What does it sound like?:
This is very pleasant surprise: counter-cultural, laidback rock and singer songwriters from the radical years of Japan when Haruki Murakami was still at high school. Basically the first legit western release ( from the Light in the Attic label) of some well-known national artists, this comp adds to previous cult genres of J-rock, such as Group Sounds beat pop, 60s girl pop, Julian Cope approved hard rock, and more extreme improv. It’s rather like a Bob Stanley compilation of 70s pastoral rock, but from the “angura” (underground) scenes of Tokyo and Osaka: young, disaffected Japanese channeling Dylan, Donovan, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young with their own take on the national mood. But it’s certainly not dealt up as kitsch or pastiche: there is some real talent and tense performances here, which the compilers have put into helpful context with translated lyrics. So Kenji Endo’s whispery ‘Curry Rice’ is actually about watching the author Yukio Mishima killing himself on TV, while Akai Torai’s pristine-sounding folk song was genuinely controversial. Other highlights out of a well-chosen 19 tracks are the women Sachiko Kanenobu and Maki Asakawa, the melancholy Tetsuo Saito, and the rousing mix of Hachimatsu Pie. The qualty of this selection is high and so much of it unfamiliar ( I had only heard of the group Happy End) that it’s well worth a go for the curious.
What does it all *mean*?
That the Japanese underground audiences always loved a good tune as well as a freak out ( something that J Cope misunderstood in his unfortunately titled but otherwise admirable book the Jap Rock Sampler); that elements of Japanese enka ( trad pop songs) and melancholy can mix with West Coast vibes.
Goes well with…
The ambience of Bob Stanley’s English Weather comp, or the Milk of the Tree anthology on Grapefruit.
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
Japanese rock before J pop ( there are some of you out there); anyone curious about postwar Japan.
moseleymoles says
You’ve surely made some kind of Afterwordwhack here – I am betting that no-one here has even heard tracks by any of the artists from the compilation you mention.
Kaisfatdad says
I wouldn’t count out Kid Dynamite!
I suspect these artists are about as well known in Japan as Kevin Ayers and Hatfield and the North are in the UK. Which doesn’t make it any the less interesting,
Here’s a track listing.
https://lightintheattic.net/releases/3178-even-a-tree-can-shed-tears-japanese-folk-rock-1969-1973
ip33 says
Err… blowing my own trumpet but I would like to quote my Bloggers takeover for this month “Even A Tree Can Shed Tears: Japanese Folk & Rock 1969-1973 is a beautiful collection of what was called ‘New Music’”
Anyway it’s a lovely album and an equally lovely review.
Pessoa says
Oops: I hadn’t seen your earlier post, and would have referred to you had I known. Sorry about that, ip33
ip33 says
No apology needed. I was only joshing about hearing an album perhaps before most people have. I usually can’t find the pulse let alone have my finger on it!
As I said a lovely review. Take care and have a good Wednesday.
Kid Dynamite says
Thanks for the vote of confidence, KFD! A couple of names ring the vaguest of bells, but I’m afraid I couldn’t honestly say I have knowingly heard any songs by them.
My own favourite Japanese reissue* of the year is Midori Tanaka’s “Through The Looking Glass”, an ambient and percussion record from the early 80s, reissued via the charmingly monikered WRWTFWW** records. It’s the sort of thing that might well appear on @duco01‘s end of year reissue list.
*SUCH a crowded field
**We Release Whatever The Fuck We Want
Kaisfatdad says
This sounds extremely interesting. The title alone would have gone me curious and then your interesting review got me even keener.
Look forward to looking for the tracks on YT as it’s not on Spotify.
Kaisfatdad says
Here is a taste of the album.
Kazuhiko Kato – “Arthur Hakase No Jinriki Hikouki”
Kaisfatdad says
The late Maki Asakawa had a wonderfully expressive voice. Shades of Billie Holiday.
And probably quite widely known too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maki_Asakawa
Kaisfatdad says
I do want this thread to have a Happy End.
Not to be confused with a happy ending!!
If their music was used in Lost in Translation, I can anticipate a flurry of interest in this compilation.
Neela says
This seems to be some properly weird stuff. I´m getting curious. Think I will have to investigate further.
Kaisfatdad says
Well, this album is certainly arousing a lot of curiosity among us in the Swedish contingent.
Next up a lovely tune from Takashi Nisioka.
Isabelbc who posted this has written some very useful notes. Do take and look!
“Takashi Nishioka’s Manin No Ki is surely one of the finest psych-folk singer-songwriter albums I’ve heard; if it weren’t for the fact that it’s sung in Japanese it’d probably already be in your collection. ”
If you want Japanese weirdness, Neela, give this a listen.
Kaisfatdad says
Next up, bluesman Fumio Nunoya in a rather smooth mood.
