies Oshiro’s sanshin and vocal extremely well and the blend is particularly effective on two of the album’s later tracks ‘Ranku Bushi’ and ‘Hinsu Jurigwa’ which drives along almost like a Malian desert blues. Oki’s composition ‘Kita to Minami’ is another highlight.

Comparisons will inevitably be made with previous groundbreaking collaborations such as Takashi Hirayasu and Bob Brozman’s first album and the New York get together of Yasukatsu Oshima and Geoffrey Keezer. Kita to Minami is somewhat different in that Oshiro and Oki often go their own ways – Oshiro doesn’t appear on the title track or ‘Red Ojisan’ while Oki leaves Oshiro alone with just Horiuchi on taiko to perform ‘Nanyo Hamachidori’. Their collaboration though is a superb idea and shows off both Oshiro and Oki at their best. It’s already an early contender for my album of the year.

Kita to Minami is released on Tokyo’s Tuff Beats label.