このアルバム『Heartbeats』は2006年に日本限定で発売されたコンピレーション・アルバムです。副題として「Best Of Dominic Miller」というタイトルがついています。『Heartbeats』というタイトルはドミニクがつけたそうです。
ドミニクのアルバムの中で初めて『Fourth Wall』(2006年)が日本盤が発売になり、それに合わせて制作・発売された。そのため、収録曲は『Fourth Wall』だけでなく、ドミニクのそれまでの過去3枚のソロ・アルバムから選曲されており、ベスト盤のような形になっています。
『First Touch』から4曲、『Second Nature』から4曲、『Third World』から4曲、『Fourth Wall』から2曲、そしてボーナストラックとして1曲「Rise & Fall」が収録されています。
このボーナストラックの「Rise & Fall」は、「Shape Of My Heart」を新たにアレンジし、ドミニクのお嬢さんのミスティが書いた歌詞で彼女がヴォーカルをいれています。「Rise & Fall」は後に、2009年に発売された『Fourth Wall』のUS盤にボーナストラックとして収録されます。
13曲目の「One More Second」はDIscography『Fourth Wall』の投稿でも紹介していますが、故・坂本龍一の娘である坂本美雨に提供されたもので、彼女のアルバム『Harmonious』(2006年)にも収録されています。
ドミニクはこのアルバム発売までに日本ではThe BOOMの宮沢和史さんのソロアルバム『Sixteenthmoon』(1998)にマヌ・カチェらと共に全面参加、クラシックギタリスト村治佳織さんの『Tranceformations』(2004)に4曲参加しています。村治佳織さんはクラシックのDeccaレーベルに所属していますので、ドミニクはその繋がりで参加したようです。(ドミニクのアルバム『Shapes』はDeccaからリリース)
ドミニクが最初に日本に来日したのは、恐らくジュリア・フォーダムの『Porcelain』のツアーの時で、ジュリアはこのアルバム当時、日本のTOYOTAのCMに出演していたので日本でも人気がありました。またドミニクがスティングの前に在籍していたロック・バンド『King Swamp』も日本でも人気が高かったようですから、ドミニクはスティングの所に行く以前から思いの外日本とは関わりがあったのかな、と思います。
ここでは村治佳織さんとドミニクが演奏している曲と、彼女がドミニクの『Fourth Wall』を紹介している記事を紹介します。彼女はスティングとドミニクのツアー中の様子に感銘を受けたようです。宮沢さんの『Sixteenthmoon』は後日紹介したいと思います。
CREA Traveller
村治佳織 旅も人生も何かが続いている過程
公演前の緊張で「旅を楽しめなかった」という10代。今では、無類の旅好きになった村治さんの、旅する毎日に欠かせない一曲を教えていただきました。 ギタリスト、ド…
The album “Heartbeats” is a compilation album released exclusively in Japan in 2006. It is subtitled “Best Of Dominic Miller”. The title “Heartbeats” was given by Dominic.
It was the album produced and released to coincide with the Japanese release of “Fourth Wall” (2006). Therefore, the songs on this album were selected not only from “Fourth Wall”, but also from Dominic’s previous three solo albums, making it a best-of album.
4 songs from“First Touch”, 4 songs from “Second Nature”, 4 songs from “Third World”, 2 songs from “Fourth Wall” and 1 bonus track, ‘Rise & Fall’. The bonus track ‘Rise & Fall’ is a new arrangement of ‘Shape Of My Heart’ with lyrics written by Dominic’s daughter Misty and her vocals. ‘Rise & Fall’ would later appear as a bonus track on the US edition of “Fourth Wall”, released in 2009.
The 13th track, ‘One More Second’, as mentioned in the ‘Fourth Wall’ discography entry, was offered to Miu Sakamoto, daughter of the late Ryuichi Sakamoto, and was also included on her album “Harmonious” (2006).
Prior to this, Dominic’s work in Japan included full participation on THE BOOM’s Kazufumi Miyazawa‘s solo album “Sixteenthmoon”(1998), along with Manu Kache and others. He also contributed four songs to classical guitarist Kaori Muraji‘s “Transformations” (2004). Kaori Muraji is on the classical Decca label, so Dominic seems to have joined her works through this connection. (Dominic’s album “Shapes” was released on Decca).
Dominic came to Japan for the first time, probably on the tour with Julia Fordham‘s “Porcelain”, and Julia was popular in Japan at the time of that album, appearing in a Japanese TOYOTA commercial. King Swamp, the rock band Dominic was in before Sting, were also popular in Japan, so it seems he had a surprising connection to Japan before joining Sting.
This section focuses on the song Kaori Muraji and Dominic performed together and the article in which she introduced Dominic’s “Fourth Wall”. She was impressed by Sting and Dominic on tour. Miyazawa’s “Sixteenthmoon” will be introduced at a later date!
When she was a teenager, Kaori says she “couldn’t enjoy travelling” because she was nervous before performances.
Now, however, she has become an unrivalled traveller, and we asked her to tell us about a song that is an essential part of her daily travels.
Guitarist Dominic Miller‘s ‘London Paris Cardiff’ is a very special song that feels right, no matter where you are travelling. I listen to it really often when I travel.
I met Dominic through a Decca staff member and he participated in my first Decca release, “Transformations”, in 2004. He is well known as a guitarist in Sting’s band, but he is also a lover of Bach and has a deep knowledge of classical music, playing Bach arrangements. Performing and talking with Dominic, who has been active in a different field, greatly broadened my world view.
For example, he had a guitar with rusty brown strings, which surprised me, but he said, “I like a smoky sound”, and he used it to produce an indescribably nice, smoky sound, and I can’t imitate it, but it was very interesting.
A few months later he came to Japan on tour with Sting and played a concert at the Nippon Budokan. It was a very strange feeling, because he was a real ‘rock man’ playing in front of 10,000 people at that time, so very different from the man who had played next to me just the other day. But when I went backstage, Dominic took me backstage to Sting’s dressing room in his usual friendly way.
And also Sting, as different from his time in the spotlight on stage, had stay quiet in the candlelit room. Joking around with Sting as he cooled down from the stage and returned to his daily routine, I wondered if the secret to keeping long this job was to do good switching between onstage and off. I am also a performer and travel from trip to trip every day, so I thought I would learn from both of them.
A few years later, I had the opportunity to interview Sting while he was on tour and went to Carcassonne, France. In a not so big venue in a not so big city, both Sting and Dominic were playing just as they did in the big Nippon Budokan. So touring is their everyday life.
When I was a teenager, I didn’t enjoy traveling so much because of the nerves before a performance, but now I love travelling and am happy to spend my days traveling from trip to trip. But there are also moments of little sadness in the journey. Sad moments, like the process of something continuing. I feel that Dominic‘s ‘London Paris Cardiff’ depicts a moment in that process.
It is often said that life is like a journey, and I feel like I have been through so much that I finally understand this song.