Musicwhore.org Archive The original

Ah, the sophomore slump — it happens even to the best.

Technically, Wild and Gentle is Hatakeyama Miyuki’s third studio album as a solo artist, but it’s only her second with original material. (The hastily recorded Fragile was a covers album.)

Hatakeyama’s trembling croon is smooth enough to soothe, burnished enough to reveal vulnerability. It’s the kind of voice that could save bad music from itself. It’s not, however, enough to elevate mediocre arrangements.

Wild and Gentle travels further back in time than her debut album, Diving Into Your Mind. The last time out, she flirted with 70s So-Cal singer-songwriter/jazz-pop, but she kept her feet firmly planted in the present.

Wild and Gentle, on the other hand, could have very well been recorded in 1971, and Hatakeyama could have very well been Carole King. A track such as “Keshi”, with its Muzak-friendly orchestration, is doomed for the elevator.

Most tracks suffer from indescript arrangements, under which Hatakeyama buries her otherwise powerful voice. If it weren’t for an emotional reading by Hatakeyama, “Nemutte Shimaitai” would have been little more than blip. “Unmei no Ito”, on the other hand, is just plain listless.

Oddly enough, it’s the most dated track, “Umi ga Hoshii no ni”, which provides a welcome respite. Hatakeyama sings an incredibly infectous tune which makes the horn blurts feel charming instead of cheesy.

Toward the end of the album, Hatakeyama shakes herself out of her stupor and produces some interesting moments. The lilting meter and low brass accompaniment of “Unknown landscape” make it the most daring track on the album. “Nauseous ’cause I’m too happy” actually benefits from its sparse arrangement.

Unfortunately, Hatakeyama has traded the haunting emotional range of her previous work — including Port of Notes — for something safe. Listeners who love light, unobtrusive jazz may find Wild and Gentle suitable for those late, quiet nights.

Fans familiar with her full potential will find something lacking instead.

Hayashi Asuca is a music publicist’s wet dream.

She’s only 13 years old! She has a mature voice! She’s so good, the rest of Asia hears her debut at the same time as Japan!

But for a music scene that manufactures pop idols as easily as the U.S. can elevate crappy rock bands, it’s no challenge to be skeptical.

In Hayashi’s case, the signal has some leverage against the noise.

Hayashi does indeed possess a voice years beyond her numerical age. In fact, it’s entirely easy to forget an instrument so resonant comes from someone so young. It’s the kind of voice gay men in the States would readily claim for themselves.

(God, help me not to compare Asuca to Cher.)

Thankfully, Hayashi’s handlers recognize such a voice deserves more than the usual chirping beats of standard J-pop.

Saki, Hayashi’s debut album, may not put much of an artistic fight against the likes of UA, ACO or even Utada Hikaru, but it’s a serviceable vehicle to showcase Hayashi’s range in a number of versatile settings.

After Hayashi warms up her soul sister pipes on the opening title track, she unleashes a roar on the single release “‘Haha'”. Strings, folk guitar and congos are her only accompaniment on this song — her voice pretty much drives everything else.

On the string-ladden “Satsuki no Sora”, Hayashi shows off her theatrical, if not operatic, potential. “Tenohira Kurenai Tsubomi” could have well been delivered by a Mississippi mama singing in Carnegie Hall.

Even the more straight-forward tracks take on a deeper hue when powered by Hayashi’s voice. “Chigiregumo” isn’t terribly remarkable, but the mix of acoustic guitars, international beats and keyboard flourishes on “Sasabune” and “Tsuyukusa” make for a nice complement.

Hayashi sounds best when she’s given the opportunity to dramatize. “ake-kaze”, her debut single, alternates between sparseness and exaggeration. “Chiisakimono”, on the other hand, sports a performance to crash down a full house.

It’ll be interesting to see how Hayashi develops as an artist as she grows older. She certainly has the potential to produce some challenging work down the line.

For now, she has an album that does her voice justice while still possessing enough appeal for mainstream audiences.

For her first few recordings, Hajime Chitose stuck almost exclusively to mid-tempo ballads.

