Donovan’s A Gift From A Flower To A Garden, Paul McCartney’s Ram, Kate Bush’s The Dreaming, or Clifford T. Ward’s Mantle Pieces, these are a few of the albums I hold quite personally in my heart space. Completely earnest, lovely, bittersweet, precious, and intricate, they exemplify a certain spirit or spirits that are sorely lacking in a lot of music. Today, I’d like to argue to make room in your personal chest for a new jewel, one that has remained quite hidden, found in the catalogue of one of the least likely record labels to hold it: Sonoko’s La Débutante released in 1987 by Crammed Discs.
A masterpiece of refracting influences, in La Débutante Sonoko found a way to connect the spheres of Shakespeare, David Lynch, Suicide, and Vini Reilly, with the spirit of angels, the softness of pastel, and the experimental, poetic surrealism of Leonora Carrington. Ingenuity, born of necessity, for a delicate place where this history (her history) could reside in. La Débutante was Sonoko’s attempt to create post-modern music that could remind you of particular setting: of some in-between sounding quiet music playing as parents read their children off to dream. Music, as Sonoko would say, for “those who remember their child’s heart even as an adult”.
From Kyoto to Paris, Sonoko’s story would seem unimaginable if she wasn’t the one who related it to us just recently. Hints were there on the cover of La Débutante — two rose-colored cassettes, soft lace adorned with angel pendants and an ogi (both graced in pink), Sonoko’s soft-focus photo portrait. Now I can share the connection to make.
Sonoko Yasuda grew up in the suburbs of Kyoto. As a student Sonoko would take part in the early ‘80s Kyoto experimental music scene that birthed other groups like EP-4, Merzbow, After Dinner, The Boredoms, and (for a time) her earliest group Interon whose mix of industrial disco collage with delicate whisper-singing sounded ready to be beyond this already. With Alice Sailor of Amaryllis she would start a girl group, the Gardenia Girls, that would make music based on Gregorian chants, choral music and would perform ahead of screenings of French Noir and New Wave films. With time, though, Sonoko realized her scene wasn’t really altogether her “there” either.
It was in the music from labels like Les Disques du Crépuscule, Cherry Red Records, Crammed Discs, or in the aesthetics of European surrealism that’s Sonoko’s taste lay. In the spring of 1984, Sonoko would record a demo that would show exactly what kind of music she wanted to make. An angel stickered, avant garde, pink-colored, cassette mix of speak-singing, musical boxes, bells, and synthetic noise, combined with taped sounds mixed from two radio signals, was sent off to all three labels. “Balcony Scene” and “Swan Lake”, both bookends of this album, giving you instant glimpses of that demo.
Crépuscule, Sonoko’s preferred label, wound up rejecting her. Cherry Red, in the UK, instantly loved it, and asked Sonoko to come sign with them, if/when she’d visit London. Crammed Discs would hesitate, at first. Sonoko took it upon herself to meet with Marc Hollander, in Tokyo, when he arrived touring with The Honeymoon Killers. In person, Sonoko won him over, convincing him of the creative idea she had for La Débutante: a “jewel box” of music — various genres mixing in very beautiful, spiritual mode.
Originally, songs were recorded with Morgan Fisher for Cherry Red in Kyoto and Tokyo, with Kaoru Sato of EP-4 serving as producer. In the span of four years, creative tangling between Cherry Red’s expectations and Sonoko’s, left her looking elsewhere for distribution. Sonoko, for a moment sought to do other things, enlisting for French language courses at Paris’s Sorbonne University. With tape in hand, she took it upon herself to force the issue and visited Crammed’s offices with the belief that what Kaoru and her had done was enough. Marc heard the master tape, and to his credit, signed her on the condition shed had to start over again, and record the album there, in Paris. Far from the source of her inspiration, it appeared, she would blossom truer, by being closer to the spring.
In the beginning, Marc enlisted the help of Colin Newman from the Wire to help produce Sonoko’s debut. Things were going OK, but something was missing. Sonoko pointedly figured out that what was missing from Colin’s production was an acceptance of what she wanted to put forward, a certain “sexyness” that can be charming. While the whisper voice might not have been appropriate for the pretty-angular music of Colin, Marc realized that by resurrecting Aksak Maboul with Vincent Kenis, and helping Sonoko, musically, out, they could get closer to the atmosphere Sonoko was after. Marc would finance Sonoko to stay in Brussels, for as long as needed, and try once more, fully aware that they both as Belgians, could understandably be more in tune/appreciative/aware of that Francophonic feel she couldn’t quite elucidate.
