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Yoko Ueno

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singidunum
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Joined: May 22nd, 2007 11:00 am

Yoko Ueno

Postby singidunum » May 24th, 2009 10:00 pm

I don't know the reason, but I feel that Yoko Ueno is the most underrated Japanese musician outside Japan. :( These days I have been listening to her new (in fact, last year's) album Tokyo Humming, which represents a walk around different areas of Tokyo in the span of one full day (from the morning till the late night), and am blown away by the imagination and execution of it. Wordless female vocals play the important part on this album (and her music in general) - well, there are words, maybe, but not in any meaningful language - human voice is used primarily as an instrument. Instrumentation is a mix of acoustics and electronics, with some ancient and exotic instruments. To pass on this album would be a shame enough for any more adventurous listener, but the more baffling fact is that Mrs. Ueno has four equally strange and wonderful albums before it:
Voices, being about women (all the song titles are female names);
Puzzle, being about, well, puzzles and games (all the song titles are puzzle names);
SSS or Simply Sing Songs, being the covers of some Irish traditional songs;
Shizen genshou, being about natural phenomena (rain, wind, snow, etc)

And she has a more-than-20-years-long career. She was a member of many excellent groups, but that would be a little too much for me to write about now. First-rate artist, neither some disposable pop singer, nor some unaccessable, unlistenable performer pretending to create "art". Has anyone here listened to her? There is a MySpace page for Tokyo Humming, where samples can be heard. And Ueno homepage is here.

Wonderful stuff. Subarashii.

Jessi
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Joined: November 25th, 2007 9:58 am

Postby Jessi » May 25th, 2009 12:11 am

I've never heard of her (and I like to think I'm pretty well-versed in Japanese music), but I'll check out those links when I get a chance! How did you find out about her?
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singidunum
New in Town
Posts: 8
Joined: May 22nd, 2007 11:00 am

Postby singidunum » May 25th, 2009 1:52 am

Well, I know a man who worked in the videogame and film music industries and Ueno was (and still is) active in these "genres", so I asked him about her. I think I first became aware of her after listening to Orrizonte, an album of songs from the game Suikoden, but arranged in Renaissance fashion, with period instruments and all. It sounds strange to speak about "Japanese music" and "Renaissance music" in the same context, but the fact remains that Vita Nova (Yuji Yoshino + Yoko Ueno) are at the top of their art. There are some albums of theirs to be found on CDJapan (along with the solo albums of Ueno).

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