The Same as a Flower

Nagisa Ni te (aka Shinji Shibayama and Masako Takeda) are back. Their new record The Same as a Flower, recorded between 2002 and the beginning of this year, is the third to be released stateside and throughout Europe by Jagjaguwar. Like their previous records, the songs on the new record are about nature, about the singularity of two people immersed in nature together, and about experiencing life as "being" -- not "becoming" or "recovering from." And like their previous full-length record, Feel, The Same as a Flower still brings to mind the very best of sixties’ and seventies’ psychedelic, progressive, and folk rock (i.e. middle-era Pink Floyd, Roy Harper, 13th Floor Elevators, and early Neil Young). Stephen Robinson of Wire said, "What Shinji Shibayama is after is nothing less than the moment itself, not three minute pop perfection, but the vivid presence of an epiphanic instance out of time and the reach of mere psych-pop posturing."