Here are the liner notes for every song on KAN‘s first three full-length studio albums, written by the artist himself. The albums featured here are TV no Naka ni (1987), NO-NO-YESMAN (1987), and GIRL TO LOVE (1988).
These liner notes were originally published in the 1992 book Boketsu Bari Hori.
Text: KAN
English translation: Henkka
KAN links: Website, Twitter, YouTube
Note: You can buy KAN’s physical releases on CDJapan.
Here is an interview with MONO NO AWARE members Tamaoki Shukei and Kato Seijun. The interview focuses on how the pair first met, as well as on the band’s sophomore album. Enjoy!
Interview & text: Miyake Shoichi (Japanese text)
English translation: Henkka
MONO NO AWARE links: Website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
Note: You can buy AHA on CDJapan.
MONO NO AWARE
(L-R) Takeda Ayako, Tamaoki Shukei, Kato Seijun, Yanagisawa Yutaka
MONO NO AWARE have just completed their second album, AHA.
Ever since the band’s beginnings, there has been no one else like them when it comes to musical expression. “This part is rock, this part is pop“—there are no such borderlines in their music. And yet, their musical imagery carries with it a contemporaneity which organically reminds the listener of all kinds of different cultures, along with a synchronicity which makes it feel like you’re tripping between reality and some parallel world.
Those aspects of the band’s music become even more vivid on this work, with the evolution in their sound production and songwriting making one’s earliest childhood memories rise to the surface.
Having accompanied the band for the filming of their music video for this album’s lead song, “Tokyo,” we then conducted an interview with their songwriter/vocalist/guitarist Tamaoki Shukei and guitarist Kato Seijun.
We visited their hometown of Hachijojima, Tokyo—a 55-minute direct flight from Haneda Airport. While the town is actually still a part of Tokyo, that sense of travel I got from going down there and standing in that environment, surrounded by nature, it gave me flashbacks of that peculiar feeling one experiences when listening to MONO NO AWARE—a sense of, “It’s my first time here, and yet somehow it’s like I know this place.”
Here is an interview with the cool youngsters of MONO NO AWARE. The interview focuses on the history of the band’s formation, as well as on their debut album. Enjoy!
Interview & text: Kaneko Atsutake (Japanese text)
English translation: Henkka
MONO NO AWARE links: Website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
Note: You can buy Jinsei, Yamaori Taniori on CDJapan.
MONO NO AWARE
(L-R) Tamaoki Shukei, Yanagisawa Yutaka, Takeda Ayako, Kato Seijun
MONO NO AWARE, a four-piece band who derive their name from the concept of mono no aware—the natural transience of things and feelings experienced with respect to life’s subtleties—have released their debut album, Jinsei, Yamaori Taniori.
With overseas garage rock and post-punk as the backdrop, their music can be quite volatile, with daring changes that can occur even within individual songs. Another characteristic of the band—also apparent in the album’s title—is their wordplay, always causing involuntary smiles. While their music has some similarities with the currently trending psychedelic pop of the Tokyo indie scene (as showcased at the “BEACH TOMATO NOODLE” party co-hosted by Tempalay and domico), the band neatly avoids categorization, with their easygoing feel giving them a unique personality.
At the core of the band are its two Hachijojima natives: songwriter/vocalist/guitarist Tamaoki Shukei, and guitarist Kato Seijun. Tamaoki, the intuitive humanities type, and Kato, the research-oriented sciences type, complement each other nicely in their search for musical freedom, their aims simply set for “somewhere other than here.” Led by this duo—somehow reminiscent of Natsume Tomoyuki and Sugawara Shinichi of the Siamese Cats—now that they are “out of the well,” so to speak, what kinds of different worlds will this group be showing us next?
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.
This is a conversation with Ogawa Mishio, vocalist of the Japanese new wave band Chakra who were active from 1978 to 1983. Chakra is also the main topic of this discussion. Enjoy!
(Note: This is, in fact, two separate interviews compiled into one post. Thus, the questions and the order of the questions have been slightly edited to maintain the flow of the conversation.)
Interview & text: Shikata Hiroaki (Japanese text: one & two)
English translation: Henkka
Ogawa Mishio links: Website, Twitter
Note: You can buy Chakra’s music on CDJapan.
Chakra — a band of the New Wave Era who radiated a profoundly mysterious charm. Now, their albums Chakra and Satekoso have been re-released with five bonus tracks each!
In this interview, we asked the band’s vocalist Ogawa Mishio about her time in Chakra.
