PhilPaine.com

I lis­tened to this album while watch­ing one of Yasu­jirō Ozu’s silent films, Pass­ing Fan­cy [出来ごころ; Dekigoko­ro] (1933), after a mas­sive sushi lunch. Ume­kichi is the per­form­ing name of Okaya­ma Kurashi­ki, a pop/folk musi­cian who sings and plays shamisen. It seems that she pokes fun at both Japan’s ephemer­al pop music and the clas­si­cal tra­di­tion by effort­less­ly blend­ing the two. This, appar­ent­ly, has not been tak­en well by Japan­ese folk­lorists, for whom every dit­ty about cher­ry blos­soms is sanc­ti­fied. The play­ful sar­casm comes across to me in her voice, though of course I can’t under­stand a word of it. For me, it’s just one more ten­ta­tive lit­tle for­ay into Japan’s immense­ly com­plex and thor­ough­ly con­fus­ing pop­u­lar culture.