What’s your go to music when you need to calm the fuck down? Not chill the fuck out, but calm the fuck down? If I need to chill out, I got plenty. Banks, KLF, The Orb, a multitude of sub-standard prog, lots.
But when I need to calm down, when I need to put the anxiety dogs at bay or I need to stop thinking about any of the multitude of existential crises humanity is currently ignoring, I always gravitate to the same thing.
That’s right, obscure renditions of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.
I know, you were totally going to guess that.
Tadao Sawai & Hozan Yamamoto
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (Complete album download)
Tadao Sawai was a Japanese koto player. From what I can gather, dude was the Japanese koto player. The Clapton of Koto, expect with dramatically less cocaine (I assume). Hozan Yamamoto was a renowned Shakukachi (bamboo flute) performer who was well-known for his performances and original compositions.
Both often worked outside the realms of traditional Japanese music, and were some of the first classically trained Japanese musicians to work with westerners and perform western music on their respective traditional instruments. Yamamoto was performing with Japanese jazz acts in the late 60s, and in 1968 Sawai released an album of covers, featuring Koto renditions of pop tracks like “Over The Rainbow” and “Johnny Guitar.”
That same year, the two teamed up for Koto Sebastian Bach, a collection of Bach covers (duh) and this album, a full performance of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The album isn’t just koto and shakukachi, there’s some drum, guitar, bass along for the ride, but the koto and shakukuchi are definitely given the spotlight. It’s a wonderful interpretation, it goes well with glass of sake.
This is probably not your thing. And that’s okay! But it might be someone else’s thing, and it is my thing. So please think about that before you leave a comment whining about the music I’m sharing for free. And regardless if this is your thing or not, don’t expect many more posts like this in the future. I just thought it would be a good change of pace. Nice relaxing music for your weekend. Maybe it’ll help you calm down too.
Sure is plenty of stuff not to be calm about lately, it seems.
This is so much my thing I can’t even tell you how much – THANK YOU for posting it – who on earth complains about free music in the first place? Please feel free to post whatever you want, whenever you want. I for one love being able to discover cool new-to-me music like this. I really appreciate the education I am getting from your posts.