Lingüa Brütallica - Episode 34: Mirai Kawashima of Sigh (Tokyo, Japan)

Lingua Brutallica

In this episode, we speak with Mirai Kawashima of Japan's legendary experimental black metal band, Sigh. Extracting influence from classical music, jazz, and even hip hop, Sigh's lyrics and music present a three-decades long exploration of Japanese religious stories, occultism and death. Mirai discusses how his perspective on these themes has changed over time, with his latest album Shiki marking a shift in his relationship to death as one that is more personal and real than ever. As a result, the lyrics for Shiki are written entirely in Japanese language, allowing Mirai to express his "naked feelings" in a way that wasn't possible in English. That said, Mirai also notes freedoms provided by English absent in Japanese, expressing a changing interest in the potentials of both languages over his decades long career.

To see more from Sigh, go to https://linktr.ee/sighofficial