"Glam Exotica"
Jun Miyake
| CD 68.827 |
Jun Miyake at the Berlin JazzFest 2003
In november 2003 Jun Miyake will come to Europe to perform for the first time his own repertoire at the Jazzfest in Berlin, where he will work also as a co-director for the japanese part of the programme.
The Trilogy Erotica-Bossa-Exotica
"Glam Exotica" is the final part of the musical trilogy Erotica-Bossa-Exotica, which started in 2001 with the release of the album "Mondo Erotica" and received high acclaim with the 2002 release of "Innocent Bossa in the Mirror". All three albums show the very personal style of Jun Miyake, his brilliant interpretation breeded with an ironic transgression of all musical gernes in full consciousness.SlideGuitar, Marimba, Ukulele, Berimbau, Cello, Fender Rhodes, far-eastern scattings and the technicolor-lushness of the 1950s are stirred together in the compositions of "Glam Exotica". While Worldmusic is slowly lounging itself away by introducing more and more electronics into ethnic sounds, Jun Miyake with his view on exotica is interpreting a genre, which combines worldmusic and lounge by definition.
Miyakes version of the often interpreted "Gnossienne #1" (Track 5) by Erik Satie for Xylophone and Berimbau and the Waikiki-Andrew-Sisters-Flair of "Postcard!" (Track 12) for Ukulele and Steel Guitar show the wide range of Exotica. Space and time mix in the onomatopoetic chants, the marimba-riffs and the stringarrangments of "Lokasa" (Track 10). Via the CD the listener travels to Afrika, Brazil and the indonesian jungle and the music becomes the way of transport for geography, as the english journalist David Toop describes it in his book"Exotica". Space is no more experienced physically but virtually in the exotic soundscapes of foreign instruments and chants. This is the dreamworld where voluptuous tanned women slide sensually over immense serpents, freakish monks indulge in bizarre rituals and fearless travellers gorged on exotic food are entranced by live-evil music in remote villages.
Jun Miyake proposes musical colonialism to set into music a world full of elfin creatures, called "Exotica", which play hide-and-seek in foreign lands. The 12 tracks of "Glam Exotica" give new life to the countless worlds of Miyakes own imagination. It‚s a life full of pleasure as one can hear in the song "Raft of Love" (Track 11): "...rippling together / rolling the raft of love / wrapped in batik of delight / as the sun shines above." "Glam Exotica" is like a good cocktail with delirating ingrediences, beautiful colours, styled in a charming way, but the glass is never empty and you can hear it again and again.
