Sunday, April 3rd. Hiroshima. Walking around Tower Records, listening to their music selections, noticed a Listening station dedicated to someone I'd never heard of before. Listened. The pull on my liking mechanism or my affection neurones or like whatever was INSTANTANEOUS AND LASTING. LASTING ENOUGH TO COME BACK TO THE APARTMENT AND WRITE THIS.
The name of the someone is Wednesday Campanella or WEDNESDAY CAMPANELLA or 水曜日のカンパネラ [Suiyōbi no Kaｎpanera]. It is made up of frontlady KOM_I and producer Hidefumi Kenmochi and director Dir.F, whose videowork gives the duo's kinetic music a very very worthy visual equivalent (see below). [Another great video is the one for 『ディアブロ』 ]
and song that captured and arrested my senses about well a few hours ago is called 『シャクシャイン』 or 'Shakushain'. Shakushain was an Ainu (indigenous people of northern Japan and more notably of Hokkaidō, northernmost island of Japan, which was formerly known as Ezo) leader, involved in a conflict which became known as Shakushain's Revolt. Trade between the Ainu and Tokugawa-ruled Japan favoured the latter, Ezo having been brought under de facto Japanese control centuries earlier, and was managed by the Matsumae clan. Shakushain led a brief war in 1669 against the Matsumae, and other specially appointed forces sent to bolster the region threatened by a united Ainu, before surrendering. After peace deals, the Ainu generals celebrated. That same night they, inclduing Shakushain himself, were assassinated by the Matsumae. This was one of the only instances of large-scale resistance against Japanese rule by the Ainu. Hiistorryy lesssooooooooooonnn~~~~~~~~
This is interesting because 水曜日のカンパネラ's song is wordularly an ode to Hokkaidō (the video as you'll see is a sightularly ode) and its modern delights. It's interesting because the beat is brash and polished and heavy on the bass and pops in your ears peppered with a bristling hail of percussion, with satisfying cymbal crashes and awesomely expansive and rich handclaps exploding on occasion. It's interesting because strings and simple melody crescendo in parts carrying a somewhat melancholy undertone beneath its tide of feeling, a part of which – an organlike sound – continues into the second verse, where the first was bare of instrumentation bar the booming beat and KOM_I's rapid fire layered softly-spoken rapping; it's interesting because the song presents a quirky beat-based modernity alongside unpretentious and swelling heartfelt instrumentation, two distinctly different things melded skilfully and, more important, very enjoyably.
☟☟☟☟☟☟☟☟
- 『シャクシャイン』 is track 1 of 水曜日のカンパネラ's 2015 album ジパング, Zipangu. it is presumably titled after what the explorer Marco Polo reported as the Chinese name of Japan at the time: Zipangu (or Cipangu)... either that or after the manga Zipang
- urge whoever is reading to watch a playlist of this and previous songs w/ vids on YT