And now Kenji Endo
Kenji Endo – Curry rice
Kaisfatdad says
I am not surprised to discover that Honest Jon’s have done a Maki compilation. She became a kind of grand old lady of Japanese jazz by the sound of things.
http://honestjons.com/shop/artist/Maki_Asakawa
The synching here is crap but you do get subtitles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I9R89G8I58
And this shows her voice off rather well.
Kaisfatdad says
Hungry for more? some more of the artists on the compilation.
A rather delicious slice of Hachimitsu Pie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWM8nmDxeUY
The bluesy sounds of Ryo Kagawa
Waiting for “the Japanese Joni Mitchell”? Here she is: Sanchiko Kanenobu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spdkQbv3Ih0
Lovely voice, intricate guitar playing and catchy tunes. I can imagine hearing this in a bar in Tokyo and really wanting to know the name of the artist.
Lastly, The Dylan 11
Kaisfatdad says
If you are fascinated by artists that release one brilliant album and then pretty much vanish off the face of the earth (a certain DuCool springs to mind) then read this biog of Sachiko Kanenobu.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/sachiko-kanenobu-mn0001551483
Her great friendship with Philip K Dick certainly adds to its interest.
When Sachiko finally did make a comeback n the 90s, she no longer sounded like Joni!
Pessoa says
It’s fun that many of these artists are on available on Japanese i-Tunes; enjoying some downloading this week.
Kaisfatdad says
Japanese iTunes? I’m impressed. I am sure the pickings are greater on YT if van write and read the Japanese versions of the artists’ names. I might experiment with some copying and pasting.
I stumbled across this from progtastic band, Samurai from the same period yesterday.
Bassist Tetsu went onto join The Faces. Here’s the whole album.
bricameron says
This is definitely a thread for the oldies here. One day perhaps in the distant future I will be able to interact this thread.
All my love, bri.
❤️
Kaisfatdad says
We can wait, Bri!
Julian Cope is the man with the answers to many questions about artists mentioned on this thread.
Here’s what he has to say about Niki (Nicky) Curtis and Samurai, his half English, half Japanese band.
http://www.japrocksampler.com/artists/groupsounds/curtis_and_the_samurais_miki/
And here they are again in all their progtastic glory.
Cope has a useful A – Z of artists. Thansk to that I know that Hachimitsu Pie went on to become Mooriders.
bricameron says
My eyesight is too precious for such an old format on the internet, Mr. Cope.
I tried with the clips(Big fan of those) but I think I’m just too young to understand.
Kaisfatdad says
Youth can be an awful burden, Bri. We understand.
Here’s some Blues Creation to help you cope with it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eho3tjxypJc
bricameron says
You Swedes are dangerous!
Mike_H says
You don’t know the half of it, Bri.
Those dodgy Norse Gods, lurking up there in the frozen wastes, playin’ chess with us mortals as their pawns ‘an’at.
“Bloody vikings”.
Kaisfatdad says
The ones that got away.
Here are some tracks from the same period that didn’t make it on to Even a tree. The notes about them are top notch.
https://thevinylfactory.com/features/japanese-folk-rock-records-guide/
You mention “angura” in your review, Pessoa. This seems to have been a movement that included a lot of alternative theatre groups who were famed for their posters.
This thread is turning into a real voyage of discovery!
Pessoa says
Thanks for that link! Some fun is planned in seconds hand record stores before Xmas.
Kaisfatdad says
Where are these record shops, Pessoa? I’m presuming Japan but maybe you know the right places to go in the UK?
I will continue my digging around to see what fresh treasures can be found.
Pessoa says
I am thinking of Japan, Kaisfatdad, where I currently live, although I will need a trip down from my provincial city to Tokyo and the Disk Union shop. The thing is though, in my experience there is still more kudos among serious, rock obsessives over here for the Anglo-American/ Euro cult groups than these Japanese artists, so I want to do some exploring.
Kaisfatdad says
Time for you to change their perspective, Pessoa. Just tell them cult, high-brow, trend-setting, state of the art blogsite, the Afterword, is in a frenzy of excitement about this new compilation. Slight hyberbole but, what the heck.
Incidentally, my Jazz Neighbour knows all about Sachiko Kanenobu and was delighted when I posted her album on the AWers on Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/560037587460511/
Kaisfatdad says
The discoveries continue!
Yosuke Kitazawa is one of the producers of the Even a tree compilation. He did some of the notes for that Vinyl Factory piece and writes very well!
Here’s an article he wrote about a record shop in Little Japan in LA.
http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2012/5/28/first-and-last-record-store/
Kaisfatdad says
A useful piece on Kansai’s significance at this time.
It mentions another legendary band: Itsutsu no akai fusen.
Very agreeable indeed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJbdEt1pol8
Kaisfatdad says
And now the French perspective…
http://next.liberation.fr/musique/2017/11/20/japon-cheveux-longs-et-idees-folk_1611329
Kaisfatdad says
While we are discussing Japanese artists, can I take the chance to mention Akira Kosemura’s rather lovely music.
https://youtu.be/IKqgDeVc1uQ
Gary says
That is nice. I occasionally sleep to Hiroshi Yoshimura.
