Japanese Music / Folk & songwriters · 1972
Shunkashuto
Shigeru Izumiya
春夏秋冬 · 泉谷しげる
Why listen
An abrasive vocal surface carries several attitudes, from pointed speech to sustained melody.
Listen and read
Tracks · previews
English editorial edition
Album story
A rough voice can push a listener away, then make a held note feel unexpectedly close. Shigeru Izumiya uses that changing distance throughout Shunkashuto. The thirteen songs offer more than variations on anger: their clipped sentences and sustained melodies ask for different kinds of attention. Start with the spaces after his phrases, where the accompaniment has room to answer.
Released in 1972, this was Izumiya’s second album, following a live debut. Kazuhiko Kato produced it. For Life Music’s later release announcement also identifies participation by Masayoshi Takanaka and Hiro Tsunoda, musicians associated with the earliest Sadistic Mika Band. The result should not be reduced to a lone singer confronting the world with a guitar. The arrangements offer a setting in which his emphatic delivery can take several shapes.
The title song has a position
The thirteen-track sequence begins with Chikyu ga Tottemo Aoi Kara. Kuroi Kaban, Kagami no Mae no Tsubuyaki and Kaerimichi help prepare the route towards the title song in seventh place. This is a different experience from starting with the best-known recording and stopping there. Continue through the remaining songs to Kisetsuhazure at the end. The title track belongs to a set of changing perspectives, rather than standing outside the album as its complete explanation.
When the pressure eases
Attend to the point at which the voice releases its force, not only the moment it becomes loud. A sharply ended phrase and a vowel left hanging create different expectations for what follows. Those changes are audible without understanding every Japanese word. The interest lies less in roughness as a permanent quality than in the different attitudes that can emerge from it. A familiar image of an always forceful singer may conceal those distinctions.
Return to the performance
Izumiya’s reputation as a folk singer, or familiarity with his later public persona, can arrive before the sound itself. Try one pass following the voice and another following the accompaniment between phrases. The same vocal edge can feel nearer or more distant as its surroundings change. Hearing those differences allows the record to resist a simple choice between protest and consolation. Its character develops through the relationship between words, melodic shape and the musicians around them.
The album through its tracks
Hear the title track in seventh place, then continue to the end. Follow the moments when vocal pressure eases.
黒いカバン
Kuroi Kaban, meaning black bag, gives the grain of Izumiya’s voice a pointed rather than merely loud character. Listen to the meeting between a clipped sentence and the continuing movement of the song. Its fourth position in the official thirteen-track programme helps establish an attitude before the title track arrives. Start by noticing how abruptly one phrase finishes and how the next begins. Continue into Kagami no Mae no Tsubuyaki to hear the shift in vocal distance. A translation may clarify the words, but returning to the performance afterwards reveals pressures and speeds that a written explanation cannot fully carry. The object in the title is an entrance, not a complete interpretive key.
Reference · For Life Music: thirteen-track programme春夏秋冬
A sustained melody gives the rough vocal surface another use. Rather than hearing the seasonal title as automatic reassurance, attend to the resonance after a phrase and the effort of beginning again. The song occupies seventh place in the original sequence; approaching it from Kaerimichi can change its apparent scale. Follow the return of the melody first, then the different ways Izumiya ends his words within it. Roughness of tone and simplicity of feeling are not the same thing. After reaching Kisetsuhazure at the album’s close, return here once more. The title song may then sound like one view within a larger collection of attitudes, rather than a summary that makes the other tracks unnecessary.
Reference · For Life Music: thirteen-track programme
Listen next
Compare Wataru Takada’s Goaisatsu for another vocal approach to everyday words.
Goaisatsu ↗References & editorial note
Written for English readers. Album facts are referenced below; listening suggestions are editorial interpretations. AI-assisted editorial review; not independently human-reviewed.