KOKIA: The Voice (2008)

Today I feel it in my fingers to type this review on the latest album by Kokia: The Voice.

A big thank you to Zhu for introducing me to this amazing artist.
Her voice is so versatile and soul rendering and very capable at traversing various different genres. One moment full bodied and strong like that of a survivor, the next moment sweet, and innocent like that of a child.

The songs in this album are as vesatile as she is.

A couple of wonderful ballads in the compilation like Everlasting and Gomen ne, and some unorthodox pieces such as Follow the Nightingale and Song of Pocchong where I believe she came up with her own words for lyrics. Word on the web has been that if you manage to catch these words and write them backwards they are actual japanese words in Romanji. However, there has yet to be substantial evidence for that.

The lyrics to her songs are as hauntingly striking, particularly those of Everlasting which never fails to put me in a pensive mood. Everlasting is to me a stellar demonstration of her operatic prowess. The first time I heard it I thought it was actually Sarah Brightman. The timbre, the high notes even the song structure are similar to that of Brightman's. Though I must say that I think Kokia's voice is less jarring on the nerves and more fullsome and heart rendering.

Every moment I can feel you.
Wish You feel the same way.
If I show my secret garden you can touch to eternity.
It fill me in with scent rose.
everlasting memory.
Glow my life, you give me a heart to love.
What I feel please stay forever.

Someday I know it may fade away
Still we ask for forever.
find our sign in this music.
everlastig memory.
only my love, truly given eternal life.
what I hold, keep breathing forever.

Love, where to come.
Love, ever lasting.
The world is Saturated with light of love.

Glow my life, you give me a heart to love.
What I feel please stay forever.
only my love, truly given eternal life.
what I hold, keep breathing forever.

Someday I know it may fade away
Still we ask for forever.

~Everlasting - Kokia: The Voice ~

Nani mo kamo hoshi ni natte is like a balladic J-poppish song with it's lyrics belting out angst and hope through her melancholic velvety tones. Hope it does make it to the top of the charts. Perhaps if the winds of change blow and render those mindless J-pop screamers mute. I am just kidding of course. I too have my favourite J-poppers too. The following is an english translation of the lyrics of the songs. From what I understand of nihon go it appears to looks quite accurate.

Hatred, conflict, suffering, even if we hurt each other

If we look at the same sky after we were born again,

It will probably be only a blink of a bright moment

Where, instead of people being sacrified, justice that goes on with happiness

Alone, a life on a single person, if that life belonged to the one you love

Please imagine, as though it's your own pain

Everything turns into a star and passed on to the future

Everyone is someone's one day only

Justified events, that adults had sought reasons and let them pass

Though i was there, looking, the moment i turned a blind eye, i went down

Please imagine, as though it's your own pain

To regret every time you lose something, and shed tears for my short comings

The tears shed, as many as the number of stars, trying not waste them

Only an emptiness cuts the sky, and tears my heart

When everything turns into a star, would it all be forgotten?

Please look at the person beside you

Coincidence that you cannot simply call them a stranger

It's too far into the time to smile back anymore

I don't need love that seeks something in return

Please imagine, as though it's your own pain

Everything turns into a star and passed on to the future

Everyone is someone's one and only

~Nanimo kamo ga hoshi ni natte - Kokia: The Voice ~

Odayaka na shizukesa is a truly interesting piece. Utilising intersting interplay between voice, instrumentation and synchronization. Kokia's masterful utilisation of her elements makes her appear to mimic Tori Amos with her piano playing and powerful voice. The calmess of the quiet is truely appreciated through her use of velvety tones on the saxaphone, and the plaintiveness enhanced with the gradual build up of instrumentation with the final die cast with the use of a string orchestra and other worldly vocalization and all this gradually decreases in numbers and the thickness of the music thins out towards the end to a plaintive long held note and a quiet plea for quietness. A true musical experience.

