[Stylish smooth Jazz]
No.80EX "Euopean Comfort" by Gota
Hi. Today's instrumental is "European Comfort" by "GOTA & THE HEART OF GOLD" (Gōta Yashiki).
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Index
1. Song data
| Title | European Comfort |
|---|---|
| Artist | GOTA & The heart of gold |
| Album Title | SOMETHIN' TO TALK ABOUT |
| Catalog Number | SRCL 2747 |
| Track No. | 3 |
| Duration | 4:41 |
| Released | 1993 |
| Publisher | Sony Music Records |
| Lyricist | Instrumental music |
| Composer | Gōta Yashiki |
| Arranger | ? |
- About the creators
GOTA & The heart of gold
"GOTA & The heart of gold" is a solo unit name for "Gōta Yashiki".
"Gōta Yashiki", often called "GOTA", is known generally as a former drummer of the British band "Simply red", lead by Mick Hucknall.
This is one of their hit song "GOTA" played the drums.
* Stars - Simply Red
Little backwards but, In 1989, he got involved with other British soul funk group "Soul II Soul" as a programmer.
Here's an example of their song which the name of "GOTA" was credited.
* Keep On Movin - Soul II Soul
For the Japanese fans, he is known as a original member of a legendary dub band "Mute Beat".
Their dub sound of Reggae or Ska was simply amazing, and caught the attention of fans.
We would like to come back on this in the later section.
Cover art
- Sound impressions
Cool smooth Jazz
This is a cool and relaxing smooth Jazz in comfortable middle speed.
The electric & acoustic piano, drums, bass, percussion (cabasa?), and electric guitar start an ensemble in chorus. And create an urban feel melody.
The wind synthesizer, which plays an acoustic flute like natural sound, soon joins, and plays a touch sentimental passage.
Contrast
Contrasting with the dynamic human play of other instruments, the sound of the bass is more flat, boosted and electronic.
It gives us a bit unique impression, but that seems to be the sound he intended to.
Infinite combination
Since debut, "Gōta Yashiki" has been a pursuer of the sound programming.
He thinks both human and computer have their own particular grooves, and the combination of them will be infinite.
So, we believe this music is created along with his such ideas.
(Ref: meets-seika.jp, student-blog-fukuyama201701-1)
Players
The musicians did this tune were as follows.
The musicians
| Drums, Percussion, & Programming |
Gōta Yashiki |
|---|---|
| Electric Guitar | Heitor T. P. |
| Engineer, Mixer & Programming |
Roland Herrington |
| Organ, Synthesizer | Bernie Worrell |
| Percussion | Danny Cummings |
| Synthesizer [Midi Wind] |
Ian Kirkham |
(Ref: Discogs, Gota-The-Heart-Of-Gold-Somethin-To-Talk-About)
- Reference
- About the artist
International music creater
Gōta Yashiki debuted in 1983 with single "Mute Beat". Since then, 9 singles, and 11 original, 1 live, and 3 best albums has been released until now.
(Wikipedia, Gota Yashiki)
Mute Beat
In 1982, Gōta Yashiki and few other members formed a band named "Mute Beat" in Tokyo.
It was a first such band in Japan specializing for the dub mix on Reggae and Ska, but features brass instruments like the trombone and trumpet.
Sound character
Their sound was distinctive and no similar band at that time, though we could not find good samples for you.
But in a sense they might be a forerunner to "Tokyo ska paradise orchestra" who is perhaps in a same field with "Mute beat".
Here is a sample clip of "Tokyo ska paradise orchestra".
* Sui-kin-kutsu - feat. Hiromi Uehara(p)
By the way, "Hiromi Uehara" is a famous Jazz pianist active in all over the world. Her piano is beautiful and marvelous, and we would like to introduce her song sometime in the future.
Sui-kin-kutsu (水琴窟)
"Sui-kin-kutsu" is a unique sound generating device particular in the old Japanese gardens associated with tea ceremony rooms. It is a kind of resonant chamber for generating water drops sound, and usually installed under the ground.
The appearance is like a photo in below. The sound is lovely, and normally loud enough. But in case it is faint, you can listen to it through a bamboo pipe like a woman in picture is doing.
Rinse the hands
Near the entrance of tea ceremony room, a stone water bowl about 50cm big (looks like a basin) is often situated.
This bowl is prepared for you to draw a scoop of water(200ml approx) for cleansing your hands before entering purified space.
After you rinsed your hands in front of the bowl, the waste water will flow into sui-kin-kutsu, then it would generates chime-like pretty "sui-kin-kutsu" sound.
The overflowing water from stone bowls using running water also does the same thing, but the sound is obviously continuous in this case.
You can listen the sound of "Sui-kin-kutsu" at the Wikipedia page linked in the above, or here.
A mixing engineer as a regular member of the band
Back to the subject, but "Mute Beat" is also known as a pioneering group which added a mixing engineer, namely "Dub Master X" as a regular member of the band.
This might be the most important factor for keeping their music special.
"Dub Master X" has been done a lot of interesting work. We would like to come back on him someday.
Seeds of GOTA
In fact, it seems there is a lot of seeds of "GOTA" sound in "Mute Beat" musics. In this context, his active contribution to "Soul to soul" or "Simply red" looks like a natural happening as far as we see.
Sorry for a digression as usual. We would like to continue talking about "Gota" on the next time.
- Samples from online music stores
About the samples
Please go to the page below, and just play or click track No.3.
Trial button is on the left side of the song title.
AD : Free listening samples
Amazon JP(en)
recochoku.jp
Apple Music(jp) (Track No.3)
8. Japanese Letters
| Song Title | European Comfort |
|---|---|
| Artist | GOTA & The heart of gold (Gōta Yashiki) |
| Album Title | SOMETHIN' TO TALK ABOUT |
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