渚にて

psychedelic

Nagisa Ni Te (渚にて, meaning on the beach) is a psychedelic pop / folk pop duo from Osaka, Japan. Shinji Shibayama was part of psych bands Idiot O'Clock and Hallelujahs in the 1980s, then founded Org Records which he still runs, and which has released other important artists Maher Shalal Hash Baz and Naoki Zushi. It was Tori Kudo of Maher Shalal Hash Baz that helped with Nagisa Ni Te's first album On the Love Beach. Tori Kudo actually described Nagisa Ni Te very well like Nagisa Ni Te's naked progressive rock-based worldly songs, which are sung not so much deliberately as seriously, on their love beach, now fill a blank somewhere between underground hi-fi and overground lo-fi. Shinji's girlfriend, Masako Takeda, is now a permanent member of Nagisa Ni Te, and they have gone on to record more albums, The True Sun, The True World, Feel, and their recent release The Same as a Flower. The beautiful natural colours of Nagisa Ni Te's album covers are a nice representation of the music contained inside; entrancing, slow, minimal songs about experiencing nature, and about Shinji and Masako's developing relationship. Their innocent unaffectedness lets them get away with this sentimentalism without sounding pretentious. Their music is generally quite naked, just slow strumming of an acoustic guitar and slightly out-of-tune male and female vocals sung in Japanese, but they show their influences (they're often compared with early Neil Young, middle-era Pink Floyd, Tim Hardin, Tim Buck...