Kaisfatdad says
There is a wonderful delicacy of touch and a lot space with these Japanese pianists. I am surprised that ECM (as far as I know) has no Japanese artists.
I could have hours of fun browsing through the puctures on this Tokyo jazz magazine website.
http://jazztokyo.org/category/interviews/
It must be very exhausting, Pessoa, having daily encounters with Japanese writing. I am told one of the most difficult things as s tourist is not being able to read street signs, place names etc.
Kaisfatdad says
Interesting to see how the artists on this compilation and their contemporaries were reacting with the outside world.
Paul Williams who married Sanchiko, as the founder of the first serious rock magazine, Crawdaddy, (18 months before Rolling Stone) was a major player.
https://sandiegotroubadour.com/2013/05/scribe-of-the-tribe-the-ballad-of-paul-williams/
Would Yoko One be known today if she had never met and married Lennon? It is not out of the question. Born in 1933, in her childhood she moved back and forth between the Japan and the US because of her dad’s work, so she was extremely cosmopolitan and Americanised.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Ono
It’s a story and a half. Her first husband, Anthony Cox, film maker and jazz musician, got custody of their daughter Yoshiko and disappeared to live with a cult. Mother and daughter were reunited in 1998!
The rock band, Samurai, were half English and half Japanese after relocation to London.
Lowell George, Van Dyke Parks and Bill Payne played on Happy End’s third and final album which is a minor masterpiece.
http://www.trunkworthy.com/why-we-wont-let-the-happy-end-get-lost-in-translation/
When, back in the day, I read in NME about Tetsu joining Free and The Faces it seemed odd they recruited a Japanese musician. It now starts to make more sense.
Japanese movies were also certainly making waves in the rest of the world at this time. Time for a Google.
Were any of the angura band featured in them?
Miyazaki was born in 1941. Any links with the angura scene?
I’ll be back later!
Kaisfatdad says
I was rather amused by this quote from the Wiki entry on Tetsu, the Japanese bassist who was in Samurai and then The Faces.
“He retired from the music industry in the mid 1990s and moved to the countryside with his family to live a quiet life, refusing to speak to anyone from the press. He considers it juvenile and vain for people his age to still be performing rock and roll, and refused invitations to take part in a Faces reunion.”
Rather a contrast to his European contemporaries who have no problem with endless farewell tours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetsu_Yamauchi
Pessoa says
On the matter of films, the angura movement coincided with the break up of the big studio system and experiments in political and exploitation ( ‘pinku’) cinema. It’s not a perfect musical match, but Kōji Wakamatsu’s ‘Ecstasy of the Angels’ (1972) uses free jazz and downbeat songs:
https://youtu.be/_CNy6LTxUPQ
Another very strange film is Nagisa Oshima’s ‘Three Resurrected Drunkards’ (1968), which featured Kazuhiko Kato’s first group, The Folk Crusaders in a madcap satire about Japan and The Vietnam War.
I find both films a bit unsatisfying, to be honest, although from an interesting cultural moment, and some overlap with the music.
Kaisfatdad says
I had never heard of Kato before today. I now know that he had a mammoth hit in 67 with this very bizarre song.
Kaisfatdad says
Crikey! You know Japanese cinema very well, Pessoa. “Pinku” films. What a great term.
Here’s a list of some of the famous examples.
http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/30-great-japanese-pink-films-you-shouldnt-miss/
It kicks off with Oshima’s remarkable In the Realm of the Senses. A DVD of that would make a perfect Xmas gift for Granny.
That opening scene from Ecstasy of the Angels is stupendous. Googled. It is actress Rie Yokomama from the film who is singing backed by Yosuke Yamashita Trio.
While exploring all that I discovered this very useful site, full of lots of stuff including music from Japanese movies.
http://eigageijutsu.blogspot.se/2012/01/lovers-corner-6-atg-music-files.html
Kaisfatdad says
A useful addition to our discussion, @Pessoa. Some artists that we have mentioned, some not.
https://www.nippon.com/en/nipponblog/m00119/#.WjzcIYBeB3g.mailto
I suppose Xmas is a normal working day in Japan.
Pessoa says
Thanks for that @Kaisfatdad; I also recently came across this enjoyable compilation of old Japanese disco/funk that, while a very different groove, does share Haruomi Hosono with the other collection
https://www.discogs.com/Various-Lovin-Mighty-Fire-Nippon-Funk-Soul-Disco-1973-1983/release/9886561
And yes, global diversity is a wonderful thing, but I do have to work through to the 27th next week, so it’s bah humbug from me.
Kaisfatdad says
Working on Xmas Day? Poor you!
Well, they may not celebrate but the Japanese clearly know some Xmas songs….
This is very charming