ＺＥＬＤＡ - フルムーン・プージャー

so, at long last, here's another album by the always changing ＺＥＬＤＡ. these ladies started out as post-punk in the early 1980s with that first album i posted last year, but by the mid-1990s they had taken on inspirations from american pop and "r&b" (see: not really r&b, but just soul inspired pop sung by black men and women. the popular media called it "r&b" because they are racist. shit, they still call Rihanna, Beyoncé, Usher, and other black pop singers "r&b" even today. anyways, pop trivia as cultural criticism, etc, i'll shut up now). also, they wanted to be jamaican, i think. they didn't sound like reggae or dancehall or anything like that (they sound more like Bow Wow Wow, actually), but with this album and another album of theirs from the 1990s they used a heavy jamaican aesthetic. hell, on the cover of their album ラヴ・リヴ・ライフ they even replaced the four asian girls with three jamaican girls (the remix of that album also had four jamaican faces instead of four asian faces). on the cover of this album they're even pushing it a bit close to black-face . . . or maybe they just got really heavy tans for the cover? anyways, i'm not saying they're racist. maybe just a bit naive. either way, they really seem to be into it, because the record that they wrote while under the influence of rastafarianism (i jest) is absolutely fantastic. one of their better albums.

there's probably something weird and esoteric going on here, considering the title of the album (the only thing i can think of is "pūjā" (पूजा) in hinduism, which is a ritual performed to honor a specific god. the one particular "full moon pūjā" that i can think of is the puja for the goddess Durgā , which of course is performed on a full moon . . . ), the seal of david above the title, and the ankh on the one girl's hat. i wish i could understand japanese well enough to know what Sachiko is singing about. if anyone could tell me i'd be more than grateful.

there's a really comical exchange during the ninth track where Sachiko talks about how she just left japan yesterday and how she loves jamaica. this jamaican dude goes on about "sachiko, girl, i miss you, stay in jamaica, don't go back to japan, mon" and then Sachiko sings about how much she misses jamaica, etc, etc, etc. if they went on a big tour in jamaica i am unaware of it.

anyways, this is some really great stuff. download it ASAP.


1. プージャー・ポン!
2. 印度の夢
3. シャンティ・シャンティ
4. 冷たくしないで
5. 愛の奇蹟
6. エターナル・ランド
7. ラヴ・ファミリー
8. オーム・ソング
9. サヨナラ(アイ・アム・ユア・ミッシング・ガール)
10. 七つの世界のかけら


ENJOY