“A Bullet Hole In My Ear” emerged from a fruitful conversation between Nanaco Sato and Jan Hoet, curator of 1992’s documenta IX art exhibition and director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Ghent, Belgium. That day, he said something to the Japanese singer, songwriter and poet that she couldn’t shake: “War is a bullet hole in the ear.”
“Those words hit me like lightning,” says Sato more than 30 years later. “I suddenly imagined the terrifying moment when an eardrum is pierced—when something inside you is lost forever.”
That disconcerting visual stayed with her. Soon after, she wrote “A Bullet Hole In My Ear,” a poem that quickly evolved into a compelling highlight of Lust (Gearbox), an album that’s remained unheard for the past 29 years. Born in Tokyo in 1955, Sato was a major voice in Japan’s super-slick, Western-influenced “city pop” movement of the ’70 and ’80s. She later moved on to new wave and more adventurous pursuits, collaborating with Pizzicato Five, Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde and others. Lust captures Sato’s restless creative spirit in its most extreme form, documenting a series of 1996 sessions that wander instinctively between jazz, psychedelia, global folk, avant rock and experimental pop.
Sato arrived at London’s iconic Maison Rouge Studios with nothing but a collection of poems. Her secret weapon: an elite group of session players with remarkable chemistry, including guitarists Dan Boutwood and Susumu Osada, drummer Charlie Price and bassist James Denham. The performances were mostly spontaneous. Sato would choose a poem based on how she felt that day and hand it to the players; they’d take it from there.
“Someone would start playing a phrase, and the rest of us would instinctively follow, as though we were pushing a boat out into an open current and letting it find its own direction,” says Sato. “Even though we’d never played together before, it felt like a real band from the very first moment we met. Those days at Maison Rouge remain some of the most inspiring recording sessions of my life.”
We’re proud to premiere Nanaco Sato’s “A Bullet Hole In My Ear.” Lust is out September 25.
—Hobart Rowland