Toru Yonaha: Rakuen ~Paradise~

Words such as ‘prolific’ and ‘ubiquitous’ always come to mind when writing about Okinawa’s Toru Yonaha who has been involved with so many different musical projects over the years. In recent times he came up with a three-album series of traditional and classical Okinawan songs. The last of these, Roots~Ryuraku Keisho, was one of my favourite albums of 2022.

Now he’s back again, but this time with another very different album, Rakuen ~Paradise~. This is a comparatively short seven track release comprising songs from several different composers and with just a little original music by Yonaha who also produced.

It all begins in a very cheery way with a cover of an early Shuken Maekawa song, ‘Sun Sun Paradise’. It gets the full band treatment and even has a guest backing vocal from Maekawa himself. This makes a good opener. The bright mood continues with what is probably the album’s highlight, a version of Mamoru Miyagi’s fine song ‘Noeru ~Timugukuru~’. This is also played with backing musicians in the familiar shimauta style with a warm vocal and chorus.

The first part of the album also includes ‘Shichigwachi nu Tida’, a lively song with a strong eisa contribution that recalls Rinken Band. But then the mood swings dramatically with a song about Sho Hashi, the 15^th century first king of the Ryukyus. This epic sound seems more in keeping as the soundtrack for a historical drama, and perhaps that’s what it is. There’s another change of direction on the next track, a rather lacklustre plod with a dinosaur-era electric guitar solo.

The album then takes another turn for its final track, the eight and a half minutes of ‘Ungan no Uta’. This is just the singer and his sanshin taking things at a funereal pace on a song written by a Buddhist priest and a classical musician. Yonaha does it well, of course, but it could be a bit of an ordeal for some listeners.

The album this most resembles is Yonaha’s Ninufa ~Polaris~ from nine years ago on which he also took on several modern compositions by other songwriters. Like that release, this seems just a tiny bit disappointing overall after a very promising start, though Yonaha’s singing and playing is always exemplary. In Okinawa, the term ‘variety’ is being bandied about to describe the album. A less kind though more honest appraisal might call it patchy.

Rakuen ~Paradise~ is out now on J’s Records.

https://www.yonaha-toru.com/

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