The first song of the album, Gomen ne seals the deal from the start. Each time she hits the chorus it makes you want to tell her that she's forgiven for whatever she is apologizing for. Every time you hear the words Gomen ne you can feel the sting of regret and pain. It's a feeling one and all can bear witness to whenever there's something or someone for which ( or whom ) we feel regret for and the pangs that come along with it.

It's strange that Kokia would choose to open her album with an apology. An act of humility or is there a deeper meaning to this album. For what it's worth, there is no need for apology or humility for this album. Just listening to this work of art is explanation enough.

(Edit: download link here. =p)

Salyu- iris ～しあわせの箱～ & DVD release

I'm outdated again, not surprisingly.


Note: Left is limited press. Right is regular edition.

Salyu's new single 'iris ~ Shiawase no Hako'was released on Nov 28th. It's another touchy ballad reminiscent of 'Platform'. Salyu established herself as a stand-alone operatic pop singer in 'Salyu period' (as opposed to 'Lily chou-chou' period). The ambient ether is replaced by a crowded, glamorous cosmo. That's my feeling of her transition. Both are undoubtedly unique but somehow I miss Lily chou-chou very, very much.

Here's a look at the PV, a sweet short film about circus performers and how a pretty little girl aspires to be one of them. Her PVs are never a disappointment.By the way, there's a 'Salyu clips 2004-2007' DVD release on the same date as this single. I'm gonna grab it!



DVD Purchase guide,


cdjapan | YesAsia

Release: 2007.11.28
3,600yen(tax-in) TFBQ-18076
DVD (Region 2)

1. VALON-1
2. Dialogue
3. Peaty
4. Suisei
5. Kaze ni Noru Fune
6. Tower
7. name
8. Platform
9. Tobira
10. I BELIEVE

Bonus Tracks
VALON (Ilmari×Salyu)
Making Clips (Music from TERMINAL Tour 2007)

Rufus Wainwright - PV - Going to a Town

Rufus's new single - Going To A Town

I got another update from the prolific Rufus Wainwright news feed (the feed is prolific, not Rufus (but I don’t mean Rufus is not..)) his label is really priming the time for the new album, by releasing a single a month before the actual album? I’ve never heard of any Rufus singles before so I checked again, and turns out this is only the second single. The original page contains no tracklist but there's an iTunes link (no idea what it leads to, I don’t have iTunes..)

I am listening to Rufus’s track-by-track commentary on Want One and Want Two (registration required. I guess diehard admirers should have heard them many times, long ago. Being my usual slow self..) He tells of emotional and/or funny back-stories, and things that I’d never imagine just looking at the lyrics. And he is fabulous hilarious…(ok stop xD)

Want One (Sept 2003) | Want Two (Nov 2004)

KOKIA

I just started listening to KOKIA. There're 2 or 3 tracks in Red Garden OST that caught my notice and I tried other songs. Her voice is classically trained, perfect control and tuning. Her singing style is a strange blend of opera, folk and pop ('opera' being her strength and highlight).

Basic info from Wiki.theppn

KOKIA is a Japanese singer-songwriter hailing from Tokyo. She is mostly associated with games and anime soundtracks; having appeared in eight different game/anime soundtracks to date. KOKIA has an extremely talented voice - she even held a long-tone Opera note for a little over 29 seconds on national TV once. She is most well-known in Hong Kong and Taiwan for her song Arigatou..., which became so popular it was even covered by star Sammi Cheng. Her biggest hit in Japan was the single The Power of Smile / Remember the Kiss, which reached #15 on Oricon charts.

External Links
Official web (old)
Official web (new)
Happii KOKIA (fansite in Eng & French) - very resourceful!

Some live clips from youtube,
She always performs barefoot! It seems she has a large fan base in France.

[Live] KOKIA - Bataclan 2007 part 1/2


[Live] KOKIA - Bataclan 2007 part 2/2


[Live] KOKIA - Arigato (in France)


KOKIA - Aishiteirukara
This one makes me a bit nostalgic.Coz I sure heard it when I was a kid,on radio!lol.

