World & International Albums:

Even A Tree Can Shed Tears: Japanese Folk & Rock 1969-1973

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Description

There was something in the air in the urban corners of late ‘60s Japan. Student protests and a rising youth culture gave way to the angura (short for “underground) movement that thrived on subverting traditions of the post-war years. Rejection of the Beatlemania-inspired Group Sounds and the squeaky clean College Folk movements led the rise of what came to be known in Japan as “New Music,” where authenticity mattered more than replicating the sounds of their idols.

Some of the most influential figures in Japanese pop music emerged from this vital period, yet very little of their work has ever been released or heard outside of Japan, until now. Light In The Attic is thrilled to present Even a Tree Can Shed Tears, the inaugural release in the label’s Japan Archival Series. This is the first-ever, fully licensed collection of essential Japanese folk and rock songs from the peak years of the angura movement to reach Western audiences.

In mid-to-late 1960s Tokyo, young musicians and college students were drawn to Shibuya’s Dogenzaka district for the jazz and rock kissas, or cafes, that dotted its winding hilly streets. Some of these spaces doubled as performance venues, providing a stage for local regulars like Hachimitsu Pie with their The Band-like ragged Americana, Tetsuo Saito with his spacey philosophical folk, and the influential Happy End, who successfully married the unique cadences of the Japanese language to the rhythms of the American West Coast. For many years Dogenzaka remained a center of the city’s “New Music” scene.

Meanwhile a different kind of music subculture was beginning to emerge in the Kansai region around Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe. Far more political than their eastern counterparts, many of the Kansai-based “underground” artists began in the realm of protest folk music. They include Takashi Nishioka and his progressive folk collective Itsutsu No Akai Fuusen, the “Japanese Joni Mitchell” Sachiko Kanenobu, and The Dylan II, whose members ran The Dylan cafe in Osaka, which became a hub for the scene.

Nearly 50 years on, this “New Music” is born anew.

Track Listing:

Disc 1:
  1. Kenji Endo - “Curry Rice”
  2. Kazuhiko Yamhira & the Sherman - “Sotto Futari De”
  3. Sachiko Kanenobu - “Anata Kara Touku E”
  4. Fluid (Furuido) - “Rokudenashi”
  5. Kazuhiko Kato - “Arthur Hakase No Jinriki Hikouki”
  6. Happy End - “Natsu Nandesu”
  7. Takashi Nishioka - “Man-in No Ki”
  8. Masato Minami - “Yoru Wo Kugurinukeru Made”
  9. Maki Asakawa - “Konna Fu Ni Sugite Iku No Nara”
  10. Fumio Nunoya - “Mizu Tamari”
  11. Haruomi Hosono - “Boku Wa Chotto”
  12. Takuro Yoshida - “Aoi Natsu”
  13. Akai Tori - “Takeda No Komori Uta”
  14. Guu - “Marianne”
  15. Tetsuo Saito - “Ware Ware Wa”
  16. Gypsy Blood - “Sugishi Hi Wo Mitsumete”
  17. Hachimitsu Pie - “Hori No Ue De”
  18. Ryo Kagawa - “Zeni No Kouyou Ryoku Ni Tsuite”
  19. The Dylan II - “Otokorashiitte Wakarukai (I Shall Be Released)”
Release date Australia
October 20th, 2017
Label
Light in the Attic
Number of Discs
1
Box Dimensions (mm)
142x125x5
UPC
826853015622
Product ID
27218310

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