Narumi is an indie musician hailing from Japan without any notable achievements and 1 album released. Her music focuses on a variety of genres, most of them featuring regular instruments filled with an assortment of sound effects to creatively enhance the impact of her music.
Though initially unremarkable, Narumi’s music had garnered a small following over the years, either through the numerous covers featuring tracks from Kokia, Mili or antihoney, or by the original composition of her various originals. An important aspect that resonates for the music of narumi revolves around her feelings. Nostalgia, Frustration, or just Inspiration, are all the basic and simple themes that make up the soul of her music. Tracks such as Signal features her hopes and dreams, while Time Traveler reminds us of much simpler times, all of which are gradual evolutions as she notably gets better with conveying her feelings through music.
Much like the last article where I wrote about Ujico, narumi makes extensive use of everyday sound effects to enhance her music, and does so in a creative and appropriate way. Time Traveler, for example, makes efficient use of sound effects such as doors opening and closing, or the clatter of wooden toys to further amplify a nostalgic feeling, while a warm hum gives the audience a sense of warmth and safety as they listen to the music.
A good musician is never without variety, and Narumi took many inspirations to compose songs with varied backgrounds. “Don’t Lose Your Way'' features a jazzy, mysterious-esque sound that differs from her usual dream-like music, and warm vocals to help give a sense of hope, while “25” is a much more obscure rendition of her thoughts, paired with a series of strange sounds that although hard to grasp, feels fitting for the track somewhat. Elements such as these are something that fully conveys the sense of uniqueness to me, and I’m sure that most would say so too!
Though a small channel with most uploads that are covers, the small but meaningful Library narumi offers musical candies which I’m sure much more people can find pleasant and enjoyable. To dream of simple times, To find warmth in music, To find reason to live on.
Sometimes, it’s nice to bring ourselves to the ones who are budding, and appreciate what they can create.
Her music
I’ll only be focusing on her original songs in this part, so that’s the reason why I didn’t include any of her piano covers.
--Signal by Narumi--
This is an original song by Narumi that was uploaded to her youtube channel in 2019. I feel that I should talk about this song because of when it was uploaded and how the whole song goes. It's just that after listening to it I felt that I have the need to respect that song.
The song starts itself off with a calm and stable repetition of a few piano notes. The repetition starts off soft, and slowly gets louder and more pronounced, at first the rhythm changes and there’s more variety to it, but it comes to an abrupt stop, which if it is the case, perfectly embodies her trials and errors in her music (wanted to write life here, but I’m not familiar with her besides her YT personality), after the abrupt stop, the original repetition gets louder and clearer, becoming the main focus of the song, in which most likely insinuating that she found a style that she is confident in.
Even without Narumi outright telling us how this song represents her, I’m pretty sure we, the listeners, can get the intended message through the composition and rhythm of this song.
--Immortal by Narumi--
This is another original song released by Narumi in 2018.
While the symbolism in this one is not as personal to Narumi as Signal, this song does carry quite the profound outlook to immortality. From listening to this song, it has reminded me of the OST that plays during the Divine Tree riddle in Nier, as both of these songs carry the same energy, which is the woes of being an immortal being.
The song is a beautiful mix between a violin and piano, the sound of the violin at the start although heavy, it carries the heaviness of being an immortal, being made to go through countless losses in the span of its existence. Then comes the silent part which consists solely of piano notes, it not only encapsulates the feeling of being alone, but at the same time it also conveys the dread of never truly being capable of unexisting i.e. dying.
At the end of the song, Narumi's decision on using a fading out piano note is also highly commendable, as once again it shows how existence could end for an everlasting being, which is not through some grandiose ritual, but being forgotten by the people, world, and time itself.
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