The CDs I bought yesterday arrived.
They were Shin Miyashita’s Thirty-String Koto and New Wave of Japanese Music, for a total of 2 CDs.
On “Thirty-String Koto,” the first piece, Hideaki Miyashita’s “Seki” for thirty-string koto and percussion, is excellent. Occasionally, a somewhat tacked-on vibraphone passage bothers me, but it remains a good piece despite that. It demonstrates the possibilities of the koto. The percussionist is Sumire Yoshihara. There is no way it could be bad.
New Wave of Japanese Music includes the Yoshida Brothers and various others, but what completely blew me away was Kokoo’s Tarkus Variations. The thirteen-string koto and shakuhachi soar above a bass passage on the seventeen-string koto (atonal, naturally!). It is unbelievably cool. I was electrified. However, its appeal cannot possibly come through on feeble computer speakers, so please listen on a good stereo system that can produce proper deep bass.
Just take my word for it and give it a listen!
Also good were Ryozan Sakata’s shakuhachi at the beginning of Yoshiko Sakata’s “Gion Shōja,” and her own voice.
Still, Kokoo is definitely the coolest act on this album. Oh, I want to go to a concert! I had been feeling gloomy for quite a while, but this cheered me up all at once. (Though I will probably be down again by tomorrow morning….)