Ballsack’s J-Pop Midlife Crisis, pt. 22: 川嶋志乃舞/CHiLi GiRL

Starting sometime last year, I started really getting into Japanese music. This came as a bit of a surprise to me, because I had always thought I hated singing in Japanese. Turns out I don’t! In the night threads for the following week, I’ll write a little about each of my favorite artists that I’ve discovered, and share a streaming album for you to dutifully ignore.

Shinobu Kawashima is a shamisen player, specifically a Tsugaru-jamisen, apparently, who, in addition to playing within the folk tradition of the instrument, also incorporates it into a more modern musical setting. These recordings tend to incorporate funk and light jazz. Interestingly, the arrangements tend to use the shamisen somewhat sparingly on the recordings, but leave room for Kawashima to play some great solos in addition to some other accents. It’s interesting watching her play live. This video features her in sort of battle with saxophonist Harumo Imai starting around the 3 minute mark.

Within the past few years she’s separated her more pop oriented material from her more classical material, recording her pop songs under the name CHiLi GiRL. Her stuff is really interesting to me, though I don’t think she’s quite a made a great album. However her debut, ‘Madonna on Monday’ comes close, as it does the best job of incorporating a more classical sound with the pop oriented material.