son of soy » Music

Amirel Lachish at Candy

Rick Elizaga — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:13:14 +0000

Above: Amirel Lachish (middle), a friend I met through Japanese class, leads his trio on bass at a groovin’ night at Candy last Sunday. Sadly, Amirel heads back to Australia this week. Hope to see you next Spring, Ami!

“For Birds, Planes & Cello”

Rick Elizaga — Wed, 11 May 2005 05:09:10 +0000

A new CD I’ve been waiting for, “For Birds, Planes & Cello,” came in the mail today. Composed by Miya Masaoka, it’s a 54-minute field recording of bird and airplane sounds layered with cello performed by Joan Jeanrenaud. The chirps, calls, twitters, squawks and warbles of birds recorded in a San Diego canyon mingle with the roars and hums of planes leaving and approaching the nearby airport. The cello, meanwhile, fades in and out of recognition, sometimes evoking bird sounds, other times droning and rumbling like the aircraft engines. It’s a strange, beautiful, surprisingly engrossing recording — certainly the most unique track on my iPod.

I should mention that I have a bit of a personal connection to the album; I designed the package for it. It’s my first commerical CD cover design, and I’m pretty happy with it. I got a little thrill holding the finished product in all its full-color, glossy, shrinkwrapped glory.

I did not hear the recording before I made the design, but I think my minimal approach — utilitarian, vaguely industrial typography and thin, white, flowing paths layered over snapshots of the sky (blogged previously) above Kyoto’s Kamo river— fits the material well. It was one of those rare projects in which felt I could take a personal approach — working within my own style — and have an appropriate result emerge. It also helped that the client gave me a lot of freedom.

For more information about the album, check Miya Masaoka’s website, which should be updated soon.
Note: I don’t benefit directly from sales of the CD.

Boys’ Night Out

Rick Elizaga — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 07:30:34 +0000

Last Friday night (sorry for the blog-lag) I joined neighbor Carlos and his university lab-mate Chris for geeky boys dinner/karaoke night. (By “geeky” I mean: Carlos and Chris do research in speech-recognition, I push pixels and XHTML, and all of us are Star Wars fans.)

Can’t remember the name of the restaurant. Maybe you know the Thai place just around the corner from Kamihatecho Kyoto Zoukei Geidaimae? The service was warm, and the green curry was hot and delicious.

Then to UGA just down the street, where they put us in a red rock-concert-themed room with a spinning ball of lights that seemed to start up whenever one of us hit a sweet note.

Carlos found all the Spanish songs in the book (“Bamboleo!”), Chris sang heart-warming renditions of the Beatles and always hit the highs, and I aborted several experiments (like “Church of the Poison Mind” and “Scatterheart”) midway. Well, I finished “Golden Years” and “Far Away So Close” and like to believe they didn’t sound so bad.

Thanks for the fun, guys!
Dinner: ~~¥1600~~ ¥2900 each. Karaoke: ¥1500 each for 3 hours. Beer: ¥200 per can. Potato chips: ¥150

Live: Satsuki Shimizu

Rick Elizaga — Fri, 25 Jun 2004 15:41:34 +0000

Watched an energizing performance last night by Satsuki Shimizu at Nega-Posi. Her Japanese folk and folk-inspired music on the shamisen and sanshin seems to plant music with deep traditional roots into a modern sensibility. I don’t know which songs were “traditional” and which were originals, but they all sounded new. Accompanying Shimizu were a quietly excellent harmonica player and “Double Percussion,” an energetic duo playing an assortment of earthy percussion including cajon box drums, whistles, rattles and a steel drum. Shimizu’s voice was clear and strong, and her performance was precise, playful and warm. The audience ranged from a group of students to a dignified-looking guy with short grey hair, a dark suit and slightly funky shoes.

Mari reads flyers at Nega-posi.

I first knew Shimizu not as a musician, but as Mari’s friend “Satsuki,” who was generous enough to give us her spare refrigerator. Mari tells me Satsuki was her first “Kyoto-friend” years ago. Mari also says that before Satsuki started playing music, her passion was motocross racing.