Megumi from the French Maaya site 'Melodie' was kind enough to scan the newest IDS bulletin from Maaya for the livejournal community Mameshiba. I translated a small bit for her. I'm just posting it here for archiving purposes (and if you had it then you're just lucky!)
Greetings in this hot summer! Airmail.
To tell the truth, right now I'm travelling alone in Europe!
While feeling the weather vane within me I'm on a journey to find what's important.
What did I see,
What things did I meet,
What thoughts did I think?
I'll tell you in the next issue!
Well, you have a good summer too!
- Maaya Sakamoto
Monday, 6 July 2009
Friday, 26 June 2009
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 Encore Intro
Well, I went back and found the missing part of the tour! It was (as I had thought) at the beginning of the encore. So now we're finished! Enjoy the last translation, I hope that these translations, however amateur they may be, helped you enjoy the show a bit more than you might have done previously. It was a great tour!! Maaaayaaaaaaaaaaa!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 Encore Intro
You called? (cheer) Anything wrong with being in a short skirt again? (cheer) Eh…You got me completely. I was tricked. Actually, I was determined that ‘Kazamidori’ would be moved to become the last song on this tour.
On the bullet train on the way back from Osaka I had been saying to the staff “How would it be if we switched ‘Universe’ and ended with ‘Kazamidori’?” And then they replied really strongly with “No, no, probably doing ‘Universe’ would be best”(laugh) So that’s what it was! I wonder when that was planned. Thank you very much everyone, it was wonderful. (cheer)
Well…I can feel deeply the energy overflowing in the atmosphere right now. Lives really are good, aren’t they? (cheer) I really think that. Well! We were called by everyone and rushed out here so I guess it’s OK to sing a bit more, right? (cheer)
OK. Heh, heh, OK. Let’s go back to when I was a teenager (audience woos) Platina!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 Encore Intro
You called? (cheer) Anything wrong with being in a short skirt again? (cheer) Eh…You got me completely. I was tricked. Actually, I was determined that ‘Kazamidori’ would be moved to become the last song on this tour.
On the bullet train on the way back from Osaka I had been saying to the staff “How would it be if we switched ‘Universe’ and ended with ‘Kazamidori’?” And then they replied really strongly with “No, no, probably doing ‘Universe’ would be best”(laugh) So that’s what it was! I wonder when that was planned. Thank you very much everyone, it was wonderful. (cheer)
Well…I can feel deeply the energy overflowing in the atmosphere right now. Lives really are good, aren’t they? (cheer) I really think that. Well! We were called by everyone and rushed out here so I guess it’s OK to sing a bit more, right? (cheer)
OK. Heh, heh, OK. Let’s go back to when I was a teenager (audience woos) Platina!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 8
Here it is, the final MC. Apart from the one I've lost. I think it's at the beginning of the encore, actually. Thinking back. That must be why I missed it out because it's not labeled as an MC. Oh well. I'll go back. Enjoy!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 8
OK, this time to the front! This time out to the front. And also the strings, once more! Ah I’m so happy, thank you for wearing the T-shirts. (To Kouno Shin) It’s fine, it’s fine I haven’t got one either.
Note: Maaya snorts her word into the microphone here ^^;; so I’m not sure what she says but I’m pretty sure Kouno Shin was worried about not having his flag because everyone else is waving theirs quite happily and he turns to go back and Maaya’s like ‘no, no, I haven’t got one either’. Anyhoo, back to the MC.
Thank you everyone, we are Kazeyomi! Thank you! (cheer)
Everyone really surprised me…well, there’s one more surprise from me. I’m sorry, the time’s really getting late. Well, this is for me as well. Today’s really the first time I’ve played this so my hearts pounding really hard. (cheer) anyway, this for me as well so let me sing this song once more.
Everyone here, everyone here today, and the people in Nagoya and Osaka, the band and the staff, thanks to everyone I’ve fallen in love with concerts. This is truly the last song.
‘Kazamidori’.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 8
OK, this time to the front! This time out to the front. And also the strings, once more! Ah I’m so happy, thank you for wearing the T-shirts. (To Kouno Shin) It’s fine, it’s fine I haven’t got one either.
