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Cicala-Mvta is One of Japanese Most Exciting and Original Groups. Both Traditional Chindon and the Retro-futuristic Sound of Cicala-Mvta is an Entirely Natural Combination of the Old and New, the East with the West.
Cicala Mvta is a group described by some UK music critics as the most impressive exponents of contemporary Japanese grass roots music. The music presents old-fashioned and brass band music. Featuring chindon, a kind of Japanese drum, saxophones, clarinets and tubas, Cicala Mvta's music is a kind of street music originally played at funerals or the openings of local shops. But the band blends the cheesy music with social critique, thus creating a sarcastic outlook, in both its musical style and in its stage performance.
Before TV commercials, drum and woodwind bands would march through the streets of Japan carrying banners advertising products or stores. Bandleader WATARU OKHUMA modelled his band after these Chindon groups and named it CICALA-MVTA .(Pronounced Shi-ka-la Moo-ta, it means Mute cicada after the epitaph of a great Japanese street singer songwriter) All in all, it is a wild ride, as Cicala Mvta views klezmer, Balkan, Turkish, early jazz and free jazz music through their Japanese street band lens, which has something to do with topology and physics and their bent view of musical reality.
"Sounds close to the ground. Cicala-Mvta's music sometimes sounds like that. The band starts to play slowly and begins to stride on the ground powerfully. Sometimes they lash about the ground, and and run fast forward. They are not an underground group. Yet, they don't ascend nor float. They just go forward close to the ground.
A question is asked whether music is something to progress. Listening to Cicala-Mvta, I can believe that there lies much ground to go forward. They go forward on the surface of the globe, a sphere. It may not be progress. Terms such as experiment and evolution do not fit Cicala-Mvta. Their ceaseless march has a texture that has a much more hard-core nature.
Ten years ago, Wataru Okuma, the clarinet player, initiated this group. The Ghost Circus published in 2004 is their third album. It seems that by now they have become a one solid mass. They consist of very idiosyncratic players, and they make up a fairly unique instrumental ensemble. Yet, they move forward as a mass. As though they were a three-piece hard-core punk band.
With circus and street band music as their signature, Cicala-Mvta tries amalgamation of various music on the globe, and their music is almost impossible to analyze. The diverse musical elements each musician has absorbed physically in their bodies merge in an instant, and a spark of unique and allomorph music appears. As the album title shows, any academic scrutiny would be absurd-a sonic circus! It supercedes the speed of our thinking.
Their wordless music has become all the more eloquent and carries a message. Full of love, humor and rebellious spirit, their music is a tribute to people on earth who has but to survive. Sometimes it sounds like a requiem. In
01. Ghost Hymn Introduction
02. Pillow Walk
03. The United People Will Never Be Defeated
04. Stara Planina
05. The Sleep-Walker's Escape
06. Dr. Caligari's Side Show
07. Heraklion
08. Song Of The Birds
09. The Beam And The Bellows
10. The Right To Live In Peace
11. Ghost Requiem
12. Bonus
Wataru Okuma (clarinet, bass clarinet, vocals),
Yoshiyuki Kawaguchi (saxophone),
Yoshiki Sakurai (guitar),
Takero Sakijima (tuba, recorder),
Tatsuya Yoshida (drums, vocals),
Keisuke Ota (violin, vocals),
Yoshiaki Sato (accordion),
Yoichiro Kita (trumpet),
Akiko Watanabe (trombone),
Miwazo Kogure (ching-dong, gorosu)
Link
pass: bluesmen-worldmusic.blogspot.com
The band Cicala Mvta was founded in 1994 by its leader Wataru Ohkuma who is rated as one of the most innovative musicians of contemporary Japanese music. He is a superb player of the clarinet, saxes, vibes and accordeon. As producer and bandleader Wataru Ohkuma had participated in many revolutionary recordings of the 80ties (a.o. "Soulflower Mononoke Summit"). Wataru Ohkuma merges in his music Okinawa-style music and other traditional Japanese forms like Jinta with western composition techniques and traditions. Some say this CD "Ching Dong" is the Japanese answer to Giora Feidman and to Fanfare Ciocarlia. The bands name, Cicala Mvta is Italian and is written as the epitaph on the gravestone of the greatest street singer songwriter of popular music in Japan before the 1920s,Soeda Azembo, who at the time around 70 years ago, unable to speak his mind in fear of being thrown into prison, like having a cicala stuck in his throat, a "mute cicada".
The band Cicala Mvta merges Japanese Chindon music with own compositions and traditional music from various ethnic regions. Ohkuma plays a composition by Paul Dessau as well as Kabuki-melodies (Shi-chome) and Nepalese wedding dances or Klezmer songs.
Basis is Chindon music which until 50 years ago was a popular street form of advertising. Chindon bands were common in Japanese cities where new openings of shops, inaugurations of Pachinko's a.o. were announced by them.
