Akaihane

Lately I’ve been assuaging my downloader’s guilt by importing the album releases by some of my favourite Japanese singers and bands. Over the past few months I’ve been focusing my efforts on the back catalogues of Olivia (of the Lufkin variety), the brilliant green and Shakalabbits, but now that I’m starting to make head way with those three, I’ve been looking for the next thing to move onto.

One of the first artists I would like to branch out onto is Rie Fu.

When I first heard ‘Life is a Boat’ as an ED to ‘Bleach’, I wasn’t instantly captured by it. In fact it wasn’t until quite a bit of time later, when trying out the ‘Rose’ album thanks to several friends raving about it, that I actually warmed to her vocals. I don’t for the life of me know why I didn’t like her singing voice at first, but after a play through or two of this album, it clicked and I’ve listen to this album and her other work numerous times over the past year.

Now Rie Fu’s presence hasn’t just risen in my mind. In her current adopted country, the UK, after playing gigs throughout London while studying for her degree in the city, she has been picked up by a British label, and last week her first European album, ‘Who is Rie Fu?’ has been released. As this is her first album aimed at a European market, and to those who have seen her live performances in London and not just fans of JPop, it doesn’t contain original material; it is a mixture of tracks from her three Japanese albums. ‘Both Sides, Now’, a cover of the Joni Mitchell song, is the only track, as far as I’m aware, hasn’t been released before, at least not on an album. But regardless of this, the fact that a Japanese artist has been able to secure a contract outside of the US is an important step in bringing Japanese artists to greater notice outside their homeland. And as Rie Fu is fluent in English (and not Engrish) thanks to her three years growing up in Maryland and the last number of years living in the UK, and has Western artists such as ‘The Carpenters’ as her primary influences, she is one of the Japanese artists likely to have the best chance of success.

But this does leave me in a bit of a conundrum; should I, as I have been doing with other Japanese artists, import her three albums or, to support her attempts to establish herself in the UK market, buy this new release in the hopes of more Japanese artists getting the same shot? Thankfully a lot of the tracks (13 in total, a strong number for an album these days) are my favourites, and the CD is a reasonable amount cheaper than importing one of the Japanese ones. And, once I have a little more spare cash, I guess I can always just go the whole hog and import the other three (or more) in the future.

Track List

1. London
2. Beautiful Words
3. decay (English Version)
4. Life Is Like A Boat
5. Shine
6. I Wanna Go To A Place
7. Negai Goto
8. 5000 miles – Album Version
9. Tiny Tiny Melody
10. ROSE
11. Realize
12. Sunshine Of My Day (Live Version)
13. Both Sides, Now