The Story of a Song : INARI
Sharing the story behind the studio door...
Inari - a Japanese kami (a form of god or spirit in the Shinto religion) associated with prosperity, tea, agriculture (especially rice), industry, and smithing. A complex deity with many faces, Inari is perhaps most well-known due to their association with foxes, called kitsune, who act as Inari’s messengers and receive protection in return.
*** Inari is also a popular sushi dish - a sensational combination of fried tofu soaked in a sweet marinade and stuffed with rice. A mainstay snack that accompanied my travels across Japan. Not entirely relevant to this story, but in case you've never tried it… I highly recommend the experience! 🍣🍱
One night, whilst walking back home to my apartment off the Finchley road in Swiss Cottage, a fox trotted out right in front of me. Having lived in Central London for most of my life I’ve become accustomed to littered glimpses of these timid beings manifesting in my nocturnal adventures. This particular fox, on this particular night, stopped and stared straight at me. Unusual behaviour I thought for a creature so seldom social… so I followed suit. Separated by only a few feet, I had never really seen a fox up this close before. Illuminated by a single, solemn street lamp I noticed the fox’s unique eyes and how they possess something that sets them apart from their animal forms - something darker, more mysterious… dare I say strangely human?
I wondered what this creature must think of me…
Here we were — two beings embraced in our urban inertia. There was something so enchanting about the whole experience…
What happened to me that night, and which moved me to tears at the time, was both a thought and a proof: it was the thought that there is no kingdom, neither of man nor of beast, but only passages, furtive sovereignties, opportunities, escapes, encounters. The deer was in his night and I was in mine, and we were both alone. But in the interval of this pursuit, what I had touched, I am sure, was this other night, this night of his that came to me, not poured out but granted for a moment, this moment that opened onto another world.
Translated from Le Versant Animal (The Animal Side) by Jean-Christophe Bailly
Returning home to my apartment, I felt compelled to sit on my balcony, take my guitar in hand and watch the London night. Despite having some formal education in classical guitar as a teenager, my ability for scoring music has progressively waned to become non-existent. Something that I’ve come to regret, though I’m reminded of the Chinese Proverb : “Teachers open the door, but you must enter by yourself” and reading this wonderful recent article written by
on the life and times of Robbie Basho, which certainly adds assurance in the pursuit of my own creative expression.
And so is it that my compositional habits are fuelled by a cocktail of experimentation, rumination and a good memory. Inari — taken from my album Spirits & Reflections (Aural Canyon) uses a tuning I came by haphazardly (C G C G C C), bending and winding strings in and out of tune until they settle into resonant relationships with one other. There is something very hypnotic in the way that I find the rhythms that I ultimately choose, or to put things differently, the rhythms that ultimately choose me. My thoughts and reflexes become the pen that scribes — this mystic rendezvous with the curious fox dictating to me the flow, patterns and nuances to be printed into form.
“Music theory was never my forte and I don’t really approach it from that place. I just try to piece together patches of sounds into a coherent composition that reminds me of something or makes me feel something. Just using whatever is around me. Almost like quilting. There’s something very wise and timeless about folk art that I admire. As opposed to popular music where people are trying to out-perform each other all the time. Folk art is just people doing what they do where they do it and using what’s around them–evidence of living.”
Tyler Tadlock (Spirituals)
The above extract was taken from a recent interview with Tyler Tadlock aka Spirituals. An artist I greatly admire. I’m drawn very much to Tyler’s words - his mention of folk art, and how this relates to his own individual form of expression as an artist. Embracing folk art for me doesn’t imply conforming to a classification of music in terms of its genre - rather, it’s an adoption and exploration of the creative process for channelling one’s own life experience into form - be that through song or through other forms of artistic expression.
(PRESS PLAY BELOW) ▶️
Fastforward a few months on from my vulpine encounter and I am sitting patiently on the steps outside a Buddhist temple - Dokeiji - tucked away in the quiet hills of the village of Minamisōma, Fukushima, Japan. It’s a sultry September afternoon. A concerto of semi - the Japanese word for cicadas - perform a summer sonata that showers me in surround sound tsssssss-tssssss-tssssssss — a quite phenomenal accompaniment to this performance of my music I gave for my dear friend and Head Priest of Dokeiji Temple - Tokuun Tanaka - during a brief stay there during my travels across Japan.
It’s in this realm that I feel most at ease - akin to the gentle warmth that deep meditation brings - somewhere between the sounds of nature and the tips of my fingers — I find a sacred space.
Playing guitar surrounded by the sounds of nature has since become an intrinsic part of my practice exploring a relationship between nature and music. I believe firmly that playing music in this way opens up a connection to oneself and one’s inner state. It has helped me to learn a great deal about myself both through my playing, an through my immersion in nature. It’s in this realm that I feel most at ease - akin to the gentle warmth that deep meditation brings - when lost between the sounds of nature and the tips of my fingers — I find a sacred space.
“The quieter you become, the more you can hear.” - Ram Dass
Quietening the din of thought and escaping the cacophonous noise of the modern world cultivates a precious clarity. Rare yet omnipresent. I seek it. It has opened up a form of expression that harmonises well for me.
Performing Inari in the garden just outside our temporary home in the village of Saint-Bonnet-du-Gard, France.
Thanks for reading. Take great care of yourselves.
Mat
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Thanks for the kind mention. Love the "Inari" tune and the story behind it, reminded me of my own travels through Japan.