released January 31, 2024

。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。

Mike Walker - acoustic guitar, lyrics & vocals

Taro Inoue - mandolin & vocals

Shintaro Nagahara - violin

Terrill Mast - piano

。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。

Recorded by Mike Walker, Shino Nagahara & Tomo Morimoto

Cover Photo taken by Tomo Morimoto

Layout design by Mike Walker

。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。

This album is a compilation of various live recordings captured throughout my first two and a half years living in Japan. Some are live studio recordings, others are taken from GoPro footage of live performances I played in different areas around Japan and there are some that are just little front porch ditties my friends and I recorded on our iPhones. Aside from Terrill Mast, long time band member and my closest collaborator, this compilation features two other musicians that are also very dear to me. The first is Shintaro Nagahara and the second is Taro Inoue. Meeting both of these individuals not only broadened my musical horizons, but also opened up new worlds to me and gave me a purpose for continuing to live in this country. I will try to explain what both of these musicians mean to me and how being friends with them has impacted my life.

I came to Japan hoping to be able to meet likeminded musicians that I could potentially collaborate with to make some new music. When I first arrived I had almost no connections and no idea what the music scene in Japan was like or how to enter into it. But the universe works in funny ways and before I knew it, a path was laid out before me and I took it.

It started with my old friend Nagi texting me one night while I was quarantining in a Narita hotel directly after arriving in Japan. These were the days when the country was still closed to tourists and a two week quarantine was required for all those entering the country. I was bored in the hotel room and Nagi invited me to join a Zoom call with a group called Kikaiwa which was run by a guy named Tomo Morimoto and was designed to be a platform where foreigners new to Japan can talk with Japanese folks looking to improve their English skills.

On the call I met and briefly spoke with a young guy from Kanagawa named Shintaro. He told me, using his flawless English, that he was a musician and that he’d love to meet me in person someday. Fast forward to November of 2021, where my first visit to the small island Nagi lives on just happened to coincide with Tomo and Shintaro also visiting the island. We all met up and had a dinner party at the guesthouse Tomo and Shintaro were staying at. During the party, Shintaro and I talked a lot and immediately bonded over tons of overlapping interests and passions. He played violin for everyone at the party and blew everyone’s minds by playing a note perfect rendition of a ten plus minute Bach piece without making a single mistake.

I knew right away Shintaro was a special talent, but I was surprised to learn that he had never once tried to write any original music or play in an improvisational style. So I told him that we should write a song together and he ended up coming back to Sonobe with me and staying at my place for a few nights. It was during the second or third night that we started to try to write some music together. Those pieces of music ended up becoming “Instant Friends” and ”Indecipherable Dreams.” Shintaro and I would go on to visit each other and stay at each other’s places quite often and developed a brotherly connection that was based partly on our love of playing music together, but mostly just based on how well we enjoyed each others company.

Ok, Now onto Taro… The first day I met the legendary musician Taro Inoue, I was in Miyama visiting a cafe owned by one of my former students’ parents. The former student of mine is called Yuki and she had just graduated but was unable to attend her graduation ceremony due to her brother getting COVID the day before it was scheduled to happen. She was one of the best and coolest students I had ever taught, and I wanted to visit her parent’s cafe to give her a little gift congratulating her on graduating high school and making it into her chosen university.

When I told her I was coming, she decided to invite Taro to come by and meet me because she thought we might get along due to the fact that we’re both musicians. She said he’d be turning up sometime in the afternoon and sure enough, after downing a few cups of coffee, in walked this guy with ripped jeans, a well worn hoodie, thick rimmed glasses and a hardshell mandolin case. We had a quick jam session and I was blown away by the seemingly effortless virtuosity that he displayed on the instrument. His improvisational skills were beyond anything I had ever seen before. After we put our instruments back in their cases he invited me to his house, which was just down the street, to listen to some records.

As the records spun I found myself thinking “This is it.. This is what I have been searching for.” I then started to visit Taro and his partner Yukki nearly every week to hang out and listen to records. After a few weeks they started inviting me to come see shows that they were playing around Kyoto. Taro and Yukki are full time pro musicians who make their living by playing gigs all over Japan. They lead a somewhat transient lifestyle, traveling all across Japan, only staying in their log house in the mountains of Miyama during the dead time in between tours. They single handedly introduced me to the thriving music and art scene in both Miyama and the wider Kyoto area. I had finally found my people and I was so happy.

It then dawned on me that the one person that would love and fit in with this lifestyle more than anyone would be my buddy Shintaro. So one day, during one of Shintaro’s visits to Sonobe, I drove him up to Miyama to see a show that Taro was playing and introduced him to the gang. Everyone took to Shintaro quickly, and before I knew it, Taro had showed him a vacant house in the mountains just a five minute walk from his place that Shintaro could live in for free and Shintaro decided to start living in Miyama. During Shin’s time living in Miyama, Taro really took him under his wing and taught him so much about the art of music and improvisation. Shintaro’s concepts of music and life were expanding thanks to his many rich experiences living in Miyama and I was visiting him, Taro and Yukki on a weekly basis.

All of these experiences culminated in a summer music festival that Taro invited Shintaro and I to play in Shimane, a seaside prefecture located in western Honshu, at a venue called Pasar Moon. Taro had been playing and working as an event manager at this festival for a number of years and he described it to Shin and I as a sort of Mecca for free living, off the grid artists from all around Japan to congregate and enjoy a week of music, organic food and art. Shintaro and I agreed to play a 45 minute set on the main stage and began rehearsing. Before we knew it we were on stage at Pasar, performing the songs that we had written together in front of a big crowd of fellow musicians and artists and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. It was probably the best live show I have ever played and for the last song, Taro joined Shin and I for a rendition of the American classic “Man of Constant Sorrow.”

Nagi, Sam, Tomo and a few other buddies of mine were able to attend the show as well, and it was such a brilliant experience to look out into the crowd and see the faces of my dear friends, new and old, smiling as they vibed out with the rest of the audience. It was an experience I’ll never forget for the rest of my life. I even got my first tattoo to commemorate the moment forever. Thank you Taro, from the bottom of my heart, for including me and Shin in this beautiful music festival. And thank you Shin, for being my brother and music partner. I love both of you very much. This album is dedicated to the two of you as well as to Nagi, for inviting me to that fateful quarantine Zoom call and finally to Yuki, for introducing me to Taro that day at your parents cafe.

。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。 。