Yutaka Yokokura -- Another Sun

As promised from my last article on smooth-singing Yutaka Yokokura（横倉裕）for his 1988 album "YUTAKA", I now come with his 1993 effort, "Another Sun".

Like "YUTAKA", I was convinced to invest my yen into "Another Sun" through one of the attractive tracks, "The Look on Your Face", a duet with Yokokura and Gracinha Leporace. The title track that starts the album off is quintessential Smooth Jazz with the main man on vocals, koto and keyboards. It rather straddles between resort and city. All of the tracks were composed by Yokokura with Brock Walsh responsible for the lyrics for "Another Sun".

There's a bit more bossa nova involved in "Another Sun", and one fine example is "Smile For Me", a mellow number that almost had me thinking seriously of getting a hammock and investing in real estate on a beach somewhere. Ivan Lins comes in for some guest vocalese and also had a hand in the music. For that added bossa cachet, "Smile For Me" was also produced by both Yokokura and Sergio Mendes himself. Ina Wolf took care of the words here.

I'm happy to hear that Pauline Wilson is back as well for this track "More Than Ever", which was composed by Yokokura and Rique Pantoja with lyrics by Chris Trulio and Kate Markowitz. Some very nice AOR and Latin percussion by Vinnie Colaiuta and Luis Conte, to boot, along with Ricardo Silveira on electric guitar.

As for my final track, both Wilson and Leporace are back behind the mike along with Yokokura to perform "Solitaire", another producing collaboration between Yutaka and Mendes. This one struck me for its more dance-like rhythms, and maybe out there, there could be a remix or Vaporwave version of the song. It's also quite the number for me since I do play quite a bit of the card game as well. The lyricist was Catte Adams.

With another Hump Day, Yokokura's "Another Sun" makes for another melodic tonic...good to brighten up the day when overcast, and enhance the sunny ones.

"I like mullets, mullets are cool."