Natsuko Nisshoku (日食なつこ)

Overview

Natsuko Nisshoku (日食なつこ, born May 8, 1991) is a Japanese singer-songwriter from Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture. A solo pianist who sings while accompanying herself, she is based in Iwate and signed to LD&K. In 2017 she became the first Japanese artist selected for Spotify Session, and the resulting live recording, "Spotify Live," was released worldwide. Her genres are classified as J-pop and Japanese indie.

Background and Persona

Although she has played piano for many years, Nisshoku says she is not a music "maniac"; she grew up listening to mainstream music and J-pop in general. Her piano playing was influenced by Les Frères, a Japanese piano duo of brothers, despite the difference in genre. She was drawn to their rough, raw music that reaches the heart beyond theory, even when a few notes go astray.

She chose her stage name herself, and it carries no deep meaning. Since high school she has loved unusual, obscure terms such as astronomical vocabulary. She already used the word "nisshoku" (solar eclipse) as the handle on her own website, and decided to use it when performing as an artist.

Career

Nisshoku began piano at age nine and started writing lyrics and music at twelve. She played in the brass band at junior high school and, from the winter of her second year of high school, began performing in earnest at live houses in Morioka.

She took part in "Sutofai H-Gene Matsuri '09," an event organized by TV Asahi's music show Street Fighters, and advanced to the final stage as the Tohoku representative. On July 15, 2010, she released her first album, LAGOON, as a project of the show. Praised for the worldview of her lyrics and her powerful singing, it reached No. 1 on the iTunes vocal chart on July 20 even though she had no record label contract.

In 2011 she released her first nationwide album, FESTOON. From 2012 to 2013 she appeared at major festivals including ARABAKI ROCK FES, Kaze to Rock and JOIN ALIVE. Release tours from this period include the Ijō Tōmei tour in 2012 and the Ōkami no Futakoto tour (Sendai show) in 2013. In 2012 she also appeared on the Iwate Asahi Television program Nisshoku Natsuko no Kototen (May to August).

She moved to Tokyo in 2014 and released the mini-album Mabuta Mabuta (瞼瞼), featuring three drummers: komaki, Miyoko Yamaguchi and Yuji Tanaka (bonobos). She held the free piano-vocal live tour "Hitoe Mabuta Tour" from August to October, then the "Shiryoku Kensa Tour," a one-man tour of seven cities, in November. Drummer komaki joined from this tour, and she began performing as a drum-and-piano duo.

The "Shiryoku Saikensa Tour" followed from April 2015, and the "Mekuramashi Tour" from January 2016. In autumn 2016 she held the "Yūei Kissa" café one-man tour, playing and singing in cafés across Japan. In April 2016 her radio program Nisshoku Natsuko no Haikei, Aoi Medama no Koinu began on FM Iwate, and from April 2017 it also aired on Date fm.

In January 2017 she released Gekirin Mania, her first self-produced mini-album with eight songs, featuring komaki, Yukio Nagoshi, BLACK BOTTOM BRASS BAND and Yuji Tanaka (bonobos). In February she wrote the commercial song "Local Miiha no Uta" for Fukuya Real Estate's "Tokyo Local Promotion" campaign and appeared in the TV commercial herself. She went on to hold the "Maniatachi no Shinboku-kai Tour" one-man tour, the spring café tour "Yūei Kissa (2) 2017 Spring," the four-date joint tour "Enjō Kōsai" in July and August, released Ōmu in September, and began the "Jisaboke Kyōsei Tour" one-man tour from November through January 2018. That same year she was selected for Spotify Session.

In March and April 2018 she held the piano-vocal tour "Yūei Kissa 3: Fuseki-hen," followed in October by the three-date joint tour "Enjō Kōsai 2."

She continued with the "▲Sing well▲ Tour" (February–March 2019) and the "△Sing better△ Tour" (January–February 2020). In 2020 she presented "Coins on the table" (October), the online show "Rankan Watari Online -KU-" (November) and "Yūei Kissa Online 'Refill please'" (December). In 2021 came "Miserere" (January), the one-man live "Hakua" (July) and the "Drip Anti-Freeze Tour" (September–December). In 2022 she held "Shūshū Angya" (April–June) and "Reiwa Modernism" (October–November), and in April of that year served as the monthly guest DJ on NHK-FM's Sound Creators File.

Musical Style

Nisshoku's piano is not mere accompaniment for her voice: each phrase functions as both a riff and a melody, giving her a distinctive playing style. Because she felt unsuited to forming a band and wanted to realize every band sound on a single keyboard, she packed into the piano what a band cannot do. Though it is a piano-solo format, she substitutes the piano for strings, bass, guitar and other instruments, creating the feeling of performing as an orchestra or band alone. Layering bass or guitar over piano often caused clashing pitches, so she pared down the sound, looking for arrangements that add drive without killing the piano. The end result was a minimal lineup: drums handling percussion, and piano handling pitch.

From 2014, komaki (formerly of wrong city, tricot and Shima San Kyōdai), also classically trained, joined her recordings and live shows, creating a drum-and-piano duo in which the two could "argue" musically. Before that, she had left recording to top-tier arrangers who interpreted her intentions. Since 2017 she has centered her performances on the duo with komaki, mixing in solo grand-piano performances and a band lineup with guitarist Takeshi "zelly" Nagata (Sharp Kyōdai) and bassist Jun Ishimura.

For her lyrics, she sometimes extracts unusual words from a dictionary and builds them up based on their sound and feel.