Agatsuma Hiromitsu
Comments: 28
Speaking of good music, something I’ve been playing a lot lately is a CD from a young guy called Agatsuma Hiromitsu (site is in Japanese). He plays the Tsugaru-jamisen, a three-stringed traditional instrument. Tsugaru is the name of the western part of Aomori prefecture in the far north of Honshu where a distinctly rapid and percussive style of shamisen playing originated. I can’t resist posting a sample:
Agatsuma Hiromitsu, “Yuu” (520K mp3, 00:00:52)
What a catchy melody, and beautifully played. I don’t usually like ‘fusiony’ mixtures of traditional styles with contemporary beats, but this stuff is just great.
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Posted to Audio • 2002.11.09 (Sat) • 23:13
Comments
Posted by Nancy C. Hanger 2002.11.10, 04:40
What marvelous music — if only we could get ahold of it in the States. I checked, and all I can find it his first album for … U.S. $47!
(I’ve been reading your blog for a while without posting; as a fellow designer and typographer, I’ve been enjoying it immensely, especially your house tours.)
Posted by Richie 2002.11.10, 06:34
Thanks for the link to his site. I recall seeing him on an NHK special on Asian music and I really liked what I heard (although I didn’t catch his name at the time). He played that same song for the NHK special.
I’ll have to explore including samples on my site too -that’s really cool. :)
Posted by Derek 2002.11.10, 08:34
I recently published an article on tsugaru jamisen and the recent rise in its popularity among younger people. I’ll make a .pdf of it (including a shot of Agatsuma-san) and send it as soon as I remember, nice post.
Gaijinworld
Posted by jh 2002.11.10, 13:03
Derek — Can’t wait to see it. Didn’t know there was a Tsugaru-jamisen boom going on (but then, I don’t get out much these days — and no, I’m not holed up in my room like one of those poor sods you saw on the BBC!).
Posted by vis10n 2002.11.12, 00:53
Love the music… shame, really, that it’s US$50 for the album on Amazon. On a related note, I’m curious how you did the sample: I’m on a Mac (OS9x), and would really like to sample (30-40 seconds each) all of my music for posting to my personal site… but don’t know if there’s any automated way of doing a simple sample with fade in/out.
Suggestions?
Posted by resonance 2002.11.12, 14:02
I thought a lot of the Indian fusion stuff (predominantly electronica, but some of that leans more heavily towards acid jazz) was compelling in the same way. Neat stuff. Hopefully it’ll become more affordable domestically (for those in the US) in the not-so-distant future.
Out of curiosity, what is it about the “fusiony mixtures” that you don’t like? It’s a bit difficult for me to tell at times what isn’t fusiony. You mention that you don’t like the mix of traditional styles with contemporary beats—do you find artists like Paul Simon or Peter Gabrie (among many others)l, who can be argued to be doing the reverse (traditional beats with contemporary styles) more satisfying, or are those examples of fusiony music equally distasteful for you?
Posted by jh 2002.11.14, 10:06
Vis10n — I use Sound Studio to do the quick-and-dirty edits and fades. It’s a neat little app for the job, although it probably won’t be enough for anyone wanting to do more serious audio (no multitrack capabilities yet, for example).
I checked it’s AppleScript dictionary and there are handles for selecting, resampling, and adding fades (among plenty of others). With a little scripting (well, maybe more than a little) you could probably come up with a way to automate what you want to do.
Any samples I post I tend to do manually because (a) I don’t post so many samples and (b) I want the fade outs to occur at a point that ‘makes sense’ if possible. But for going through your collection and grabbing a taste of everything, I reckon AppleScript and Sound Studio might be the way to go.