Rufus News

Woke up this morning at 11:11, and my google reader notifier calmly said I have about 60 new feeds (10 hours after I last read), most of them under the ‘music’ tag. I thought Oh man, I hope blogspot didn’t automatically republish ukulele…and as it turns out everything was from this one “Rufus Wainwright RSS feed”, talking about bulk updating for your musician…

So, lots of Rufus news--sold-out live shows and touring and interviews and all--Rufus is one busy man (or maybe just that he can’t help being in High Demand). The most exciting of all is his new song on The Robinsons soundtrack, called Another Believer, is available for listening on his MySpace page. The song sounds catchy and cheerful, pop enough for an anime movie, but very Rufus nonetheless. And the most ‘bizarre’ of all is the cover to the new album, Release the Stars, due for release on May 15.

Does anybody else think this is a little unsettling on first glance?

The tracklist is also released, it reads

01 Do I Disappoint You
02 Going to a Town
03 Tiergarten
04 Nobody's Off the Hook
05 Between My Legs
06 Rules and Regulations
07 I'm Not Ready to Love
08 Slideshow
09 Tulsa
10 Leaving for Paris
11 Sanssouci
12 Release the Stars

I think I just saw some interesting title choice…and words foreign to me. Seems Rufus likes his literary allusions as ever, and I have a good feeling it’s not gonna disappoint me in the least.

In other news, the anticipated documentary film Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man (in which Rufus among many others pays his tribute and performs 3 songs) just screened in New York. I have great respect for the man (though the man has not released any new material in many a year…But I’ve yet to exhaust his rich old stuff, so I am not as disgruntled), and I am hoping it comes my way soon (if at all). Without further ado, a trailer for your pleasure.



and I'll wrap up it all with Rufus live in concert, performing Greek Song. Yum.



(and...I curbed the next thousand incoherent words I wanted to say of Rufus...no small effort I tell you...)

Across the Universe - Fiona Apple and all

Just watched this cover of the Beatles's Across the Universe by Fiona Apple, so diabolically different from Rufus's resounding, uplifting interpretation (see the earlier post) -Apple sings slow, languid, haunting, and her alternately expressionless and Mona Lisa-smile face is decidedly eerie...highly interesting. I still haven't found the original Beatles version, makes me wonder what it might be like very much. But - give me Rufus any day!

--------

Update: here's more...^6^


Original Beatles version. (Jeremy -- I can't find a way to embed the video you recommended so got this tubie instead ;-P).


A Tsunami themed Grammy performance by Bono from U2, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, Billie Joe, and a lot more. Musically it's a small disaster, IMO, but it's great to just see such a bunch singing together.


A much better cover performed live by Rufus Wainwright, Moby, and Sean Ono Lennon. Moby probably shouldn't have been involved in this one, his low voice just did not fit. And Sean--I am interested to but can hardly hear him! (though I think it's hard to hear anyone under Rufus's soaring voice...lol)


MV of Rufus's version. All time favourite =D.


Lennon and Harrison probably would have liked to see this highly spiritual (religious?) cover by Laibach...telling from the end credits they must be some Eastern Europe musicians, interesting take. And what's the last funny scene doing there??


This one is old..and sound and image quality is pretty damn bad. I just wish Roger Waters had brought in even MORE Pink Floyd-ness into the version, that would be awesome.

a bit of Rufus news from FolkFurieuse

Just saw this (see below) on Folk Furieuse, I am so amused by that thing Mr. FF wrote about Rufus being the same 'drôle, folle' (funny and 'silly'? haha) guy very much involved in the gay cultural scene as ever. (The 'Têtu' mentioned (French for "stubborn") is a gay magazine published in France, where the interview page (and the literally smoldering Rufus shot) is taken from. And apparently FolkFurieuse himself interviewed Rufus, as far as I understand. HOW IMMENSELY LUCKY!)