In Cicala Mvta brass bands from Balkan meet Klezmerbands as well as New Orleans Marching Bands within the overcrowded streets of Tokyo.
The British magazine "FolkRoots" about "Ching Dong":
“The stirring debut album by Cicala Mvta, Wataru Ohkuma's own band, produces complex, challenging and powerful music.”
01. Ohfuku Jinta
02. Punku Mancha No Odori
03. Rajamati Kumati
04. Michikusa No Tameni
05. Azuma Hakkei
06. Fratanisation Song
07. Okuni Tsujiru Tobira
08. Turkish Dance
09. Nekomushi Ga Hairu Kara
10. Aohige No Yu-Utsu
11. Shi Come
12. Punku Mancha Reprise
Wataru Okuma (clarinet, bass clarinet, vocals),
Yoshiyuki Kawaguchi (saxophone),
Yoshiki Sakurai (guitar),
Takero Sakijima (tuba, recorder),
Tatsuya Yoshida (drums, vocals),
Keisuke Ota (violin, vocals),
Yoshiaki Sato (accordion),
Yoichiro Kita (trumpet),
Akiko Watanabe (trombone),
Miwazo Kogure (ching-dong, gorosu)
Link
pass: bluesmen-worldmusic.blogspot.com
Cicala Mvta (pronounced shikala moota) are one of Japan's most exciting and original groups. Like other innovative musicians, their music is hard to define; "punk chindon jazz", "world and noise band to clarinet in a chindon group. Colorful chindon groups used to be a common sight in Japan, marching in the streets noisily banging a chindon drum, while saxophones or clarinets would pick out the melody to the hits of the day. Ohkuma tramped the streets of Tokyo for 7 years playing clarinet as part of a spluttering tradition, until the late 80s when together with the group Compostella he started to revive chindon music by mixing it with other elements. While Japan is the only eastern country to have so readily absorbed western music, street performances of wind and percussion instruments can be found all over the world. As an "unmilitarized" street music, chindon is related to Jewish Klezmer music, New Orleans brass bands and wind and percussion ensembles from China and south east Asia. Ohkuma is as keen to embrace these influences in the music of Cicala Mvta. "In my opinion, old jazz , klezmer or wedding brass band traditions, from India to the Balkans, are all similar to chindon as an early modern mixture music . These are all clarinet musics, so it's very natural for me to play these types together" he says.
Ohkuma's other disparate influences help give Cicala Mvta their own distinctive sound. These he cites as progressive rock, punk, avant-garde jazz, early modern music (such as Bartok) and folk. Only occasionally featuring the chindon drum, Ohkuma's perky clarinet is ably abetted by an unusual line-up of musicians, each bringing with them a sense of individuality to supplement Ohkuma's clarinet and saxophone, in what is a totally original line-up; fluid, distorted electric guitar, rip-roaring, booming tuba, squeaking, screeching cello, frantic, discordant fiddle, and tinny, shuffling drums. "Deko Boko" is Cicala Mvta's second album and a progression on their self titled first CD. The mixtures are more radical than ever, and the tunes self penned by Ohkuma and arranged by the group. Both traditional chindon and the retro-futuristic sound of Cicala Mvta are an entirely natural combination of the old and new, the east with the west.
Cicala Mvta is one of only a few Japanese groups, to have created a 'buzz' in other countries. Their first overseas gig in 2000 was supporting Blur in London, afterwhich they toured for 6 weeks, playing to enthusiastic audiences at festivals throughout Europe. Despite being instrumental, their music is not without a message. The band's name, Italian for a 'mute cicada', derives from the epitaph written on the gravestone of Soeda Azembo (1872 -1944) the greatest street singer and songwriter of popular music in Japan before the 1920s. "His songs were banned and he was repeatedly thrown into prison. They tried to break his spirit and make him really mute" explains Ohkuma. Cicala Mvta and chindon music too, is not about to go quietly.
01. Tokyo Jinta
02. Kyu na saka
03. The lowest saddle
04. A weekend of a clown
05. The blue flower kopanitza
06. Sukiniatte gomen nassai
07. Don cholecha variation
08. Bessarabian hora
09. Bulgaria Rhytm
10. Albert Ayler Medley
11. Jerry roll strange motion
12. Motto kyu na saka
OHKUMA Wataru : clarinet,bass clarinet, accordion, timpani,glockenspiel,chorus
OHTA Keisuke: violin, singing(6),chorus
SAKURAI Yoshiki: guitar,Irish bouzouki, lap steel guitar, banjo, reverb tank,chorus
SAKAMOTO Hiromichi: cello,musical saw,chorus
SEKIJIMA Takero: tuba,recorder,chorus
KAMIMURA Shoko:drum,big bass drum(1), chorus
KAWAGUCHI Yoshiyuki: alto,soprano,bariton sax, chorus
Samm BENNETT: drum(3) , percussion, toys,turn table
Link
pass: bluesmen-worldmusic.blogspot.com
