Saturday 25 August 2007

Pic of the day: Simplicity. (The bright spot is an artifact of the light.)

Tsuji Ayano

Some days ago I got the CDs I had ordered from CDJapan: A double CD with the best of Tsuji Ayano, and a single that seemed somewhat cat-related. They just barely squeezed in under the limit for paying taxes and a hefty processing fee for largely imaginary customs work. I am happy about that. But most of all I am happy about the music.

I had heard two of her songs before, I think. One was played regularly on my Last.FM online radio. It was something about a cat. I still don't understand much more of it. Another was shared by a friend. They were both beautiful and melodic.

Tsuji Ayano is a Japanese female singer with a sweet voice, and her particular strength is a special wave-like style... I am not sure how to decribe it better than that. Her voice is kind of elastic, bending and swaying with the melody. The way she handles the transitions in the music is more like a violin than a piano, if you understand what I mean. Her favorite instrument, however, is the ukulele, which she plays herself while singing.

The songs on these CDs span a surprising number of different styles. To be honest there are many that I find boring or just too strange for my tastes. She does not show much interest in European and American pop, but leans mostly to native Japanese traditions. This is a bit too far apart from what I can appreciate, at least yet. But some of her songs are more melodic in the European sense, and these are among the most beautiful sounds I have heard. I play them again and again, day after day, week after week. (I've had her cat song on my "loved tracks" on Last.fm all summer at least.)

Tsuji's lyrics are also richer and more complex than what I am used to from the Jpop that usually accompany anime. I understand less of hers than I usually do. They seem to be actually telling something rather than just stringing together feel-good words. Too bad I have almost given up my Japanese course already... But one day! Perhaps. Hey, I have not given up the brain training! I can do things, sometimes. Anyway, that's beside the point.

I have ripped four of my favorite songs from the CDs to my hard disk, and play them now day after day. Not all day, because then they would fade into forgetting. But now and then. Usually once a day at work I will close the door, start this playlist and go sit in a different chair by the wall. There I close my eyes and let the beautiful melodies and voice carry me away into the emptiness, until the songs end.

I am sure Tsuji Ayano's voice would also have been beautiful with more west-melodic songs, but I respect her choice to do mostly traditional Japanese songs. It is her life, her body, her talent. I would not want others to insist that I change my style, after all; I should extend the same respect to others. Not least to someone which so much genuine soul and personality. She is a singer I can both enjoy and respect. Highly recommended, although I suspect most listeners need some experience with Japanese music first. Still, give it a try. You will likely find at least one or two songs to get you started, and then it grows on you. Well, it does for me at least.