Rufus Wainwright dans Têtu

Un peu d'auto-promo n'a jamais fait de mal à personne. Je vous invite donc à vous procurer le dernier Têtu (n°119, Février 2007) afin de consulter - entre autres, l'interview de Rufus Wainwright réalisée par votre serviteur. J'ai interrogé Rufus sur le spectacle qu'il va donner en hommage à Judy Garland, le 20 février à l'Olympia, mais aussi sur son prochain album, Release the stars, qui sortira en mai et dont il parle en avant-première. En interview, Rufus ne change pas, toujours aussi drôle, toujours aussi folle, toujours aussi impliqué dans la culture gay. Il a même balancé même une petite vacherie (c'est le cas de le dire) à propos de Madonna, ce que peu de gens osent faire. Juste un regret, ma traduction de "Over the rainbow" pour le titre de l'article est mauvaise. Je pense que "Par-delà l'arc-en-ciel" aurait été mieux. Je le saurai pour la prochaine fois... En attendant, si le coeur vous en dit, il reste des places le 20 février à l'Olympia : www.olympiahall.com.

[Song of the Week] La Complainte de la Butte

Something on the autoplay item on the current radio (and the Rufus avalanche continues..) If you loved Moulin Rouge the movie/musical, if you love the soundtrack, you'd definitely know this. This rendition by Rufus is what started and drew my interest deep into his work, but the song itself is an old one, written by Georges van Parys (wiki entry in French), a proliferous Parisien composer of film and opera music, whose long career spanned the 30s thru the 70s. It was first used in Jean Renoir (impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir's second son, interesting eh)'s film French Cancan in 1955. La Complainte de la Butte is a chanson of Paris in essence, the Moulin a famous feature of Paris (made into six films so far) and 'les escaliers de la butte' ('the steps of Montmartre') refers to the hilly landscape of Montmartre, a scenic district of Paris. (Remember the long uphill stairs in Amelie? That was Montmartre too.) The lyrics, in French, are exquisitely written, and this version of English translation quite did it justice. Enjoy~

La lune trop blême pose un diadème sur tes cheveux roux
La lune trop rousse de gloire éclabousse ton jupon plein d'trous
La lune trop pâle caresse l'opale de tes yeux blasés
Princesse de la rue soit la bienvenue dans mon cœur brisé

The moon, all too fair, in your russet-red hair sets a sparkling crown
The moon, all too red with glory, is spread on your poor, tattered gown
The moon, all too white, caresses the light in your world-weary eyes
Princess of the street, do allow me to greet you, my broken heart cries

Chorus:
The stairways up to la butte
Can make the wretched sigh
While windmill wings of the moulin
shelter you and I
[Les escaliers de la butte sont durs aux miséreux
Les ailes des moulins protègent les amoureux
The steps of Montmartre, all uphill, are hardest on the poor
The sails of the mill, like wings, shelter all paramours]


Petite mandigote je sens ta menotte qui cherche ma main
Je sens ta poitrine et ta taille fine
J'oublie mon chagrin
Je sens sur tes lèvres une odeur de fièvre de gosse mal nourri
Et sous ta caresse je sens une ivresse qui m'anéantit

I feel, beggar-girl, your fetters, they curl as they seek out my wrists
I feel your young breasts, your thin little waist
I lose my regrets
I taste on your mouth the feverish breath of a half-starving waif
And with your caress I sense drunkenness erasing my life

The stairways up to la butte
Can make the wretched sigh
While windmill wings of the moulin
shelter you and I
[Les escaliers de la butte sont durs aux miséreux
Les ailes des moulins protègent les amoureux]

Et voila qu'elle trotte la lune qui flotte, la princesse aussi
La da da da da da da da da da
Mes rêves épanouis
Les escaliers de la butte sont durs aux miséreux
Les ailes des moulins protègent les amoureux

And see how she skips, the moon how she drifts,
The princess in tow
Da da da da da da da da da da
My reveries grow
The steps of Montmartre, all uphill, are hardest on the poor
The sails of the mill, like wings, shelter all paramours.

