I wouldn’t imagine in a light year that I would enjoy listening to Japanese folk music. Rimi Natsukawa’s previous album “Self Selection” has been like a comfort album to me. So when I saw her 13th album “ココロノウタ” selling on the shelf, I quickly grabbed one without even test listening to it.
“ココロノウタ” comes with 3 discs. A 8-track studio album, a 9-track live recording of her December 2008 concert held in Taiwan, and a DVD of that concert (12 tracks). I’ve watched that DVD. Even with zero knowledge in Japanese, she connects to me – with her expression, her tone, and her gesture. Rimi can sing live really well and she plays the instrument too. I don’t even know what that guitar-like instrument called. It looks fretless and it looks difficult to play. Most tracks are slow to moderately paced. Towards the end of the concert, she picked up the pace with lots of colorful music arrangements. It is a pleasant surprise and I can understand why some of these live tracks are not present in the CD recording. They work better with the visual impact.
The songs from the new studio recording is just as pleasant as her previous productions. Lyrically – judging from the Chinese translation – is poetically beautiful. Beyond the visual images of the light and the blue sky, the wind and the hills, the moon and the darkness are a set of songs about yearning, about love and life and the embrace of a loving mother.
Click here if you wish to sample the album. Below is one of the live recordings (not from this album collection) if you are curious about how Rimi’s music sounds like. From the Chinese translation, the album title “ココロノウタ” means “Songs from the Heart and Soul”.
2 replies on “Rimi Natsukawa 夏川りみ – ココロノウタ – A New Studio Production, A Live Recording, and A Concert DVD”
The instrument she plays is called “sanshin”(meaning three strings), an Okinawan string instrument. She has a very nice song that uses the instrument in it. It is played by a band member. The song is called cocoro no katachi. It is one of her better songs and is preformed at a faster tempo than most of her other songs. You should look it up on utube.
Dwight Goldman – Thank you for the info. I will certainly look it up at YouTube as recommended. Have a nice day!