Morita Doji (or Douji?) was an (acid) folk singer during the 70s and early 80s in Japan. I don't know why they call her acid folk. I'm not sure what's that supposed to even mean. Her music is not psychedelic at all. She wasn't exactly popular at the time so the media didn't pay much attention to her but from what I read on the internets she was popular among college students. She didn't have fame but she did have a very distinctive sound and her music is something that I will always gladly listen.
All of her albums are heavily melancholic and calm so there are very few upbeat songs or anything that sounds remotely happy. I can remember just one actually now that I think about it. Her voice is finely tuned in with the music, it's very subtle and soft. A perfect fit for a melancholic sound. Through the 70s she maintained a non electronic sound with very little experimentation in sound. It's straightforward folk music until the 80s where she began implementing more electronic sound. This is apparent at most in her last album where it's mainly electronic driven. I have to admit though that her older albums are much more appealing to me because of their pure acoustic sound but her later stuff is alright as well.
Where to start? Well I started with "A Boy" (which is also my favorite album) and then got Mother Sky and then Good Bye. Her most popular album was Good Bye mostly because that's the only album that gave her some exposure (a song from that album was the only hit song she had and later on it was used in a 90s soap opera as an opening theme).
This should be all of her albums. There's also a live album
Albums included:
1975 - Good Bye
1976 - Mother Sky
1977 - A Boy
1978 - Tokyo Cathedral Sei Maria Daiseidou Rokuonban (live album)
1980 - Last Waltz
1982 - Nocturne
1983 - Wolf Boy
Link: 1, 2, 3 and 4
I tagged everything in Japanese letters but the song titles on the actual files are in latin letters (Engrishly translated by someone else).
Posts
I don't know what acid folk means, either.
ReplyDelete>There's also a live album but I think it's a bootleg.
ReplyDeleteI guess you meant the one originally released in 1978. It's not a bootleg ;)
http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00005HFKZ
Tokyo Cathedral
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mediafire.com/?0gtkmujwa3z
vox
Finally you did that post thank you
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting abour Morita Douji's work. I tend to think of her to be a bit like Janis Joplin, except a lot more morbid, and the more brilliant and underrated for it.
ReplyDeleteBeen looking for something like this, thank you.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you've got lots of great stuff on this blog.
Keep up the good work. :3
Anonymous 2, thanks for the link for Tokyo Cathedral! I had been looking for it since being introduced to Doji by this site.
ReplyDeleteThe Tokyo Cathedral files were numbered and not named. Google translate gives these as the titles.
ReplyDelete1. Horizon
2. backlight
3. You got it changed
4. crawl in the rain
5. Why not take a tour bus with me
6. Do not cry, my friend
7. wanted to see the sea
8. Sentimental Street
9. □ goodbye my friend □
10. Sawagu raw land in the wind
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ReplyDeleteBurek you god. I've been searching for more of Morita Doji's albums ever since I heard A Boy. She is so amazing. Thank you so much for offering all of these album for download. Much love. xxx
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDeleteHi Burek,
ReplyDeleteSo do you understand Japanese? Is it important for you to understand the lyrics of the songs you are listening to?
As for me, I really like Japanese music. I started first with Mono and then got acquainted with Morita Douji thanks to you. After that, I began exploring j-rock and j-folk staff. I fell in love with Meiko Kaji finding it on your blog.
But, the problem is though I really sympathize with the vocals and music of these love j-folk and pop whatever with lyrics, I somehow find myself funny at times understanding nothing of what the songs are about yet I love them.
Once I even asked someone to translate me the lyrics of Morita Douji's songs.
What is your situation like? wanted to know, seems like you know some Japanese. otherwise, how would you find such obscure music?
Please reply.
I understand some very basic Japanese. I can't read their writings but I'm familiar with the most used words in their language.
ReplyDeleteWith that knowledge sometimes I can piece together what a particular song means and sometimes, like you, I ask a friend to tell me what the song is about.
But to me lyrics in pop songs aren't very important since most of them are just love songs. I find the mood and interplay between vocals and music to be a much more important factor.
During the "golden age" of blogspots there were a lot of blogs that shared obscure music from everywhere (most of those blogs are inactive or taken down by now). That's how I got most of the obscure Japanese stuff and sometimes, in more recent times, I grab random things from Soulseek and if it's cool I share it here.
I wonder if you will ever see this. Well, the thing is Last Waltz is missing track 7: "if for example I were to die"
ReplyDeleteI might appreciate if you could fix or at the very least upload that track.
Added the track on a separate link. Check the post for it and thanks for noticing!
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog years ago and have you to thank for introducing me to Hako Yamasaki. Just came across you again while searching for more on Doji.
Saw your recent post on re-uploads; is it possible to repost the Doji content?
I'll write it down. I'll get around to it as soon as I can.
ReplyDeletePozdrav,
ReplyDeleteNedavno sam se navukao na ovu vrstu glazbe i upravo naisao na tvoj blog i, naravno, poskidao dosta toga. Bookmarkao blog i proucavat cu ga kad god stignem. Vidim da vec dugo "ide".
Sad mi je mali problem sto su ovi linkovi stari i ne postoje vise. Zamolio bih te, ako postoji mogucnost, da ih obnovis.
Obozavam Japan i sve vezano za nj pa mi je ovaj blog "sjeo" ko budali samar.
Hvala ti
Evo obnovio sam linkove za ovaj post. Većinu muzike s bloga mogu lako ponovo staviti, mange više ne mogu jer mi je umro HD na kojem sam ih držao.
ReplyDeleteHvala ti! Ovo mi puno znaci.
ReplyDeleteZivio! :)
She died on April this year :(
ReplyDeleteWell that's a bummer. No hope for any comeback albums now.
ReplyDeleteI know I missed the boat on these links years ago, but any chance of a re-up?
ReplyDeleteYou are not late, I try to maintain and reup links for everything on the blog when people ask (everything that I still have that is). Links are now live again, the birates of the files aren't exactly ideal though!
ReplyDeleteFantastic -- I'll take what I can get, thanks a million!
ReplyDelete