Grey Gardens

Request par Jady, since a moment ago we were chatting about Rufus Wainwright. I see the future of Les Ukuleles - it'll be inadvertantly flooded with posts on Mr. Wainwright. So I've warned you.

Rufus Wainwright - Grey Gardens
(click for savefile link, beware of porn ads)
from album 'Poses'

Honey I’m a roller concrete clover
Tadzio, Tadzio

Arm wrestle your mother
Simply over
Tadzio, over you

But beware my heart can be a pin
A sharp silver dragonfly
Trying to get my mansions green
After I’ve grey gardens seen

In betweeen tonight and my tomorrows
Tadzio where have you been
In between tonight I know it’s Tadzio
Tadzio don’t you fight

Honey can you hear me
In between been dragging a dragonfly
Trying to get my mansions green
After I’ve grey gardens seen

Honey won’t you hold me tight
Get me through grey gardens tonight

Tadzio, Tadzio
Tadzio, Tadzio

Trying to get my mansions green
After I’ve grey gardens seen
Honey won’t you hold me tight
Get me through grey gardens tonight

Tadzio, Tadzio
Tadzio, Tadzio

I got distracted by the sound of Tadzio. I don't understand the lyrics in the first place and was bothered by the repetitive hissing sound coming from my earphone.(You might be right in saying 'he's got an expiring voice', ET-sama...)Tadzio here, Tadzio there... Out of curiosity I googled and found the original source of this mysterious name. Tadzio, an extremely beautiful Polish boy from Thomas Mann's novel 'Death in Venice'.

Summary of the novel(quoted from here)
The central character is the greatly respected, but ageing professor Von Achenbach, who at the turn of the century leaves his native Germany for a holiday in Venice. Once installed in a comfortable hotel he notices among the guests an almost unaturally beautiful Polish boy, Tadzio. Von Aschenbach is slowly but surely obsessed and although he watches Tadzio, he dare not speak to him. Although married and heterosexual he finds that the beauty of a young boy and his ensuing obsession disturbs him deeply and results in a re-awakening of his emotions that we find are dormant through a series of flashbacks.Despite warnings of a cholera epidemic Aschenbach stays in Venice; he sacrifices his dignity and well-being to the immediate experience of beauty as embodied by Tadzio. After exchanging a significant look with the boy on the day of Tadzio's scheduled departure, Aschenbach dies of cholera.







It was adapted into a movie in 1971. Movie shots of Tadzio
I'm making it sound like a movie review. I'll leave the lyrics interpretation to Jady. Enjoy!

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Continues Jady…(I got to complain about the way Zhu habitually chucks unfinished posts to me, very funny, HMPF!)

M. Rufus has proved to us that he’s one well-read, deep-thinking modern poet (with an ‘expiring’ voice, sure) with all the alternatively dense or abstract lyrics he writes. Thomas May’s review of Poses says of Wainwright as having the ‘the singular, unclassifiable, ranging gift of singer/songwriter’. (See the full review at the bottom.) But appreciating the music is one thing, interpreting lyrics is another—which is particularly difficult with monsieur Wainwright who writes with such personal, almost cryptic voice. What’s ‘roller concrete clover?’ What’s ‘in between been dragging a dragonfly’? and what could ‘grey gardens’ possibly mean, apart from a barren, withered heart?

Updates: after some avid searching by Mlle. Zhu, we now have some interesting bg info about Grey Gardens, a 1975 documentary telling ‘the story of the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and their everyday life at Grey Gardens, a decrepit 28-room mansion located in East Hampton, New York. Edith Bouvier Beale and her mother (also named Edith) lived together there for over twenty years in squalor and almost total isolation.’—so Grey Gardens is in part literally a desolate place, and in other part probably a metaphor for all that it stands for.