Resonance — Sorry for being wishy-washy with the fusion thing. Can I steal a famous line from Louis Brandeis on pornography and say “I know it when I hear it”? ;-)
There are some Paul Simon tunes I don’t mind at all, for example, and I’m not against influences creeping in to music by any means. The classic example may be Miles Davis, and the difference between “Kind of Blue” or “Sketches of Spain” and “Bitches Brew.” A lot happens between the earlier and later of these recordings, of course (“Miles in the Sky” marked a big turning point), so forgive the shorthand treatment.
While you can’t help but admire Davis and his quintet for their sense of adventure and invention, it’s clear by the time of “Bitches Brew” that they’re heading in a direction I won’t be following. It sounded like it wasn’t quite one thing and it wasn’t quite another, and if it was it’s own thing then I didn’t like the sound of it.
Not to denigrate the incorporation of influences or styles, or invention and daring, by any stretch. It’s just that the results have to be more than the sum of the parts, and maybe my tastes are too rigid to go be satisfied very often (and I do have rigidly defined tastes — this is all my fault).
But I’m not being any less wishy-washy than I was before, am I?
Posted by resonance 2002.11.14, 15:08
jh, I think I know where you’re coming from, and yes, there are certainly cases in which whatever is trying to be “fused” doesn’t quite take (not enough flux perhaps).
The intent in my comment was not to “call” you on your wishy-washyness, but to perhaps bait you into giving me a decent way to articulate the same sentiment. I got into a heated conversation with a friend (a classical composer) who more or less categorically dismissed any cultural fusion in music. I think I ended up calling him a deluded cultural purist. [And of course, I think I was right.]
I think there’s a great universe of possibilities in fusing musical styles from different cultures. The tricky part, perhaps, is that it takes musicians with a certain degree of sophistication and (dare I say) self-awareness—or at least awareness of what cans of worms one might be opening—to pull off such fusion compellingly.
Now how’s that for wishy-washy?
Posted by vis10n 2002.11.15, 02:25
Hey, thanks!
I’ll definately have to check that out… I have a sizeable and diverse collection that most of the folks that would come to my site wouldn’t know, so I’m eager to sample it.
I might have a couple of questions once I get going, but I’ll send those to you directly.
resonance: That’s ironic that your composer friend would say that, as “classical composition” was the quintessence of fusion: forcing folk melodies from across Europe (initially at least) into a scale that was completely rigid. In fact that scale that the piano imposed on the entire world is quite an issue among many musicologists.
So his “cultural puritism” is fairly wan… if he thinks that he’s being true to some deep tradition, he is sorely deceived.
(Man, that came off as terribly heavy-handed… add a little honey to that before re-heating).
Posted by resonance 2002.11.15, 02:33
vis10n,
“…his “cultural puritism” is fairly wan… if he thinks that he’s being true to some deep tradition, he is sorely deceived”
amen.
Posted by Paul 2003.01.23, 13:09
Pardon my intrusion, but I stumbled on this blog while searching for info. on Hiromitsu Agatsuma.
Anyway, I thought you might like to know that he and his band will do a 4 stop U.S. tour over the next couple of weeks. Here are the announced dates:
Jan 30 - Wesleyan College, Middletown, CT. Feb. 4 - Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA. Feb 6 & 7 - Japan Society, NYC Feb. 9 - Towson University, Towson, MD.
Posted by Brian 2003.01.29, 05:23
I would like to correct the above information. The January 30th Hiromitsu Agatsuma concert is at Wesleyan University, not Wesleyan College. Wesleyan College is an all-women’s school in Georgia. Tickets are $5 and can be purhased from the Wesleyan University Box Office at (860) 685-3355. There are still plenty of tickets available. I was able to get front-row seats as of this afternoon.
Posted by Greg Tutunjian 2003.02.05, 19:19
I was at the 2/5 Berklee concert as well. Tommy’s comments are right on. The energy between the band members needs to be experienced live.
My only knock on the CD is that Agatsuma’s Tsugaru-jamisen is mixed a little low. Live, it’s a soaring and sometimes searing voice. On the CD, it’s not quite as prominent.
