Mari Ueda -- sunrichorange

Happy Monday! Back to the grindstone but allow me to give a bit of added sunshine to the beginning of your week.

I always like it when I encounter a nice song that I had never heard before. A lot of iceberg to still pick through. This time, it's singer-songwriter Mari Ueda's（上田まり）"sunrichorange", and yeah, this is kinda like some naturally fortified OJ for the ears.

"sunrichorange" is a track from Ueda's 2nd album "empty page" which was released in August 1999. The arrangement reminds me of some of the lovely music that Toko Furuuchi（古内東子）came up with during the latter part of that decade. It would be nice if that sunny soul would return for another go-around. Certainly, it's a song that would be perfect to wake up to.

The Osaka-born Ueda was a keyboardist for a band during her university days. Once she graduated, though, she had the aim of going into songwriting full-time when musician Nobuo Eguchi（江口信夫）advised her to sing her own songs. Even Aska of Chage & Aska fame listened to a demo tape and was suitably impressed to the extent that he helped out as a supervisor.

Ueda released 6 singles and 3 albums between 1998 and 2001 but hasn't released anything on CD since then, although she did put out several songs for online distribution in 2007. She has her own website in which it says her profession is currently "mother".