I’m very excited to announce the CD reissue of Minuano‘s first album, Love Logic, on August 22, featuring English lyrics of all songs on the album.
This special reissue is available on Shopify and Bandcamp.
The lyrics were translated by yours truly, and I had the pleasure of spending hours upon hours thoroughly discussing them with Minuano’s main architect and songwriter Ogata Takero, painstakingly going through each and every line to make sure the English lyrics would accurately portray the original vision of the beautiful Japanese lyrics.
Now, just in case you weren’t previously familiar with Love Logic…
Minuano’s debut album, first released in 2009, features influences from MPB, soft rock, jazz, and city pop, reshaping them into a unique soundscape blending romance and ennui, with the whispered vocals of Sakakibara Kaori (Lamp) as the icing on this cake of aural tapestry.
“Lemon Elegy,” a fleeting fusion of the vibrancy of Brazilian jazz and the sentimentality of Japanese lyricism. “Soleil,” with its MPB-esque key changes and a sense of melancholy towards a summer nearing its end. The bossa nova of “A Mischievous Wind,” also featuring vocalist Nagai Yusuke (Lamp). The scaled-down soft rock piece “Rain-Colored Diary” which truly makes one see the raindrops…
A total of 10 songs, capturing in vivid detail these fragments of a world in motion.
On a personal note, I’m extremely pleased with how the English lyrics came out, and as per our conversations I believe Mr. Ogata shares my sentiment. We contemplated deeply about each and every lyric, and in fact even after the English lyrics were initially “done” we would continue working on them even months later, sometimes changing a word here or there, sometimes not. (There was a point during this process when I was literally dreaming about these lyrics…)
Furthermore, neither me or Mr. Ogata remember having ever seen a Japanese album release where the lyrics are printed in quite the way they can be seen here. On this reissue, the English and Japanese lyrics are presented not separately but rather alongside one another, making it easy to compare them—if that is the sort of thing you might be interested in.
Below is an edited sample from the booklet.
I do hope you check out this reissue. It was made with the utmost love and care.
Minuano’s Love Logic is now available for purchase on Shopify and Bandcamp.