Soutaisei Riron

Posted on 23. Feb, 2009 @ 12:26 pm by in Media, Music Views: 1,173

It seems I’m on a music kick lately.

I’d like to introduce you to HearJapan artist of the month, Soutaisei Riron (相対性理論). The band name translates into, “theory of relativity”. Read the HearJapan link for more information about the band than you’ll probably ever need.

Soutaisei Riron has that typical whispery female vocal sound so common in J-pop, but there’s something about them that feels different. Most of their lyrics seem to be about the kinds of things that an especially conscious and sensitive high school girl in Japan would think about. A lot of the comments on YouTube describe the vocalist and the lyrics as being “setsunai” (切ない), which is a kind of sad and wistful emotion. 切ない is one of those words that I’m glad never shows up in my translation work – very Japanese.

Good stuff. What do you think?

- Harvey

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  • Bobby

    切ない might be a bit tricky, but at least you can pretty well explain it as “sad and wistful” … but I don’t know how you’d even start trying to explain, say, 物の哀れ.

  • megan

    I like it–the mellow, wispy-ness of it. I can see/hear where the “sad and wistful” comes from.

  • Joe

    I wouldn’t want to be treated by one of those nurses!

  • http://slashandburn.typepad.com/yakihito/ Adam

    A few days after reading this I came across 切ない while reading a modern version of the “Tale of Genji.” I love when things come together like that.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHi5ZVABGj0 valery
  • http://japanlive.blogspot.com Ken

    Thanks for this! I didn’t know about them, and really like the sound. The girl has the mellowest, lightest singing style I’ve heard in a while, but the lyrics are pretty twisted (like this song seems to be a Japanese version of Nabokov’s Lolita…).

    I checked up on them on the net, though, and was a bit freaked out. Their website has a warning on every page that they aren’t to be photographed at shows, and there aren’t any images of them at all on the web. What’s all the secrecy about??

  • Aa

    Interesting stuff! Thanks for posting.

  • http://yonasu.com/ yonasu

    I bought their album Hi-Fi Shinsho at HMV when I was in Japan in January, good stuff^^

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