How long will you forget me? Forever?
June 6, 2013 9:00 PM   Subscribe

This is Our Music [part 2] is a short documentary about naivist composer Tori Kudo, who's best known under the name Maher Shalal Hash Baz. Kudo is fascinated in mistakes and imperfection, and his music is warm and charming, crackly and washed-out like a Polaroid picture, sometimes energetic and surprisingly short, other times calm and gentle, and sometimes just gorgeous folk rock. Some of his most powerful songs are religious in nature: How Long Will You Forget Me is a moving, unpretentious adaptation of Psalm 13, and Moving Without Ark is a soft but powerful epic which could be about the Flood or the Second Coming. Tori's wife Reiko is also a naivist composer; I'm especially taken by her song Son of Man.
posted by Rory Marinich (7 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
YAYYY thank you for this. I really like this guy.
posted by naju at 9:08 PM on June 6, 2013


One of my favorite all time musicians.. he is extraordinary.
posted by snaparapans at 9:33 PM on June 6, 2013


Lovely stuff, thanks Rory!

I can't watch the documentary just now, but I really hope it goes into your man's past - back when Stephen Pastel was putting out Maher Shalal Hash Baz records, Kudo used to make these vague pronouncements about involvement in far left revolutionary groups, even terrorism (something about attempting to derail a train with Hirohito on board?!) before he became a Jehovas Witness. Said revolutionary group were, for reasons that escape me, really into making pottery.

I could never work out if any of this was actually sort of true, a joke I didn't get, or an invented myth-making backstory type thing to be considered part of the work.
posted by jack_mo at 11:51 PM on June 6, 2013


There are many precious tunes here, but I totally fell in love with
...How Long Will You Forget Me?
posted by quazichimp at 12:11 AM on June 7, 2013


Lovely to see this again and on MetaFilter! I truly love Maher Shalal Hash Baz. They deserve every accolade possible.

Nitpick/hijack alert! "This is our Music" was actually a series (three seasons) shown on MTV Europe and Sveriges Television between 2004 and 2005. (Another episode - which focused on Television Personalities - was made into a MetaFilter post in 2008. Both of these episodes were the brainchildren of Andres Lokko, a famous Swedish music journalist. Yet another one of Andres' must see episodes - about Khonnor, this time - has made it onto YouTube in two parts.)
posted by soundofsuburbia at 2:41 AM on June 7, 2013 [1 favorite]


Another band I wish I'd known about before today. At times makes me think of a less neurotic and eager-to-impress version of Beirut... I like how Kudo sounds like he's confident in what he's doing and that he's happy to be here.
posted by ardgedee at 5:05 AM on June 7, 2013


I've been a bit obsessed with this guy ever since my pasadena friends sat me down in a room to listen to Return Visit To Rock Mass in its entirety. He appreciates natural chaos, and I find it quite delightful
posted by SomaSoda at 9:51 PM on June 7, 2013


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