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YONAGUNI JIMA

This is a series of three songs i made with the voice of a very old grandma
from Yonaguni Island, south west of Okinawa. This tiny island is the most
western part of Japan and is very close to Taiwan. An Okinawan friend went
there to record his grandmother singing some traditional songs from the
island and he gave me the recordings. Good intuition actually, because she
passed away by the time i had finished the third song. And i don't even
know her name, nor her face... just this harsh, salty voice. On purpose, i
did not try to make her timbre more sweet sounding and i was very
tempted to include some very funny moments between the songs when she
coughs like a truck driver or gets a bit upset because her grand son
continually asks her to stop moving some papers in front of the microphone
when she sings. To stay true to this absolutely authentic harsh voice, i had
to limit myself to a few elements to avoid sounding like a too civilized
deodorant spray called "world music", and stay true to the Ryukyu
traditional spirit. The Ryukyu Kingdom is the former group of islands
including Okinawa and Yonaguni that was taken over by Japan two centuries
ago. I chose to use only field recording, sinusoidal waves, and sanshin -more
known as shamisen, the Japanese traditional three strings instrument that
actually comes from Okinawa. And of course, no guitar at all.