Note: Maaya snorts her word into the microphone here ^^;; so I’m not sure what she says but I’m pretty sure Kouno Shin was worried about not having his flag because everyone else is waving theirs quite happily and he turns to go back and Maaya’s like ‘no, no, I haven’t got one either’. Anyhoo, back to the MC.
Thank you everyone, we are Kazeyomi! Thank you! (cheer)
Everyone really surprised me…well, there’s one more surprise from me. I’m sorry, the time’s really getting late. Well, this is for me as well. Today’s really the first time I’ve played this so my hearts pounding really hard. (cheer) anyway, this for me as well so let me sing this song once more.
Everyone here, everyone here today, and the people in Nagoya and Osaka, the band and the staff, thanks to everyone I’ve fallen in love with concerts. This is truly the last song.
‘Kazamidori’.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 7
I'm pretty sure I've missed an MC somewhere, you know. I've been going through them in order on the DVD but I'm SURE there's another one somewhere that isn't labelled on the chapter menu. I'll find it somehow...
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 7
Thanks for calling us out again, everyone. Yay! Yay! Amazing. I’m so happy. Well, it’s because we haven’t done that important song yet, right? I’m sure the people who are here for the first time are thinking ‘huh?’ but as if you know what’s going on please sing with everyone together. After we do this song the concert will finish.
All you Kazeyomi people who came back here today, I’m sure there are some of you who feel like you only just arrived, so many people here and all walking their own various paths who pass by each other here, having today in common and then facing a brand new tomorrow. Returning to all those different ‘every day’ lives. Think about all the important things, the wonderful things, all the glorious things that will pile up in those words ‘everyday life’ from tomorrow.
We will meet again somewhere, both most cheerful and even more wonderful than we are today. So we can meet again, until that day, I will address you all with ‘itterasshai’!!
Note: ‘itterasshai’ is what Japanese people say when someone’s leaving the house/room/going away. It’s a bit like when we wave someone off in English with ‘see you soon’ and it carries the nuance of the person coming back again sometime.
Pulling together these feelings let’s sing that song we always sing at the end. Singing altogether very loudly - don’t think about if you’re disturbing the person next to you because it’s the last song. OK, here we go.
1, 2, 3, 4.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 7
Thanks for calling us out again, everyone. Yay! Yay! Amazing. I’m so happy. Well, it’s because we haven’t done that important song yet, right? I’m sure the people who are here for the first time are thinking ‘huh?’ but as if you know what’s going on please sing with everyone together. After we do this song the concert will finish.
All you Kazeyomi people who came back here today, I’m sure there are some of you who feel like you only just arrived, so many people here and all walking their own various paths who pass by each other here, having today in common and then facing a brand new tomorrow. Returning to all those different ‘every day’ lives. Think about all the important things, the wonderful things, all the glorious things that will pile up in those words ‘everyday life’ from tomorrow.
We will meet again somewhere, both most cheerful and even more wonderful than we are today. So we can meet again, until that day, I will address you all with ‘itterasshai’!!
Note: ‘itterasshai’ is what Japanese people say when someone’s leaving the house/room/going away. It’s a bit like when we wave someone off in English with ‘see you soon’ and it carries the nuance of the person coming back again sometime.
Pulling together these feelings let’s sing that song we always sing at the end. Singing altogether very loudly - don’t think about if you’re disturbing the person next to you because it’s the last song. OK, here we go.
1, 2, 3, 4.
Thursday, 25 June 2009
30 Minutes Night Flight Interview - April 2007
I was on my year abroad in Japan when '30 Minutes Night Flight' came out, thus, it's my soundtrack for my year abroad photos and memories. 'Bokutachi ha koi wo suru riyuu' was the song I listened to every night I pedaled my bicycle back from my job as a waitress in a Chinese restaurant. Yes, I know a) dangerous to listen to music when riding a bike along busy roads and b) what was I doing working in a Chinese restaurant in Japan? Anyway, I was able to get a lot of the magazines Maaya was featured in when she was doing her publicity for the album.
So here's a short article from Tsutaya's (the rental people) free music magazine that I picked up back in april 2007.
Maaya Sakamoto – The new album has arrived after a break of a year and 5 months. A concept album one can enjoy wholeheartedly.
Originally published in VA the magazine from Tsutaya Records vol.58, April 2007.
