Grammy (Best New Age Album, 1999) and Golden Globe (Best Original Score, 1993) winning Japanese New Age artist Kitaro has been performing since 1975.
Admittedly, I’m not very much into New Age music, so even despite Kitaro apparently being an institution in the genre, I hadn’t really heard of him until he found out about him by accident.
I think I may have fallen down a Japanese music rabbit hole after looking into the soundtrack from Okami…
And, honestly, I’m probably still not a fan of New Age music, but at least Kitaro’s got some good pieces.
From the album Kojiki, the Japanese mythological text of the ancient past (and whose name that basically means “Record of the Ancient Past”), the title of the track Matsuri is simply the Japanese word for “festival” or “holiday.”
For example, the traditional Japanese fire festival to honour ancestral spirits is “Bon Matsuri” (also called “Obon” and usually just called “Bon”) and the annual doll festival that is also Japan’s Girls’ Day is “Hinamatsuri” (which means Doll Festival)
Barring some chant-like but non-verbal vocalising, Matsuri is a purely instrumental piece and I haven’t had much luck searching up what it’s actually about.
But given it’s from an album called Kojiki and meaning of the title, I think Matsuri might be about the attempts of the other gods to lure Amaterasu out of her cave after she got offended by Susanoo and hid herself away. Given that said attempt basically amounted to the other gods having a raucous party, I think it could be safely considered a matsuri – and maybe given the first matsuri, like how Ame-no-Uzume’s dancing (the thing that finally gets Amaterasu to peak out of the cave) is held as the origin of kagura – the traditional shrine dancing associated with Shinto rituals.
As we see here:
Image via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.
Fittingly, since Amaterarsu is the solar deity and Ame-no-Uzume is the one who drew her out of the cave, Ame-no-Uzume is venerated as the Shinto dawn goddess.
And, well, whatever it may or may not be about, take a listen to it here:
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