It's always nice to hear singer-songwriter Toko Furuuchi（古内東子）. As I've said before, she's about as close to Anita Baker in her Quiet Storm-iness as I've ever heard from a Japanese singer. Of course, I'm also open to any other suggestions from other fans.
And the wonderful thing is that she's celebrating her 30th anniversary in the music business this year with an album that came out earlier in March titled "Hateshinai Koto"（果てしないこと...Something Endless）. One of the tracks is "bare skin" which was composed and written by her, and it does have one foot planted in today but the other foot seems to be back in earlier days when it comes to the arrangement...something very 90s and soulful. "bare skin", about a woman trying to shed her memories of a past romance, begins sounding like straight pop but then almost a minute in, I can hear that cool Furuuchi soul waft in like a refreshing breeze. I can certainly do with a few more singers like her bringing back some of that melodic feeling again after so long.
I like to play her CD "Slow Down" on Sundays..Thanks for your post.
ReplyDeleteAlways a pleasure, Sam.
DeleteFuruuchi performed an English version of this song during her concert at Billboard Live Tokyo last week. I was pleasantly surprised by how the English lyrics (as well as her delivery) made it an even more soulful performance.
ReplyDeletePretty expensive to attend?
Delete