Customer Reviews

Mother's Songs: Japanese Popular Songs

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mera is a male countertenor from Japan. He appears to be quite young and may be just starting his career. Whereas most countertenors I've heard have a boy-soprano, brassy sound, Mera has a mellow, mezzo sound with a nice vibrato. I've never heard a male voice like it.

All songs on the album are sung in Japanese. There are no translations of the songs, but there are summaries which give you an idea of what the song is about. The Japanese lyrics are included, so if you can read/translate them, you'll know more than I do. (If you do translate them, please contact me. I'd like to have copies.)

Mera has the most beautiful voice I've heard in a long time. Sounds like a female mezzo but with a little mellower sound. Anyway, this album has lighter fare than his Japanese art songs album, but it's still lovely to listen to. He sings some familiar and some not so familiar folk songs.

If you like this album, you might try his other album "Nightengale" (Japanese art songs).

When I first bought this CD I was addicted for a while. The singing is beautiful and the music is too. I had hoped for more traditional japanese instruments but it is still beautiful.

Well, this is very beautiful, and it is very relaxing. I'm sure the quality of the voice work done on this disc is excellent, though I'm not an expert.

The problem is, it is not Japanese, except for the songs themselves. The instrumentation is completely western, and the arrangements of the songs tend to downplay the eastern sound of the compositions. Maybe I just didn't understand what this would be: I didn't expect koto music or anything, but I did expect to expose my children to a different type of musical structure.