Interview and Text: Kana Yoshida
Translation: Pippa
If you could spend 30 minutes doing whatever you wanted, what would you do? Cook, read a book, watch a film, go outside for a bit but 30 minutes isn’t much of anything really. If you have time to spare, spend it on Maaya Sakamoto’s new album ’30 minutes night flight’. Just like it says on the box, this album lasts just 30 minutes.
M: “30 minutes isn’t a serious amount of time at all, is it? (laugh) But if it’s through music, I really think that in just 30 minutes you can travel the entire globe or even go into space.”
When you hear the words ‘concept album’, whether it’s an ‘acoustic album’ or a ‘ballad album’, usually one can get a sense of the whole product even before listening to it. However, with this album, each song has a completely different feel from the one before it and this really makes you anticipate the track that will come next.
M: “This album really isn’t from a single person’s perspective, it’s singing about the lives of many different people through the lens of being on a journey. That’s why there are so many different personalities and different sounds. However, because it's a concept album and there has to be one overall atmosphere present throughout we had just one arranger.
I’ve never made an album like this before so it was a really fresh way to work. By having a set time limit and concept, with the labour we were able to put into it, I think we struck upon an idea that one wouldn’t usually come across. I really think all the songs came together well.”
The 5th track ‘universe’ is a majestic but mysterious ballad that one can hear at the Ikebukuro planetarium ‘Starlight Dome Manten’ in Tokyo.
M: “I really love planetariums. At first you get that it’s only a projection of stars but gradually you begin to feel like you’re actually floating in the cosmos. A feeling of space so vast it’s scary…There’s a moment when you’re in the planetarium when there’s a link between your everyday sense of reality and the feeling of being taken into space.
Even though I don’t really like the trend recently of getting in touch with one’s spiritual side (laugh) I wanted to express the idea that the relationship between oneself and the universe is not something difficult at all. I wanted to look at the things we can’t easily explain from all sides and give them form in music, the big events we have no control over and the meetings of destiny.”
With today’s technology, it would be easy to create this magnificence through piling up sound after sound but Sakamoto’s songs still retain the feeling of being ‘live’. Without any sense of being ‘just sounds we added together’, they resonate clearly within the soul. There’s a reason for this too.
M: “I think right now it’s seen as normal to record a number of takes and select the best one [when recording]. But a singing voice is a living thing, it’s always changing. It isn’t just ‘sing this part over and over and it will be fine’. So this time we had a lot of songs where the rule was ‘one time only’. Although, as usual, I sang oblivious to the fact that ‘there is no next time’.”
It’s been 11 years since Maaya Sakamoto started singing. Never compromising, there’s an inherently good feeling about this person who continues to challenge new things. We asked this woman who says: ‘It’s natural for me to have singing as the centre of my life’, what she would do if she went on a long trip herself…
M: “I want to go on a journey all by myself! I want to live life by going to a lot of different countries. I’d like to experience music that crosses borderlines easily and the wonderful food one can find abroad (laugh)”
So here's a short article from Tsutaya's (the rental people) free music magazine that I picked up back in april 2007.
Maaya Sakamoto – The new album has arrived after a break of a year and 5 months. A concept album one can enjoy wholeheartedly.
Originally published in VA the magazine from Tsutaya Records vol.58, April 2007.
Interview and Text: Kana Yoshida
Translation: Pippa
If you could spend 30 minutes doing whatever you wanted, what would you do? Cook, read a book, watch a film, go outside for a bit but 30 minutes isn’t much of anything really. If you have time to spare, spend it on Maaya Sakamoto’s new album ’30 minutes night flight’. Just like it says on the box, this album lasts just 30 minutes.
M: “30 minutes isn’t a serious amount of time at all, is it? (laugh) But if it’s through music, I really think that in just 30 minutes you can travel the entire globe or even go into space.”
When you hear the words ‘concept album’, whether it’s an ‘acoustic album’ or a ‘ballad album’, usually one can get a sense of the whole product even before listening to it. However, with this album, each song has a completely different feel from the one before it and this really makes you anticipate the track that will come next.
M: “This album really isn’t from a single person’s perspective, it’s singing about the lives of many different people through the lens of being on a journey. That’s why there are so many different personalities and different sounds. However, because it's a concept album and there has to be one overall atmosphere present throughout we had just one arranger.
