Kojun // The Water Garden LP

This is a reissue record released by Okinawan musician Kohjun from EM Records in Osaka in August 2023. (originally released in 8)

Below is a commentary by the label.

"Ryukyu electronic salon music entrusted with the image of "peaceful Asia".The first LP release to celebrate the 1993th anniversary of the release of this one-of-a-kind masterpiece "Underwater Garden" (30).We will add bonus songs.

Okinawan musician Kojun Kokuba, also known as Kojun, has been involved with numerous bands since the 70s and is known as the "Kojun behind the scenes". Known to some for creatingThis "Underwater Garden" is a work that was started to create "BGM" with the image of "peaceful Asia" inspired by the trading era of the Ryukyu dynasty, but due to the unexpected formation of a concert band (later the six members). Production suspended.After that, the band disbanded and the project was scrapped, but he waited for the opportunity and completed this work in 80.

"Underwater Garden" has its roots in Okinawa, but has also been widely influenced by Asian music, layering and modifying phrases derived from traditional musical scales from various parts of Asia, and eliminating the movement of typical Western chord harmonies. The point has great features.Using electronic instruments and multi-tracks, his experiments in accumulating melodies in what he calls "stacking lines" seem to aim to spread new energy from Okinawa to the Asian world.A unique mixture of freshness and wonder, fun and sensuality, the sound seems to be the result of a bundle of Asian scales.He makes full use of synths and drum machines to create a comfortable and distinctive rhythm, but it is not for the dance floor, but for the image of electronic salon music as "BGM = light music" that makes full use of technology.

Kokuba's "peaceful Asia" is an image of the activities of East Asia and Southeast Asia before the early modern period when maritime trade prospered. He envisions it as being greeted with a new 'pop'.

*Note: Six members were scheduled to make their world debut as Ryuichi Sakamoto's labelmates, produced by Bill Laswell. "

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12" black vinyl. Includes english + japanese liner notes. Originally released on CD in 1993. 

Tracklist:

A1. Kaw * [1'55”]
A2. Parade [4'37”]
A3. Lady with Chinese Parasol [4'09”]
A4. Gate of Market [4'14”]
A5. A Trip to the Bamboo Forest * [4'49”]

B1. The Water Garden [7'50”]
B2. Vessel with Torch [4'24”]
B3. Ravine [4'18”]
B4. Dancing in the Lotus Garden [5'47”]
+ BONUS TRACK

EM Records:

"A buoyant masterpiece from the early 90s, “The Water Garden” was created by Okinawa-born Kojun Kokuba under the inspiring image of a “happy Asia” thriving in the sea-based trading networks of the medieval to pre-modern era, with the concept that various types of music, as well as physical goods, were distributed and dispersed across the seas connecting various parts of east and southeast Asia. Fittingly, the music here has definite and distinctive Ryukyu island roots, but is informed by a number of other Asian musical traditions, layering phrases derived from numerous Asian scales, often altered by Kojun, eschewing typical Western chordal harmonic movement. Kojun uses the synths and multitrack recorders of the early 90s to, in his words, “pile up lines” in sweet and not at all overbearing melodic accumulations, with a desire to distribute and disperse a new energy from Okinawa to the rest of Asia and the world. Despite a pleasing and compelling rhythmic lilt and the use of synths and drum machines, this music was not created as a product for the dance floor; Kojun envisioned a type of electronic salon music, a “light music” made with contemporary technology. This is the first LP edition of the self-produced original 1993 CD release and includes bonus tracks and liner notes in English and Japanese."

Artist : Kojun

Label: EM Records