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Thomas May's review on Poses

The scrutiny of success that came early on--being named Best New Artist by Rolling Stone in 1998, the year of his debut album, for example--would have smothered many another emerging talent. But it failed to stopper the singular, unclassifiable, ranging gift of singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright. His sophomore album, Poses, advances beyond the earlier, cabaret-inspired effort with a suite of songs marvelously varied in arrangement and texture but linked by Wainwright's characteristic theatrical panache. "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" catalogs excess with playful self-censure, but Wainwright's whimsical ironies often take a bruising, poignant turn, whether in the pseudo-upbeat "California" or, most movingly, on the title track. The dying fall of Wainwright's lusher melodies--echoes of "Across the Universe" as well as ultrachic Beatles tunes such as "Michelle"--meshes remarkably with the poetic substance here as he explores a landscape of wistful self-knowledge caught between longing and decadence. Yet even through all the layers of picturesque, postmod observation, Wainwright conveys a sense-filtered experience that gives urgency to his hauntingly mumbled opacities. With Poses, the young artist proves his authenticity.

Rufus Wainwright:Across the Universe

We successfully grabbed someone else's radioblog. It might look like another bandwidth theft but think about it, we're just embedding that webpage which is open to public anyway. Well maybe we should put a proper link back to the owner. Next time we'll have our own radio broadcast (future plan =.=||)

To kick it off, the first track you hear as ukulele ensemble loads, is Rufus Wainwright's 'Across the Universe', from his 2nd album 'Poses' (2001). It's used in the movie 'I am Sam'. Hey, I just realized there're 2 Rufus songs in Brokeback Mountain soundtrack- 'King of the Road' and 'the Maker Makes'. His voice is distinctly recognizable. When I randomly skipped in the playlist, there it was. 'Ding!' Isn't it Rufus??

His lyrical skills are definitely enviable. Later I realized 'Across the Universe' was originally written by the Beatles -> Wikipedia entry and was performed by a whole list of artists, Rufus being one of them.

Across the Universe

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass they slip away across the universe.
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru deva om.

Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
and call me on and on across the universe.
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box,
They stumble blindly as they make their way across the universe.
Jai guru deva om.

Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Sounds of laughter shades of love are ringing through my open mind,
Inciting and inviting me.
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns,
It calls me on and on across the universe.
Jai guru deva om.

Nothing's gonna change my world (8X)


Jai guru deva,
Jai guru deva,
Jai guru deva,
Jai guru deva...



Some side notes if you read deep into the lyrics: what's this weird 'Jai Guru Deva, Om'? There's actually a webpage dedicated to the explanations -> here. I'll take the liberty to quote verbatum from the webmaster.

"Jai Guru Deva, Om

During the making of this page, I get a number of emails from people that visit that have questions that aren't answered on the page. The question I get most often is "What does "Jai Guru Deva, Om" mean in "Across the Universe"?. So, I decided that I should post it to save you guys the trouble of emailing, and to satisfy the curiousity of countless others who always wondered what it meant. Plus my page is titled "Across the Universe", so I believe it is fitting. Just a note, there are a couple of other sites that have other translations on its meaning, and in no way am I saying that I'm completely right, and they are wrong, I'm just trying to explain this to the best of my knowledge. The words are Sanskrit, and translate loosely. Anyway, here is what I believe the translation means.

Guru Deva, actually it is Guru Dev, is incited in the song because he was the Maharishi's teacher. He is an actual person, and they invoked him in their meditation every day. The name actually has meaning in itself. A Guru is a teacher, or spiritual leader of sorts. Dev, according to some other sites I went to, means god or heavenly one. As stated, Maharishi's actual teacher's name was Guru Dev. John Lennon appeared to take the liberty adding the "a"on the end. Jai means, and there are several meanings I have for this, "I give hope, or thanks to", this I was told, but some sites say it means, "victory" or "salutations". Om, is probaby the easiest part to explain. Om is believed to be the natural vibration of the universe. Hence, when many meditate, they make the "ooohhhmmmm" sound. They are trying to bring in that vibration of the universe.

So all together it means, "I give thanks (victory) (salutation) to Guru Dev (or heavenly teacher), om."