I’ve never made an album like this before so it was a really fresh way to work. By having a set time limit and concept, with the labour we were able to put into it, I think we struck upon an idea that one wouldn’t usually come across. I really think all the songs came together well.”
The 5th track ‘universe’ is a majestic but mysterious ballad that one can hear at the Ikebukuro planetarium ‘Starlight Dome Manten’ in Tokyo.
M: “I really love planetariums. At first you get that it’s only a projection of stars but gradually you begin to feel like you’re actually floating in the cosmos. A feeling of space so vast it’s scary…There’s a moment when you’re in the planetarium when there’s a link between your everyday sense of reality and the feeling of being taken into space.
Even though I don’t really like the trend recently of getting in touch with one’s spiritual side (laugh) I wanted to express the idea that the relationship between oneself and the universe is not something difficult at all. I wanted to look at the things we can’t easily explain from all sides and give them form in music, the big events we have no control over and the meetings of destiny.”
With today’s technology, it would be easy to create this magnificence through piling up sound after sound but Sakamoto’s songs still retain the feeling of being ‘live’. Without any sense of being ‘just sounds we added together’, they resonate clearly within the soul. There’s a reason for this too.
M: “I think right now it’s seen as normal to record a number of takes and select the best one [when recording]. But a singing voice is a living thing, it’s always changing. It isn’t just ‘sing this part over and over and it will be fine’. So this time we had a lot of songs where the rule was ‘one time only’. Although, as usual, I sang oblivious to the fact that ‘there is no next time’.”
It’s been 11 years since Maaya Sakamoto started singing. Never compromising, there’s an inherently good feeling about this person who continues to challenge new things. We asked this woman who says: ‘It’s natural for me to have singing as the centre of my life’, what she would do if she went on a long trip herself…
M: “I want to go on a journey all by myself! I want to live life by going to a lot of different countries. I’d like to experience music that crosses borderlines easily and the wonderful food one can find abroad (laugh)”
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 6
Here's MC 6 from the Kazeyomi DVD!!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 6
Thank you! (applause) Give another round for the band! (applause) You know…there’s one more thing that I’d like to do. (applause) I guess the fan club members already know about this but at the fan club limited mini lives last spring I played the piano myself for the first time.
I’m not making excuses but I can’t read music scores and I had never even played the piano before but one say I realised that in order to express my songs with my whole body I have to learn to play an instrument. So I went to a music store and said “Please give me a keyboard”. I just suddenly brought that key board one day.
From then it took about 10 months, with excessive practice, but at the six live events people listened to my performance and I was able to play without giving up. It’s been almost one year since then but I thought that I really want to do it on my tour.
I might not be very good but with everything I have, there’s a song I’d like you to hear to say thank you to everyone.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 6
Thank you! (applause) Give another round for the band! (applause) You know…there’s one more thing that I’d like to do. (applause) I guess the fan club members already know about this but at the fan club limited mini lives last spring I played the piano myself for the first time.
I’m not making excuses but I can’t read music scores and I had never even played the piano before but one say I realised that in order to express my songs with my whole body I have to learn to play an instrument. So I went to a music store and said “Please give me a keyboard”. I just suddenly brought that key board one day.
From then it took about 10 months, with excessive practice, but at the six live events people listened to my performance and I was able to play without giving up. It’s been almost one year since then but I thought that I really want to do it on my tour.
I might not be very good but with everything I have, there’s a song I’d like you to hear to say thank you to everyone.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 5
Sorry it took a while!
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 5
The lyrics of the first song today, ‘Get no satisfaction’, and the lyrics of ‘Remedy’ – I think they really express who I am right now. I hope that you Kazeyomi citizens here today will be able to really take those feelings in when you listen back once more after this. However, on ‘Kazeyomi’ the most…the most special song, the song which says “This is the person I’ve become” most…please listen.
Kazeyomi Tour 2009 MC 5
The lyrics of the first song today, ‘Get no satisfaction’, and the lyrics of ‘Remedy’ – I think they really express who I am right now. I hope that you Kazeyomi citizens here today will be able to really take those feelings in when you listen back once more after this. However, on ‘Kazeyomi’ the most…the most special song, the song which says “This is the person I’ve become” most…please listen.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
