Respect Record has been the record label most associated with original album releases (as opposed to compilations or reissues of an artist’s earlier recordings) of artists from Okinawa that’s readily available outside of Okinawa on say iTunes or from my personal favorite online stores like CDJapan.
The label’s release of Seijin Noborikawa’s fantastic “Spiritual Unity” (RES-45) in 2001 — which apparently is out-of-print but available for sale digitally in DRM-free goodness iTunes Plus — brought an end to a recording drought by the utasaa[1] legend. (Noborikawa’s previous original album was 1998’s “Howling Wolf.”) The 2001 release also brought about a string of shima-uta[2] releases by the record label which brought us many gems and continues onto 2008 with Noborikawa’s first original solo album recording in six years, “Suikojizai” (RES-135).
The 14-track “Suikojizai” follows 2002’s “STAND!” (out-of-print but available on iTunes) and will be released on 16 January 2008.
(Via Campus Record Staff Blog.)
1. utasaa, utasha, 唄者 – folk singer.
2. shima-uta, 島唄 – island song, folk music from Amami-Oshima and Okinawa.
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