mama!milk

I must admit that after five years in Japan my knowledge of Japanese music is woefully deficient.  It is not for lack of interest.  But thumbing through LPs in a record shop just leaves a giant question mark hanging over my head.  What am I looking at?  I know the sounds I like.  But who are the artists making those sounds?  I have no idea.  I'm not sure reading kanji would help because I can't connect the artist to a song.  These records were (and are) never exported, so there is simply no reference point.

That said, I have "discovered" a few artists, both new and old, by chance.  One of these is a group called mama!milk, which is actually a duo consisting of Yuko Ikoma on accordion and Kosuke Shimizu on contra bass. Not your typical Japanese instruments. And, well, not your typical Japanese music either. Since 1997 they've been making wonderfully cinematic music in a decidedly European vein. These Kyoto-jin have a penchant for recording and performing in unusual locations: derelict banks and factories, theatres, ships and temples.

To celebrate 20 years since their first album mama!milk joined forces with director/actor, Akira Shirai
 and composer Umitaro Abe for a one-off, site-specific concert in the Museum of Kyoto Annex, formerly the Kyoto branch of the Bank of Japan circa 1906.  This is a gorgeous example of Meiji Era (1868-1912) Western-style architecture.  The somber but airy Edwardian interior with its soaring white walls and dark wood details seemed a perfect space for mama!milk whose music harks back to an earlier time.

I was surprised by the very stylish audience waiting to get in.  I guess I shouldn't have been.  We were given a program entitled "Here & Away".  Evocative and fitting.  The stage, which was not a stage at all, was arranged with a grand piano, a contra bass, two accordions, a small hand cranked music box, bells and various other small percussion instruments.  More peculiar was the old office desk, lamp and bankers chair.   This was soon occupied by Akira Shirai.  He would sit there reading and writing through the first few numbers, as if he were a prop and not part of the ensemble.   He was followed on stage by Umitaro Abe and Kosuke Shimuzu.  Yuko Ikoma was the last to come out dressed in a sleek, black, backless gown and feathered hat.

They began almost in a whisper, Ikoma turning the handle of the music box.  Shimizu and Abe then slowly and thoughtfully contributed bass lines and piano.  This is not rock-n-roll, a boisterous assault on the senses.  This is barely even jazz.  It is theatre.  Art.  mama!milk want to take you places, places you've been and places you haven't.  These places are all cool, smoky, dark, wet from a recent rain shower.  Train stations, cafes, cobblestone alleyways, stone bridges over muddy rivers.  There are clandestine rendezvous here, torrid love affairs, heartbreaking farewells and murder plots.  Their music has been described as a soundtrack to a movie you haven't seen.  But it is also the score to a film you have seen, only you've forgotten the plot.

Shimizu and Ikoma really are virtuosos, their instruments almost appendages to their bodies.  You never doubt what they are doing.  Every note like some stroke in a sumi-e painting, a purposeful gesture.  I suppose 20+ years playing together will do that.  Abe gently pushed his piano into songs where needed; other times he seemed to be pursuing a sort of musical zazen.  Shirai meanwhile scratched out poems, essays, novellas (I'm not sure which) occasionally giving voice to his words, sometimes destroying them in a ferocious crumple.  

I can't remember how long mama!milk played because I disappeared into the beautiful fog they had woven in that space.  When it ended I expected to see an Immigration officer at the door asking for my passport and documents to reenter Japan.