Songs for a Simple Moment

Songs For A Simple Moment was a compilation, released on The Pastels’ Geographic imprint, to introduce wider audiences outside of Japan to the reflective, psych-folk music of Nagisa Ni Te. Consisting of husband and wife, Shinji Shibayama and Masako Takeda, with friends joining in – guitarist Naoki Zushi is a near-constant presence – their music is becalmed and radiant, rich with melody and melancholy, and sometimes given to soaring, fuzz-tone guitar solos, over songs that carve great arcs in time. The twenty-minute “The True Sun” is a great example of the latter, spun out of a set of lovely chord changes that feel uncannily archetypal, yet are rendered anew by Shibayama and Takeda’s peculiar vision. The compilation also features a few songs by Shibayama’s previous outfit, Hallelujahs, whose sole album, released in 1986, imagines Galaxie 500 as a Paisley Underground band.