Using some of the work done with Colin as a base, Sonoko and Aksak Maboul would soften the earlier edges, making them far more delicate and personal than before. Vocal takes were redone with Sonoko taking on a more breathy tone, while Vincent would redo many parts shifting harder instruments over, placing more emphasis on the warmer, acoustic ones rather than those that break up the dreamy atmosphere. Now, if you’re able to transform a song like David Lynch’s “In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song)” into “heaven”, like they would in La Débutante, you can hear how close they get to the spirit of Leonora Carrington’s original poem — a beast using beauty to push the pull of both.
“Balcony Scene” introduces you to this world. Sonoko winds her music box, waiting to whisper lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Affecting some gorgeous in between “culture”, as Gallic as it is Japanese, it’s Old Europe reimagined through a sublimated impulse from someone deeply infatuated with it, far from it. That’s where the purpose and the beauty of the album will play out from.
Divided in two, the A-side of this album (Heaven Side) would feature songs that, appropriately enough, were appropriately airy, dreamy, floating, and more challenging (conceptually). The B-Side (Garden Side) would feature songs that were more pastoral, more defined, more in the spirit of what moved her (with most songs being covers or reinterpretations of others works). Appropriately, La Débutante’s A-Side was defined by all the songs, nearly all Sonoko originals, that sound exactly as the pink, pink, pink music Sonoko was after — white light tempered by a lot of red.
A highlight, “Souvenir De La Mer” pictures post-punk music as a vehicle for nostalgia. Where you would hear distortion before, now you’d hear softer music work its magic around its classic angularity. If you’ve heard of Mio Fou, instant spiritual links can be made. “In Heaven” finds the catholic epiphany somewhat hidden in the original, via an astounding organ recital. Even Lynch would have batted an eye seeing the beauty in this spirited surrealism.
Personally the highlight for me, “Wedding with God (a Nijinski)” strikes the perfect balance of naivety and profoundness I’ve heard on rare occasion. The second, greatest ode to this masterful dancer, not made by Marc Bolan, captures the delicate movement between light and gray that art itself always seems to capture better than only mere words could, on paper. Originally, a composition by a young boy from Osaka, “Marto”, it’s heartspun/heartfelt mix of Durutti Column’esque impressionist/minimal guitar pastorale was aggrandized with all these wonderful touches of dreamy folk arrangements, recalling the gorgeous bits from the Beatles’ Abbey Road. Is it any wonder that Gilles Martin, who recorded all of this beauty, would do his best to strike the notes his father would have, here?
As glimmers of New Europe caps this side, via Sonoko’s choral reworking of Gabriel Fauré’s epic miniature “Requiem”, one has gone through enough worthy originals that are just as thoughtful and surprisingly varied. Singing in Japanese, French, English and Latin, phrasing in whispers and spirited harmonies — you forget that this was written in 1888 and recorded a century later, drifting timeless as these two pieces remain.
As memories of Donovan’s spiritual twin “A Gift From A Flower To A Garden” whiz by me, I am reminded of his idea of dividing the music on his album into two sides: one for the grown-ups and one for the kids. Although, both sides are equally as inspired, there’s just something about the one for kids that forever hits you, right in that spot, where you can always return to. Sonoko dreams a little different, though. Here, you get glimpses of the child on both sides. When you hear Suicide’s “Cheree” laid bare as the love song it always fainted to not be, who can fault Sonoko for finding a way to suss out the power of love, in anything that threatens to black out. It’s a very small, childish thought to entertain at first, but the more you practice it, the grander it’s scope seems to matter.
Although, this album would never turn Sonoko into a star, Sonoko, rightfully, conceded (as seen in all labor of love) that if it takes time to make at least one great piece of work, then time it shall take. Rightfully, she’s never been one to rush a masterpiece. Just this past year we’ve heard inklings of a new beginning for her. Living her life, finally after, what 30-odd years? She’s ready for her next masterpiece. As for now, it’s spring, the perfect time to remember her debut.