eponymous 4

Music

「風の歌を聴け」

TRACK	TITLE
1	A Simple Song
2	Downtown Downpour
3	Rescuer
4	Here
5	Hear the Wind Sing

About this album

When I was organizing my songs into various projects back in 2005, two tracks -- "Downtown Downpour" and "Hear the Wind Sing" -- didn't fit anywhere. Both songs used unconventional harmonies and had a liberal sense of time. Nor did they sound like each other.

So they were perfect to anchor an EP of their own.

「風の歌を聴け」 (the Japanese version of the title "Hear the Wind Sing", pronounced "Kaze no Uta wo Kike") is intended to be a five-movement suite where each movement explores some sort of odd writing technique.

"Downtown Downpour", for the most part, stays away from triadic harmonies. "Hear the Wind Sing" incorporates samples and multiple keys. "Rescuer" uses only two chords, while the bass line of "Here" spells out two very famous musical initials -- DSCH (Dmitri Shostakovich) and BACH (guess who). "A Simple Song" has a tonal melody in the treble but a clashing accompaniment in the bass.

The title of the EP comes from Haruki Murakami's first novel, on which "Hear the Wind Sing" is based. And yes, the official title of this release is in Japanese. Japanese musicians title their albums in English all the time. I'm just returning the gesture.