August 14, 2004
Your New Favorite Song.
Back at the turn of the century when the state of American R&B and soul seemed really dire (it isn't now, thanks to Carl Thomas), I turned, courtesy of the evil wallet-breaking people at Dustygroove, to Japan, where the torch remained gloriously alive, at least in an acid-jazzy, "neo-soul" capacity.
The Japanese singer Bird made quite a splash when she made her debut in 1999; she has since shed her blowoutcombed-plumage (you can check out what it looked like here), but her music is still essentially the same summery urban Tokyo soul.
The track I have here, entitled "Souls," is the first single off her excellent debut album, Bird, produced by the extraordinary Shinichi Osawa (more about him in later posts). It's a lot more radio-friendly and poppier than most of her soul-oeuvre, but if you're fogbound like me in San Francisco, it should brighten up your morning. (There's a video on her official Sony page, but I haven't seen it yet.)
Hear it (8.1 mb).
Posted by the wily filipino at August 14, 2004 07:31 AM