Violin Street Battles and Duelling the Devil: A Look at ‘sources’ Indie Days

sources continue to blow our minds here at JPU Records. We just can’t get enough the energy, emotion and beauty that these two violinists and a pianist can muster. So, not content with releasing their latest two albums Ittouryoudan and Tsumugu recently (click here for info about those), we delved deeper into their catalogue and not only found two fantastic indie albums that had yet to be made available digitally (until now), but we also found (thanks to their lovely fans in Japan sending it to us) and clip of the trio that went viral a few years ago (it has nearly 4 million views!!!).

Let’s start with the viral video. This was captured outside of Kawaguchi Station in 2019 and the track is ‘TSUBAZERI’ from their 2014 album SUNRISE, and according to the tweet, sources were performing on the street to build awareness for their performance later that evening.

Ryotaro Kagaya of sources spotted the tweet and commented, “Thank you for stopping by out street performance! There has been a great response from you uploading this, thank you very much! If you have chance, please come and check out our show sometime!”

The original uploader replied, “no, thank you for showing me something so good! In fact, it was too good that I couldn’t do anything but share it, even though I didn’t seek you permission first… I didn’t expect it to turn out like this. Please keep up the amazing work!

Anyway, we thought that was cool and wanted to share it with you, and what we want to show you next follows on chronologically (and is equally – if not more – cool). TWO GUYS ONE VIOLIN!!!!

The above track is ‘coin’, the opener to album sunset, originally released in 2015 (and yes, it came after SUNRISE, har-de-har). This is one of the two indie albums we’ve made available to download and stream. As well as looking brilliant, the reason for two members playing a single violin has a much deeper meaning than we first expected. The sources’ official Twitter account dropped this piece of context in the tweet’s replies (in English too!): 

“[This] number describes the dual nature of a human being like the head and tail of a coin. On the stage, it is representing a person wavers between the angel and the devil inside of him.   Which is going to win in the end, the angel or the devil…..?  Enjoy!” – thanks! We are! 

Last, but by no means least, is a live video from the second of the recently uploaded indie album ; 2017’s KOCHI ~Wind from the Orient. The track is called ‘ISSAIGASSAI’ and we think it’s just wonderful and makes us long for the day we can be back in Japan enjoying a traditional festival.

Thanks for reading! Also check out JROCK NEWS' interview with the band for further reading.