Tatami Tripper

Sometimes, let's listen to Buddhist sutra and trip out. A live recording of the Buddhist service held at Daitoku-ji Shinju-an in Kyoto.

The Nights are always yours.    "Kuroneko no Tango" (Japanese : "Black Cat Tango"; originally Italian: Volevo un gatto nero "I wanted a black cat") is a tango song recorded in 1969 by young children in Italy and Japan.  The original Italian version came 3rd in the Zecchino d'Oro (annual international children's song festival) on 11 March 1969. It was written by Mario Pagano, Armando Soricillo, and Francesco Saverio Maresca, and was sung by four-year-old Vincenza Pastorelli.  The Japanese version was sung by six-year-old Osamu Minagawa and released on 5 October 1969. The song reached number one in the Japanese local chart, and sold 3 million copies. Japanese lyrics are so coquettish and beautiful, and I especially like the 3rd verse like this.  夜のあかりが　みんな消えても (Yoru no akari ga minna kietemo) 君の瞳は銀の星よ (Kimi no hitomi ha gin no hoshi yo) キラキラ光る　黒ネコの目 (Kira kira hikaru kuroneko no me) 夜はいつも　君のものさ (Yoru ha itsumo kimi no mono sa) Even after all the c...

I think there are 2 types of popular music, endemic and ubiquitous. For example, Brigitte Fontaine is endemic. Her music is exclusively found in France like folklore. On the other hand, Françoise Hardy is ubiquitous. This kind of music is extending over the world and nobody knows the origin of this international format. In the same manner, Stina Nordenstam is unique in Sweden and the Cardigans has a cosmopolitan distribution. Of course, this sorting has nothing to do with artistic evaluation, and I guess it might be related to translatability.  As for Japanese music scene, I would like to insist that HALCALI is endemic. To begin with, the band name “HALCALI” is very Japanese. It is the combination of members’ names, Halca (Haruka) and Yucali (Yukari). Do you know any other band whose name is portmanteau word like this? Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel cannot stand the unit name like “Simofunkel”. But Japanese linguistic magic turns everything into shortened form with 4 syllables. ...