Recording: Ryōkan Blues Band

Artist: Ryōkan Blues Band

Songs: To Pi Ssu Yao [from a poem by Du Fu] + If Your Heart Remains Unchanged + Formal Meditation + I Found a Coin in My Bag [from poems by Ryōkan]

Recorded at The Tranzac (Southern Cross Lounge), January 22, 2020.

Ryōkan Blues Band - To Pi Ssu Yao

Ryōkan Blues Band - If Your Heart Remains Unchanged

Ryōkan Blues Band - Formal Meditation

Ryōkan Blues Band - I Found a Coin in My Bag

It's quite exciting to see that this endeavour, started as a side project to Luke "Luka" Kuplowsky's "name band", has branched off to claim its own identity. Essentially a vehicle for the musical setting of poetry, the heart of the thing remains in the Ryōkan and Rumi texts that the project started off with — but things are growing (enough that the band could play two short sets at this show!) to include a wider range of poets as well. Regardless of the source, there's an admirable dedication to serving the text here — if a poem is four terse lines, it doesn't need to be given a bridge and a second verse and what have you, it can just occupy the space of those original distilled thoughts.

[There probably won't be any be any Ryōkan, but Luke Kuplowsky will be celebrating a birthday at a special Holy Oak Family Singers Revue in the Southern Cross on Thursday (February 27th).]