Posted by Hanzo 2003.02.17, 05:20
hey, i just stumbled in here searching google for information on hiromitsu agatsuma. I went to see him at the Japan Society in new york and OMG, i swear, the CDs are great but you haven’t heard half of it until you’ve heard him live with his rock shamisen band… it’s like really awesome jazz fusion type stuff mixed with the traditional shamisen, and he’s not the only INCREDIBLE one, his whole band’s awesome, star keyboardist/pianist, awesome bassist, amazing drummer, it’s a REALLY tight band :)
Posted by Hanzo 2003.02.17, 05:23
plus, I got his second CD for $20, also got it signed by hiromitsu agatsuma himself! :) I can’t find any decent prices on his first CD though… :(
Posted by Chitra 2003.03.06, 13:33
Thanks for the clip! Discovered Hiromitsu today over “the World” Radio newscast on public radio. It was a sampler form his CD “Beams,” which doesnt appear to be available yet on Amazon. Super stuff.
Posted by Lee Spencer 2003.03.07, 15:17
Incredible string work. I heard a piece about him on US National Public Radio (NPR), Wednesday, March 5, 2003. The Network devoted quite a few minutes to several of his various styles, including Traditional shamusin. One of the samplings was extremely reminiscent of Bluegrass genre and apparantly is from his newest CD release. What a refreshing sound. I think the piece name is “Impressions of Manhattan” and the name of the CD is” Beams”. I believe the CD may be available here in the States now. My interest was such that I had to find out a bit more about the artist, and your site came up on Google. Informative dialog, interesting subject matter. An excellent job—-most enjoyable.
Posted by Mr. T 2003.03.08, 10:08
Hi All,
Agatsuma’s “Beams” is released from Domo Records in the U.S. check out www.domo.com
Posted by Mats 2003.08.21, 22:42
This week (Aug 18th - Aug 24th) www.domo.com has a special offer for the excellent Beams CD $10.50 How great it is to find new music (new to me) like this!
Posted by Cherri 2003.09.11, 17:35
Just purchased Beams via amazon from djangomusic for $8.95. Can’t wait to get this CD. I’m doing a research paper on the shamisen and how it is marketed to the younger generation in Japan and in the process came across some info on Agatsuma. Such a unique combination of an ancient instrument and awesome modern sound. Looking forward to hearing the whole thing.
Posted by jh 2003.09.11, 19:06
Cherri —-
Would love to read your paper when it’s done. Best of luck with it.
Posted by organic 2003.09.25, 23:13
hi
you have more musics to share?
Everybody, I TUnes is the way to go. Has both albums and each song only 99 cents, can’t believe no ones tried it yet.
Posted by Kristin 2004.04.18, 11:43
FYI Hiromitsu Agatsuma fans, He will be performing here in Minneapolis April 24th 2004 at 7pm. The Japan America Society / Arts Midwest and Macalester college are all sponsoring him and a traditional japanese dance troup. We hope all can attend. He is great and will have his keyboardist with him.
Posted by Ian 2004.06.29, 13:42
I ‘m not sure if this thread is still being read, but just in case…
Domo.com has an awesome deal on Agatsuma’s new CD, “Beyond”…$12.97 (U.S.)
My Favorite is a track called “Shami’s Groove”
http://www.domo.com/sound/Agatsuma/beyond/06-shamis_groove.mp3
Posted by meikaili 2004.08.10, 04:00
agatsuma is live for FREE!!! at new york’s LINCOLN CENTEr outside…. friday august 27th 6pm… oh my god. some how have to find someone to go with me traveling from new jersey . just have to get some one to hook up with me so that I can use the subway. only been on that once. so if you guys want to see him free and enjoy… get ready… meikaili
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Posted by beth 2006.11.08, 04:01
if any of you wanted to know where to get his cd just check your local library…. Thats where i just got his cd Beyond, and it’s amazing!
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