Mirage

by

Yoko Yamamoto

”Mirage” is Yoko Yamamoto’s second solo album.

It could be described as emerging from a young woman’s romantic imagination or the result of animist spirits. Various songs on this album depict a woman’s heart in love, which seems to be possessed by the entirety of creation. Yamamoto’s silky-clear voice sings of love from different points of view as if she’s a mischievous, coquettish fairy who can change her form at will or exist as a Miko (Japanese female shaman) - a spiritual medium channeling the supernatural.

A woman’s love soars over the sea like a bird, prowls the land like a tiger, and talks of love as a storyteller of the forest. She runs as freely as the wind, kills herself as a tragic lover, strokes her beloved like a reaper, and takes singing lessons as a ghost. She sheds tears in an earthly form, then wakes up as a fairy.

The stories in this ”Mirage” album are extraordinary and full of beauty.

Still, the producer Shigetoshi Yamada’s fantastical electro sound transforms these surreal narratives into both weird and wonderful love songs. Simultaneously, the entire collection plays like a musical, staging a woman’s rich inner world. This woman in love is serious, humorous, cute, endearing, fragile, scary, sentimental, sexy, passionate, tenacious, philosophical, unfettered, and free.

The way Yamamoto’s airy, light sensitivity captures the subtle, tricky, indefinable quality of women’s hearts in love fascinates us. In another dimension, love spirits are holding a dazzling banquet, blindingly radiant and glitzy, in tune with this ”Mirage” album.

Daisuke Muraoka (Production Staff / Overseas Sales)