Program music of Kashiwa Daisuke, telling stories without words
April 27, 2016 7:31 PM Subscribe
"When it comes to modern day composers, the most prominent ones out there are names like Brian Eno, Steve Reich, Toru Takemitsu, Varèse and a couple more.... But when discussing these modern composers, the name ‘Kashiwa Daisuke’ is unlikely to be mentioned. The guy doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page.... But he’s up there along with those ‘big’ names I just mentioned. Program Music I is the very proof of this." Consisting of two long pieces, Stella and Write Once, Run Melos, each evokes the feelings of specific stories, told with modern classical instrumentation, spacious post-rock, jazz piano, and some intentional digital glitches. Almost nine years after that first album, Kashiwa Daisuke has released Program Music II (video for the track "Meteor"), with less glitch and more euphoric elements.
Broadly speaking, program music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative, and Daisuke's work here is no different. Program Music I tells two stories. Stella is based on Night on the Galactic Railroad, a classic Japanese fantasy novel by Kenji Miyazawa written around 1927. The story is also translated as Night On The Milky Way Train, which you can read in English online. The second piece on the album, Write Once, Run Melos, is based on Run, Melos!, a Japanese short story by Osamu Dazai, published in 1940. You can read an English translation of that story here, or go back some iterations, as Run, Melos! is a reworking of Friedrich Schiller's ballad Die Bürgschaft (parallel German and English translations), from which Dazai keeps the names Moerus and Selinuntius. Schiller, in turn, took the story from the ancient Greek legend of Damon and Pythias, recorded by the Roman author Gaius Julius Hyginus.
If you wish to watch something instead, here's the 1985 anime movie, Night on the Galactic Railroad (11 parts on YouTube), and the full-length 1992 anime film, Run Melos! (YT), both with English subtitles. You can also see the 1981 OAV for Run Melos! (YT, 11 parts), but there aren't any English subtitles included.
The first Program Music album was release in August 2007, and Kashiwa Daisuke has returned to story-telling music, with Program Music Ⅱ (Bandcamp, with two songs to sample; Google auto-translation for the album description), which was inspired by Shigeru Tamura's Crystal Mountains (Amazon-US, listing an imported title, as it's hard to find any English coverage of the 2005 book).
If you like Kashiwa Daisuke's music here, these aren't his only two albums. He has five more, plus two EPs and, and some material as Yodaka, his first band, but it's solidly into post-rock territory, not quite the layered and sequential sounds of his program music.
Broadly speaking, program music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative, and Daisuke's work here is no different. Program Music I tells two stories. Stella is based on Night on the Galactic Railroad, a classic Japanese fantasy novel by Kenji Miyazawa written around 1927. The story is also translated as Night On The Milky Way Train, which you can read in English online. The second piece on the album, Write Once, Run Melos, is based on Run, Melos!, a Japanese short story by Osamu Dazai, published in 1940. You can read an English translation of that story here, or go back some iterations, as Run, Melos! is a reworking of Friedrich Schiller's ballad Die Bürgschaft (parallel German and English translations), from which Dazai keeps the names Moerus and Selinuntius. Schiller, in turn, took the story from the ancient Greek legend of Damon and Pythias, recorded by the Roman author Gaius Julius Hyginus.
If you wish to watch something instead, here's the 1985 anime movie, Night on the Galactic Railroad (11 parts on YouTube), and the full-length 1992 anime film, Run Melos! (YT), both with English subtitles. You can also see the 1981 OAV for Run Melos! (YT, 11 parts), but there aren't any English subtitles included.
The first Program Music album was release in August 2007, and Kashiwa Daisuke has returned to story-telling music, with Program Music Ⅱ (Bandcamp, with two songs to sample; Google auto-translation for the album description), which was inspired by Shigeru Tamura's Crystal Mountains (Amazon-US, listing an imported title, as it's hard to find any English coverage of the 2005 book).
If you like Kashiwa Daisuke's music here, these aren't his only two albums. He has five more, plus two EPs and, and some material as Yodaka, his first band, but it's solidly into post-rock territory, not quite the layered and sequential sounds of his program music.
I remember really liking Program Music I when it came out, but the new one is a little hit and miss for me. He's a talent to be sure, but I'll have to give it a few more listens.
Like some of the other modern classical for hipsters of late (Nils Frahm, Bing & Ruth, etc), to my ears they're at their best when they veer more meditative and exploratory. "Euphoric" is much harder to do right and often feels too over the top like the classical version of emo bullshit ala Coldplay. But then again a lot of people eat that stuff up so what do I know?
posted by p3t3 at 7:50 PM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
Like some of the other modern classical for hipsters of late (Nils Frahm, Bing & Ruth, etc), to my ears they're at their best when they veer more meditative and exploratory. "Euphoric" is much harder to do right and often feels too over the top like the classical version of emo bullshit ala Coldplay. But then again a lot of people eat that stuff up so what do I know?
posted by p3t3 at 7:50 PM on April 27, 2016 [2 favorites]
holy shit! i thought there'd never be a II. thanks for this!
posted by p3on at 8:02 PM on April 27, 2016
posted by p3on at 8:02 PM on April 27, 2016
Thanks for this, I had forgotten about Kashiwa. I dig.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 9:00 PM on April 27, 2016
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 9:00 PM on April 27, 2016
Ugh, I wanna start a group called "Modern Classical For Hipsters".
posted by gucci mane at 10:39 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by gucci mane at 10:39 PM on April 27, 2016 [1 favorite]
Listening to Stella now and loving it. Many Thanks!
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 9:46 AM on April 28, 2016
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 9:46 AM on April 28, 2016
This sounds so much like World's End Girlfriend (Katsuhiko Maeda) that I'm tempted to believe it's him working under a pseudonym. That, or a profound influence on Kashiwa.
posted by Bugbread at 5:07 PM on May 5, 2016
posted by Bugbread at 5:07 PM on May 5, 2016
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