That was fine — the slower tempo allowed Hajime to showcase her ability to embellish and to show off her often soaring vocals. It was easy, then, to forgive the homogeneity of her debut album, Hainumikaze, so long as she impressed us with her voice.

But after two mini-albums, many singles and one album of the same kind of stuff, it’s high time for some change — which Nomad Soul offers in small but significant doses.

Sure, the mid-tempo, dub-influenced pop tracks still have sway over her second album, but this time around, Hajime is giving room for some fast songs.

“Neiro Shichishoku”, an up-tempo track with continental Asian influences, finds Hajime keeping up with the quicker pace. “Getsurei 17.4” goes for more of a “Smooth Operator”-era Sade vibe, allowing Hajime to serve up a sultry performance.

Hajime works best, however, when the pace allows her singing to expand. “Kawasemi” bares remarkable resemblance to other songs in her repertoire — “Wadatsumi no Ki”, “Roogyoo no Tsukai” — but it’s the kind of song she was meant to sing.

The singles from Nomad Soul stand out in particular. “Sen no Yoru to Sen no Hiru” strikes a nice balance between a fast tempo and Hajime’s vocal flourishes. “Itsu ka Kaze ni Naru Hi” has just a plain beautiful melody, but it’s “Kono Machi” which strikes the emotional core. It’s one of her most deeply affecting performances to date.

Nomad Soul does have a few bumps. It takes a while before the Yamazaki Masayoshi-produced “Aurora no Sora kara Mitsumete Iru” sinks in. The track is saved by a middle section in which Hajime does her wonderful Bulgarian women’s choir imitation. And while “Getsurei 17.4” is different, it seems abrupt after the wrenching performance of “Kono Machi”.

These moments are few, and such tracks as Matsutoya Yumi’s “Uraga no Oka” do well to cancel them out.

By comparrison, Nomad Soul doesn’t have the emotional weight of Hainumikaze, but it does allow Hajime a chance to present her voice in more versatile settings.

It’s easy to recognize the commercial intent of Mob Squad, the triple-billed album starring Japanese hip-hop groups Dragon Ash, Source and Mach25.

Named after the label to which all three artists are signed, the album is teaser, a showcase of what to expect from releases to come.

It’s a hard sell, plain and simple. And a pretty good one, too.

In fact, Dragon Ash delayed work on an album that would have been released in 2002 to contribute to Mob Squad. Those sessions changed the direction of the band’s own album and resulted into Harvest.

Oddly enough, Mob Squad is the stronger of the two works. Although Dragon Ash is the marquee name on Mob Squad, Source and Mach25 make a convincing argument that Japan’s rap-rock future is in pretty competent hands.

The opening title track harkens back to the insanely catchy hooks and chants of Dragon Ash’s 2001 album Lily of da Valley, and it sets the tone for the rest of the album.

Source’s “Potential” alternates between metal muscle and punk brattiness. “Turn Up” calls to mind Missile Girl Scoot at its party-hardiest.

For the most part, Mach25 relies on the usual sampling and keyboards. “Get Your Tomorrow” and “Beats of Clapping” don’t indulge in Source’s rock grandeur or Dragon Ash’s eclecticism, but they fit in nicely with the rest of the album’s modus operandi.

Since Mob Squad pre-dated the release of Harvest by five months, it was easy to get excited by the creative turn in Dragon Ash’s style. The tracks the band contributed to Mob Squad (“Massy Evolution”, “Revive”) cast its electronica-meets-metal sound in a favorable light. It’s too bad the band couldn’t sustain that excitement for its own album.

All these bands share an affinity for cobbling together disparate genres into the span of three to four minutes. It may be simple to call Mob Squad “rap-metal”, but that would ignore the influence of reggae, punk, electronica, whatever.

(On a less charitable note, Source and Mach25 could be accused of trying to ride on Dragon Ash’s coattails.)

Still, Mob Squad does its job in selling listeners on the label’s core aesthetic. These bands are empirical proof that what passes as “rap-rock” on our side of the Pacific Ocean is far less than what the genre can really accomodate.