Review: Tomokawa Kazuki, Live at Apia, Shibuya, Thursday 14 September 2006

I have to say that before this concert, I certainly fancied Tomokawa's agitated brand of folk music, but I thought it rather inferior to that of Mikami. Mikami's raw avant blues seemed to have more veracity than the often refined, vaguely European sound that Tomokawa's accompaniments often have. However, after hearing Tomokawa live (and solo) I find myself preferring him to Mikami. Here's why...

Apia live house is an odd venue in a quiet area of Shibuya diametrically opposite to Centre Gai in direction and tendency. The concert room is small, and its stage is decorated with all manner of odd junk, some of which actually turns out to be part of the lighting rig. Before Tomokawa, a couple of young guys had a go at their versions of new folk. It wasn't particularly inspiring. Strangled vocal affects seemed gratuitous, and the second act pedalled in joke songs in large part. You couldn't help feeling that they were an unworthy match for Tomokawasan. I think that in some sense Tomokawa is taking on the role of mentor at these regular Apia gigs.

Following this fairly uninspired beginning, I was unsure what the rest of the gig would hold in store, given that Tomokawa sounds lukewarm to me on record sometimes. When he arrived onstage, the audience clapped for a good minute. He sat down and slowly made himself comfortable. Then, with a voice full of humour and calmness he proceeded to welcome the audience and indulge in some banter which this gaijin couldn't decipher unfortunately. I was however astonished already by the timbre of his voice. He spoke in a low, soothing fashion, which belied the fact that he is known as "the screaming poet". But when he began to sing, it was wonderful; a tense energy was present even in his quiet ballads, and more to the point his voice simply has a unique magic which was more obvious live than on record. To be cliche, I felt that I was in the presence of a legend.

It is when Tomokawa indulges in his trademark agitated delivery and throaty glottal stops that you realise just how strange and unique his vision of folk is. Like Mikami, a deep, pulsing vein of anger seems to run through him, but this vein is tapped accurately and mercilessly for musical emphasis rather than as part of an overall angry personality. Indeed the contrast between Tomokawa's gentle speech and his deadly delivery is what makes him so appealing live. I now find it easy to accept the fairly traditional sounding arrangements he makes use of in his recordings, because it seems to me that they anchor his blind raging as a vocalist.

Whilst it's not really valid to consider Tomokawa's vocal idiosyncrasies separate from his actual songs, I did find myself wondering why I judged his every utterance, scream, and throat clenched yell as truthful when I'd found any such effects gratuitous in the younger performers who played before him. Is there an ineffable quality of veracity which some perfomeres just have ? Is it Tomokawa's age which makes me ascribe depth to his style? I'm not entirely sure, but I can't help insisting that there is something deeply truthful and stunningly effective about his delivery. Not to mention the shear thrill of those violent yells, which surely can't have lost any potency over the years.

For me, the higlights of the set were the few songs I actually recognised, mostly from his most famous album "Muzan no bi" ("Beauty without mercy" is the favoured translation) but also from the recently made available "Satoru" album. The song "Pistol" from this album was a stunning high point of a great (and very long set). To end on a few frivilous notes, Tomokawa's idiosyncracies don't stop at his vocals. Endearingly he brought two clearfile folders with him full of his songs. After each song he would leaf through these folders nonchalantly, apparently searching for the next number. Throughout the show, he drank (water?!) from a large kettle. It seemed to me that the concert continued until the kettle was empty (2 1/2 hours!) And I couldn't help but think that he reminded me of Winston Peters (in appearance alone). Perhaps New Zealand has a screaming poet in the wings! Ha ha.